Several decades of aggressive law-enforcement against narcotic drugs, military operations in Afghanistan, Colombia, Peru and elsewhere have failed to stem the flow.
Where the UN drug authorities have claimed a ‘success story’, ie Big reductions in opium cultivation in Burma and Laos upon closer inspection it turns out to be a misleading claim. In Laos opium has been replaced in many places by a far worse drug known as ‘ya ba’ [Amphetamines]. In the junta-ruled Burma [Myanmar] much is made of the drastic opium reduction in the northern Wa state but again there has been no cutbacks in ‘ya ba’ pills that are manufactured in batches of a million at a time flooding SE Asia and beyond.
The failure of orthodox drug enforcement strategies in so many countries has not worked. In the US zero tolerance has filled the jails but the drug mafias continue to prosper. In Thailand under former PM Thaksin Shinawatra his declaration of police quotas led to a shoot the suspects policy with corpses piling up and few questions asked. The long history of failure of all-out narcotics repression has sadly not led to any substantial debate over policy and strategy.
TNI-[The Transnational Institute ] that closely monitors narcotics agencies commented on the UNODC 2006 report: ‘The report suffers from the tension between UNODC policy makers who want a strict control regime maintained – and who are under huge US funding pressure – and the experts willing to open an honest debate about the effectiveness of outdated aspects of the current policy framework’
Other UN agencies have regular evaluations of their operations but the UNODC-[formerly the UNDCP it is now called the UN Office for Drugs and Crime] never seems to feel the need for any debate over its effectiveness and seldom responds to any criticism. The same applies to its sister agency the INCB –International Narcotics Control Board-both based in Vienna. TNI and other critics argue that these two UN agencies are too much obsessed with a US agenda ‘ the war on drugs’ too the detriments of other issues. The eradication of narcotic crops also affects economic livelihood, the use of coca plant and opium as proven medicinal treatments and other development issues.
It is fairly obvious that the global drugs problem is a complex subject involving health problems, need for treatment of drug addicts, impact on communities and society, and the need for a sustainable solutions. The knee-jerk response of politicians to round up a few suspected traffickers and shoot them as with Thaksin’s ‘ war on drugs’ in Thailand, only leads to a lot of corpses and highly-publicised body-counts. When the police are encouraged to shoot on sight, this is a breakdown in the rule of law and the promotion of a police state, where the citizens live in daily fear of trigger-happy cops.
That the UNODC never criticised former PM Thaksin’s bloody war on drugs, prompted another UN agency UN Human Rights in Geneva to prod their sister agency –UNODC in Bangkok, to distance themselves from the killings on the street. UNODC, predominantly staffed by law-enforcement experts and those committed to drug repression, often fails to frame its policies in harmony with respect for human rights of poor farmers, and environmental issues that have arisen with the chemical spraying of narcotic crops.
People with a more rounded background in public health, sociology, anthropology, community development are seldom found within their ranks.
Tom Fawthrop
Journalist/Independent producer
Eureka Films, Thailand
law-enforcement against narcotic drugs, military operations in Afghanistan, Colombia, Peru and elsewhere have failed to stem the flow.
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