The Drug Problem: part 2
Legalising drugs also involves consideration of a number of wider policy implications, some of which affect the world at large. Drugs policy has an enormous influence on the shape and structure of the world we live in. There is a real issue as to whether that structure is the right one.
I will start with the example of Afghanistan. There are probably not many Westerners who have stayed on Poppy farms in Afghanistan this century. I happen to be one. These are people who are happy for a payment to provide you with an evening meal and a building to shelter in for the night. They are not fabulously wealthy drug barons. They are farmers who will grow whatever crops there is a market for, even for a slightly difficult market. Before travelling I had received supposedly reliable intelligence that the poppies had been harvested. The American military had been threatening to firebomb the poppy fields where I was travelling. Quite apart from the risk of being caught up in a firebomb attack, the risks of travelling as a Westerner in the wilds of Afghanistan were obviously going to be considerably greater if you are proceeding in the aftermath of such an attack.
The war in Afghanistan is said to be part of the "war on terror". Ludicrously the then Defence Secretary John Reed said when British troops first went out that he hoped they would never have to fire a shot in anger. The reality is that troops in Afghanistan are likely to be bogged down for a long, long time, in a conflict that it will be next to impossible to win. What is the purpose of the war? If the aim is to deal with the Taliban and terrorists then it is difficult to see how that is consistent with the full-scale assault on the production of drugs from Afghan crops. Farmers want to be able to grow that which they can sell and are likely therefore to favour those who indicate that they can get on with that activity. Intermingling the war on drugs with the war on terror is completely counter-productive. All it does is ensure that terrorists have a ready means of persuading locals that it is in their best interests to support them.
If drugs were legalised then not only would control of the UK market be removed from organised crime, but the supply of the drug could be sourced by legitimate outlets. The ordinary Afghan farmer would still be able to sell his crop. He is in any event not the person who is making vast quantities of money from illegal drugs supply. Immediately the entire dynamic of Western intervention in Afghanistan would change. My view is that the only effective intervention will be through support of local forces, supplemented as and when necessary by Western troops. However it is no part of this article to advocate military solutions. Either way sorting out the position on drugs would be likely to have an enormously beneficial effect on Western policy in this area and would mean that the West would no longer be viewed as seeking to deprive locals of their cash crops. That can only be helpful. That is the case whatever your stance is on Western military intervention.
Not only does drugs policy have a harmful effect on society here, but that harmful effect spreads and completely destabilises drug producing countries. There is therefore not only a public interest in legalising drugs in this country because of the effect on society here, but the same point applies abroad. We shall consider next week the impact on Colombia.