Global ‘war on drugs’ failing, according to damning report
Despite globally spending over $155 billion on stopping the illegal drug trade, a damning report says organised crime groups are running rampant and the “war on the drugs” is failing. Now experts have a radical idea to fix the problem.
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Drug users are increasingly sourcing their products online, with organised crime groups adapting to the dark net and cryptocurrency to boost their stranglehold on supply.
And mafia-style groups are continuing to diversify operations through multiple crime types, meaning a bigger picture response by government and law enforcement is required to break their hold.
The 10th report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes former world leaders from the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific, says a “war on drugs” has failed and a steady move towards supply regulation was needed.
More than $155 billion is spent on drug crime law enforcement every year, which the report says has perversely “fed and empowered transnational organised crime”.
“This is the reality of the world we live in, where a market with a steady demand is left in the hands of criminal interests,” it says.
But it warns that while a new co-ordinated international approach to the scourge of drug harm was required, any regulation such as is occurring in some US states and countries across the world needed to be set up to resist corruption by organised crime groups.
“Patterns of drug markets, and the structure and behaviour of criminal groups are in a state of transformation, with the emergence of online marketplaces, shifts in the routes and diversity of drug trafficking, and an increasing tendency for organised crime groups to operate in multiple illegal markets,” the report says.
Crime groups have adapted quickly to online supply to spread into new markets, including using Bitcoin and other online currencies to pay for drugs.
“Drugs consistently account for the majority of listings on dark net markets, far outstripping other forms of illegal trade,” the report says.
“Users report being attracted to using online markets due to a perceived increase in safety, quality of product, and ease and speed of delivery.”
Former Western Australia premier Geoff Gallop, who was appointed to the commission last year, said a new approach was needed because drug use could not be stamped out.
“Drug use has always been a part of our society, you are putting a whole area of the economy in the hands of criminal organisations who supply those drugs,” he said.
Mr Gallop said the criminalisation of drug use was “extremely problematic” and that an incremental shift to regulation and a health response would change the ongoing crisis.
The report by the commission says rather than focusing on the users’ end of the issue, money laundering and other illegal activities of crime groups should be tackled with renewed focus.
It says “the evidence basis from regulated cannabis markets is constantly growing” because this could reduce one part of the market for high-level crime syndicates, but government needed to stop associated “grey markets” set up alongside legal markets.
“The resilience of transnational organised crime and its hostility towards seeing its available workforce transit to legal markets are not to be underestimated,” the report says.
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