What is the purpose of prohibitionism as drug policy? Why are drugs such as
alcohol and tobacco, which are as or even more harmful than cannabis and
cocaine, legal? These are some of the issues that have guided the discussions of
the Brazilian Committee on Drugs and Democracy (CBDD in Portuguese).

Similarly to the 1920s alcohol prohibition in the United States, we see today
that the penal prohibition of cannabis (the most commonly used drug in the
world) has only been harmful. If the goal of the so-called “war on drugs” is to
protect our youth, it has been proven a fallacy; our youth have been precisely
its greatest victims.

It should not be overlooked that curiously both prohibitionists and
anti-prohibitionists are concerned with how the use and abuse of psychoactive
substances inflict harm on individuals and society in general. The difference
lies in their methods. Prohibitionist policies continue to regard drug use as a
crime with the well-known ensuing disastrous results, in other words: families
torn apart, not by drug use per se, but by having it made clandestine, enveloped
in secrecy. Not to speak of the hundreds of deaths caused by militarized
?combat? against the drug trade.

The fact is that the use of drugs by young people is a matter of public health,
far too important to be left in the hands of the penal system and law
enforcement. In fact, tobacco and alcohol are examples of this. Educational
campaigns on TV and restrictions to smoking areas have managed to reduce tobacco
use especially among young people. The same is true of alcohol. There are
considerable restrictions in place. It is forbidden to sell alcohol to youth
under 18 years of age. The so-called “Dry Law,” or Lei Seca in Portuguese,
outlaws drinking and driving and while it is somewhat draconian, it has reduced
alcohol consumption among drivers.

The CBDD (a grantee of the Open Society Foundations) opposes a criminal approach
to the drug issue. Casual drug users must be distinguished from problematic
users. The latter should be referred to treatment?if they wish or agree?not to a
police station or to forced commitment, a euphemism for jail. The fact that drug
use in Brazil is still a crime is a complicating factor in developing programs
of this nature. It creates stigma and it is the reason why the Committee
supports the decriminalization of drug use, especially cannabis.

A curious fact: after the fiasco of the alcohol prohibition in the United States
(which caused an explosion of illegal trade, a proliferation of gangsters,
police and government corruption, the growth of organized crime structures at
national level, and violence on the streets) Americans decided to legalize the
consumption, production, sale, circulation, and import and export of alcohol,
under government control, feeding billions of dollars into to the national treasury.

Even today, the United States has much stricter alcohol control than, for
example, Brazil. Strangely enough, what we find today is that peripheral
countries, nations seen as drug producers or providing drug routes to Europe and
the United States (the largest consumers in the world), follow prohibitionist
policies that Americans abandoned. Thus the CBDD supports the proposal to
regulate the production, distribution and sale of cannabis, along the same lines
of the alcohol control model applied in the United States.

The Committee hasn’t been conclusive on the regulation of other drugs considered
more hazardous to health. However, it concluded that the current policy that
criminalizes users must be rethought. The use of psychoactive drugs is a matter
that must be addressed in the realms of health and education; it should never be
a matter for the penal system.

That is why the National Campaign for a Change in Drug Policies, promoted by
Viva Rio in partnership with the CBDD, has been very timely. The Campaign will
be launched nationwide by the end of July with the support of Avaaz, among other
important organizations. The goal of the campaign is to promote that change in
drug laws we so urgently need to make them more equitable and effective. Brazil
is ready for this step, and Brazil and the world need this change.

Open Society Foundations, 04.06.2012

http://www.soros.org/voices/psychoactive-drugs-matter-public-health