'Reform is inevitable'

Marina Lemle also contributed

INTERVIEW / Ethan Nadelmann

Drug policy reform will be slow, possibly messy, but, certainly, in the words of Ethan Nadelmann, head of the Drug Policy Alliance a strong voice against the war on drugs in the United States: “it is inevitable.”

Nadelman, who came to Rio de Janeiro for the launch of a study that points to the role of drug sentencing in overpopulating Brazilian jails, points out that that prohibition is more harmful for the population that drug use itself. He describes the beginnings of a turn around; in his own country two governors stated they are open to debate the subject and a senator introduced a bill to evaluate how drug policy affects the US prison population. In Europe harm reduction is becoming a familiar term.

Nadelman believes that as soon as the press informs the public of what decriminalization and legalization mean, attitudes will change. “The fact that drug consumption continues to rise is itself proof that prohibition failed. The population must get used to the fact that what we need are controls,” he said. Through legalization Nadelman believes, illicit drugs will be taken out of the black market, drug traffickers will lose their grip on vast fortunes, and addicts will find themselves less attracted to what is no longer a rebellious lifestyle. Along with growing illicit drug use, Nadelman points out, the proliferation of psychoactive drugs, mostly pharmaceutical drugs, is a given. It is time the issue is confronted squarely. The full interview below:

Should all drugs be legalized or just a few? Do you recommend a gradual process of legalization?

Well, there is no alternative to the incremental process. In the US, when we repealed alcohol prohibition, and there is no comparable experience, it was quite dramatic.

I would say legalize some drugs. I do not recommend that all drugs be treated like alcohol or cigarettes. It is possible to make some drugs that are now illegal legally available, but with much tighter restrictions. Addicts would get them exclusively through clinics. There are ways to reduce the black market and transfer it from illegal to legal drugs. But I am not recommending that crack, cocaine and all drugs be sold like alcohol or cigarettes.

Won't decriminalization lead to an increase in drug usage?

I don’t think so, because decriminalization is essentially about ending criminal penalties for simple use and possession. As to making it legally available, I think there is a risk of increasing number of people using drugs. But it’s important to understand that legalization would result in more people using drugs, but fewer people being harmed from them.

What can you expect from decriminalization?

For example, if I had to choose between a society in which 1 million people were addicted to illegal heroin buying their drugs in the black market, supporting a criminal enterprise, getting HIV and Hepatitis C because of dirty needles, overdosing, stealing to support their habits… Or, alternatively, a world in which 2 million or even 3 million people were using heroin, but they were getting it from a clean-needle source, in which they weren’t dying of HIV/AIDS or spreading the HIV virus or Hepatitis C, people who were not likely to overdose. That would mean they would know the drugs they were getting, would not be paying black market prices, would not be supporting criminals… In conclusion, having more legal drug users could be less harmful than having fewer illegal drug users.

How would decriminalization affect young drug users?

Young people already have very easy access to drugs like marijuana. I do not think we would see an increase the use of marijuana among young people. It may increase the use among older people, but not among younger people.

Drug use in Portugal has fallen since 2001, and it has been suggested that it is due to decriminalization and strong preventive policies. Do you think it is a solution? Why?

Yes, Portugal is a very good model. And it is good, because for many years, we mostly talked about the Netherlands and Switzerland as models. And it’s good to see that Portugal has really shown some leadership in the decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs, in a public health approach.

How do you see the decline in drug use in Portugal?

When people point out that drug use and misuse has actually declined in Portugal it reminds me of what happened in the Netherlands. The Dutch pointed out that, when they decriminalized marijuana, they succeeded in making cannabis boring. It stopped being exciting. Similarly, if we look at Switzerland, for example, where many addicts go to clinics and obtain their heroin legally, what we see is that the black market heroin loses its dynamism; it is no longer the drug of rebels. If you can go to a clinic to get it, why are you doing it in the streets? There’s something about decriminalization… while it reduces the penalties and sometimes makes drugs easier to obtain, it also reduces the excitement of the drug market, of the illegality – it reduces the “forbidden fruit” allure of the drug.

Legalization would mean improved drug quality, what would happen to addicts?

Drug quality would increase, true. Many heroin addicts, when they finally have the opportunity to obtain their heroin legally - as in Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Canada -, they find it is the first time they look in the mirror and say: “Why am I doing this?”. And many of them realize that what they were addicted to was not so much the heroin but the lifestyle of being an illegal junkie; that gave them a reason to get out of bed in the morning, gave them a purpose in life… And now they can get their heroin for free or for a few dollars from a legal source, they ask themselves: “what was I thinking? Why was I doing this?”

And the same is true of marijuana?

Well, marijuana is a little different, because marijuana is…

Less forbidden?

Yes and most people don’t build their lifestyle around marijuana. For many marijuana is more like alcohol, it is used for relaxation, used occasionally. There are addicts, just as with alcohol. But even addictions to marijuana, although they can be serious, do not lead to death, nor are they associated with violence. It is not a good thing to be addicted, but marijuana is one of the least dangerous drugs one can be addicted to.

Do you recommend the legalization of drug sales? What's the point of decriminalizing drug use but not drug sales? 

It would be nice to go directly from prohibition to legal regulation, but the political process does not allow for it. It will inevitably be an incremental process, a process that is full of contradictions. In some respects the evolution of drug policy reform requires that we first decriminalize and legalize personal possession, which creates a conflict with the bigger criminal prohibition on sale. You need to create a tension in order to move forward politically. So there’s no alternative but to go through this awkward phase where possession is decriminalized, whereas the sale continues to be criminalized.

What would sales look like after legalization?

Drugs must be regulated. We need sensible, pragmatic regulation. We need to tax and control drugs that are now illegal, most of them, to restrict their availability and issue sales licenses. People should still be allowed to grow a small amount of marijuana for their own use, just as it is legal for people to have alcoholic beverages at home.

And that includes taxes?

And taxes, exactly. A few weeks ago, in Oakland, CA, the public voted in favor of a referendum to impose taxes on medical marijuana. The referendum was introduced by the people who sell medical marijuana, it’s a very rare example of people fighting for the right to pay taxes. Who fights for the right to pay taxes? But they wanted to, because it was an element for legitimizing themselves…

Is the legalization movement of one mind?

Well, I wish it were all about science and rational discussion, unfortunately, like with any political evolution, it is complicated: you take 3 steps forwards and 2 steps back… Like with any movement for freedom and justice, as it grows, people will fight amongst themselves, it's human nature. The discussion that happened today, on whether there should be a march pro marijuana, if there should be public protest – or whether we should use word legalize, or not, or just decriminalize, there will always be room for debate… And then the topic will have to move through the political process with all the compromises entailed in the legislative process. So the process of reform will be slow, it will be messy, but I believe it is inevitable.

If it is inevitable, how long do you expect it to take?

It’s impossible to say. If you went back in time to 1800 and asked the question “when will slavery be abolished?” you’d get various responses. And, in fact, in some countries it took a few years, in others it took three or four generations. So, we don’t know. One thing we know is inevitable: the proliferation of psychoactive drugs, mostly pharmaceutical drugs.

Could you comment on the proliferation of psychoactive pharmaceutical drugs?

More and more drug use and drug misuse will take place with pharmaceutical drugs. This is true for legally prescribed drugs and also with drugs that are illegally diverted by patients and pharmacists. But that’s the future.  Now we have no alternative but to figure out how to live with that, how to reduce harm. And that’s a problem in which criminal laws are particularly poorly suited for dealing with it. We will have no alternative but to rely to a much greater extent on sensible regulation, on better education of consumers – that approach. And I think that that approach will openly sweep along the issue of how we deal with heroin and marijuana and cocaine and other drugs.

How would legalization help lower violence in cities affected by drug traffickers?

Well, in a very big way, because users would be able to obtain their drugs from legal clinics, pharmacies or stores. People will not go to a favela to buy their drugs illegally, they will not hire others to do their business for them, that whole business will disappear over time.

So you recommend legalization for Brazil?

Yes, to move towards it. It has to do with finding a growing number of ways to allow people who want to use drugs – or who are addicted to drugs and cannot stop – to obtain their drugs from legal sources. That doesn’t mean you should sell it like alcohol or cigarettes, but it means we need to be creative in competing with the black market and to undermine the black market by allowing legal access to these drugs.

And what to do with drug traffickers?

Well, people were concerned in the early 1930s, when the debate in alcohol prohibition was happening about what would happen to all the alcohol traffickers, the Al Capones and all... And you know what happened? On the whole three things happened:

Many people who made alcohol illegally, (some made it in their own backyards) just ceased their activities when it became legal, and did not migrate to other types of crime.

There were others who saw opportunities around the illegal substance. When alcohol became legal some of them tried to get involved in other crimes, but nothing was as lucrative and as easy as alcohol, as drug dealing. So many of them just lost interest and got out…

And then you have people who are committed criminals. When alcohol became legal, they tried to become involved in distribution of legal alcohol… They would extort money from bartenders and distributors… So I imagine some of the ‘narcotraficantes’ will try to do that. They will try to stay involved in the legal business, or maybe they will go into other crimes, which they are already doing anyway…

But I think there’s nothing that provides so much illegal money, that has such a dynamic black market industry, nothing that is so easy to access than the illegal drug market. So once the illegal drug market vanishes, because drugs are legal, that would involve a loss of billions of dollars in Brazil, tens of billions of dollars in the US, and hundreds of billions of dollars around the world. That will no longer be fueling a black market.

What are the chances of legalization now in the US?

Marijuana legalization is now becoming a real possibility. Gov. Schwarzenegger in California and Gov Paterson in New York have both said we need a debate. In the US Senate, Virginia’s James Webb, has introduced a legislative bill to create a commission to look at the problem of over incarceration and the drug war in America. When asked about legalization he said that “all options must be on the table”. So the US is at the beginnings now of a very serious and much more mainstream debate about legalizing marijuana. As for other drugs, debates will be mostly about setting up heroin clinics and finding other ways to allow very restricted access to these drugs.

If drug use is growing in Latin America, how can we convince society to legalize or at least decriminalize consumption?

If drug consumption is increasing, it’s additional proof that prohibition is failing.The public needs to understand that there are two drug problems: the problem of drug misuse, and the problems of prohibition. When the media start defining prohibition and criminalization as part of the problem, that’s when the public understanding will take a leap forward. And that’s when the public will realize that drug use may vary, but what’s most important is to manage it as effectively as possible so as to reduce the problems of drugs, and to reduce the problems of our drug policies.

So the public must understand how law and policies work?

As I said, for most people who use marijuana, the greatest threat to their lives and health comes not from marijuana use, but from the marijuana laws. And the same is true for cocaine, a much more dangerous drug, but harm caused by illegality is even greater than harm brought about by using these drugs.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if cocaine were made legal, many people would consume it in different forms… Coca tea contains cocaine, but it’s not a problem. Coca cola used to contain cocaine but it was not a problem. There used to be a Bordeaux wine called Vin Mariani in France that had a cocaine infusion. It was not a problem. So if cocaine were made legal, it’s possible that, in some places people would drink coca tea, or chew coca chewing gum in the afternoon, you know… And maybe it would compete with the espresso… It’s not as if everyone would go out and start smoking cocaine, or snorting or injecting it, because most people don’t want to inject drugs, most people don’t want to smoke crack cocaine, whether it’s legal or illegal. Most people prefer to consume drugs in ways that are least destructive to their lives.

Read further:

Too many in jail for drugs offenses in Brazil

Setting sights on future of drug policy

UN and civil society agree: drug users are not criminals

In other websites:

Drug Policy Alliance Network