A Crossroads for Global Drug Policy?
This book begins from the premise that we are at an interesting juncture for global drug policy. Many theories of policy process propose that policy continues for long periods in a state of relative stasis, before undergoing significant change at key moments. Kingdon (1984), for example, developed a multiple-streams framework which conceptualises the policy process as composed of: problem definitions; a policy âsoupâ of potential ideas and solutions; and political actors and agendas. Usually, these âstreamsâ operate separately from each other, but in occasional and short-lived âwindows of opportunityâ, the defined problems, proposed solutions and political will combine to allow rapid and significant change to occur (Zahariadis 2007). In a similar fashion, Baumgartner and Jones (1993) developed âpunctuated equilibriumâ theory which argues that âpolitical processes are generally characterized by stability and incrementalism , but occasionally they produce large-scale departures from the pastâ (True et al. 2007: 155).
Many researchers working in the drugs field have sought to apply these theories, as well as other models of policy process, to developments in global and national drug policy. Ritter and Bammer (2010), for example, argue that many models of policy process are applicable to the drugs field, and that our deepest understanding will probably come from efforts to combine elements from different models. They provide the example of change in the legal status of cannabis in Western Australia as an effective example of utilisation of a âwindow of opportunityâ. Lenton (2004) further explains how support from the general public for cannabis policy change in Western Australia, and his own timely proposal for cannabis reform, successfully combined with an opposition party review of drug policy to produce an effective change in legislation. Another example is provided by cannabis re-classification in the UK in 2004 when the support of the general public and the police, combined with much publicity for an experiment in cannabis decriminalisation in the London borough of Lambeth and expert evidence from an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report (ACMD 2002), to facilitate the change in classification of cannabis from class B to class C .
The changes described above are national in nature, but multiple-streams or punctuated equilibrium theory could also describe the nature of change in global drug policy debates. The 2010s, thus far, have been marked by âunprecedented momentum for drug policy reformâ (Hetzer 2016: 1) and Fordham and Jelsma (2016: 1), recently suggested that we were at a âcritical juncture, an opportunity for an honest evaluation of global drug policy and how to address the most pressing challenges going forwardâ. A critical junctureââa situation of uncertainty in which decisions of important actors are causally decisive for the selection of one path or institutional development over other possible pathsâ (Capoccia 2016: 1)âcertainly seems to match the criteria for the creation of a policy window or provide the conditions for a punctuation of the status quo. This section explores the evidence that we are currently at a critical juncture for drug policy, tracing a path from long-standing dissatisfaction with dominant drug policy approaches to the recent United Nations General Assembly on global drug policy in 2016 .
The growing appreciation of the failure of a war on drugs or zero tolerance approach to the control of illicit substances has long roots. In 1993, Elliott Currie (1993: 3) commented on the depressing failures of US drug policy: âTwenty years of the âwarâ on drugs have jammed our jails and prisons, immobilized the criminal justice system in many cities, swollen the ranks of the criminalized and unemployable minority poor, and diverted desperately needed resources from other social needs. Yet the drugs crisis is still very much with us. More recent drug policy research indicates that little has changed: for example, Shiner (2003) and Small et al. (2005) link repressive drug policy with burgeoning imprisonment rates; Beyers et al. (2004) associate abstinence-based policies with higher levels of drug use and MacCoun and Reuter (2001: 1) brand the drug problem in the US as âworse than that of any other wealthy nationâ. Finally, a significant body of research has warned of the adverse effect of intolerant drug policy towards people who inject drugs on the levels of HIV and AIDS (Bastos and Strathdee 2000; Maher and Dixon 1999; Moore and Dietze 2005), prompting Wolfe and Malinowska-Sempruch (2004), in an evaluation of the global response to the illegal drug issue, to call for a greater focus on harm reduction and HIV prevention.
In the 2010s these critiques of American and global drug policy have further matured. Obamaâs administration avoided the term war on drugs , embarked on a programme to pardon and shorten the prison sentences of hundreds of federal inmates, and spoke out in favour of treating marijuana as a public health issue (Lopez 2017). Gomis (2016) argues that American drug policy is at a critical juncture brought about by a recent opioid crisis , its efforts to legalise or regulate cannabis in many states, and its system of mass incarceration which is increasingly being viewed as both unfair and unsustainable. Increasingly, however, dissatisfaction with the way illegal substances are being controlled is being expressed on a global basis and against global systems of drug control. Take, for example, the Global Commission on Drugs, which was founded in 2011 and is currently chaired by Ruth Dreifuss, the former President and Minister of Home Affairs of Switzerland. The Commission brings together an influential and wide-reaching panel of world leaders and intellectuals from around the globe, united in their mission to create drug policies based on scientific evidence, human rights, public health and safety .
In 2011 they published their first report (Global Commission on Drug Policy 2011), calling for an end to the âcriminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugsâ and pronouncing the global war on drugs a resounding failure. In 2014, a further report (Global Commission on Drug Policy 2014) proposed five pathways to drug policies that work, including: focusing on public health; ensuring access to controlled medicines; decriminalising the personal use and possession of illicit substances; exploring alternatives to punishment; and promoting longer-term socioeconomic development. These and other efforts have brought global focus onto the failure of a war on drugs approach to control of the illicit drug situation, and have also illuminated the many unintended and harmful consequences of a fiercely law-enforcement orientated global drug policy (for example, human rights abuses, mass-incarceration, increased levels of violence and corruption, environmental harms). Efforts such as these have ensured a mounting pressure to move away from a war on drugs approach to the global drug situation.
At the same time that failings of existing policies are being brought into sharp focus, increasingly imaginative alternatives are being experimented with in the public arena. An obvious example of this is provided by the proliferation of attempts to decriminalise, regulate or legalise cannabis, and sometimes other substances, around the globe. Europe has long played host to tolerant cannabis policies with the well-established Dutch coffeeshop system, as well as more ad hoc situations such as the sporadic free cannabis market that sprang up in Copenhagenâs free city of Christiaina, or the UKâs experiment in 2001 with de facto cannabis decriminalisation in the London borough of Lambeth. In 2001, Portugal took European drug policy tolerance to new limits with a piece of drugs legislation rooted in the effort to primarily reduce drug related harm such as death and disease, rather than reducing the number of drug users per se .
It is more recently adopted systems, however, which have really pushed the boundaries of existing global drug legislation. In November 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington supported a proposal to fully regulate the cannabis market within respective state borders. Now relatively well-established, both markets are firmly organised around a commercial system designed to bring profit to the government and benefit to wider societyâfor example, in Colorado a significant proportion of cannabis taxes are fed directly into the stateâs education and school-building funds. Meanwhile in Uruguay in 2013, a decision was taken by the then President, Jose Mujica, and without wide-spread public support, to fully legalise and regulate the Uruguayan cannabis market. Progress since then has been relatively slow with home cultivation and cannabis grower clubs being legalised in 2014, but state licensed pharmacies only beginning to sell cannabis in 2017, and then only on a very localised scale. In contrast to the commercialised markets created in Colorado and Washington, Uruguayan cannabis regulation has been described as more paternalistic in nature with prices kept to a minimal level and users being required to register as such with the national government (Room 2013) .
Room (2013) describes these American and Uruguayan changes as in direct contradiction of the terms of the international drug conventions which govern global drug policy, and argues that we must thus seek to review the specifics of global drug legislation to ensure it remains an accurate reflection of policy that is implemented across the globe. This issue grows more pressing as new areas have either introduced their own systems of cannabis regulation, or announced their plans to do so in the near future. In the US, for example: Washington DC announced its intentions to create a regulated cannabis market in 2014; followed in 2015 by Oregon and Alaska; in 2016 by California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada; and most recently (at the time of writing), in 2018, Vermont. Elsewhere, Canada, Jamaica, Israel and Norway have all recently announced plans to regulate or decriminalise their cannabis markets, and Guatemala, Mexico, Italy and Morocco are all considered likely to shortly announce plans of their own (TNI 2016).
A further factor contributing to the development of alternative strategies of global drug policy is the increased profile of Latin American leaders and institutional organisations in the debate. In 2013, the Organisation of the American States (OAS) produced an influential reportââScenarios for the drug problem in the Americas 2013â2025â (Organisation of American States 2013)âwhich sought to lay out a series of narratives about what could happen in the future in terms of alternative styles of drug policy, working forwards from different conceptual starting points. This report represents the first time an international institution has critically analysed the war on drugs and officially outlined potential new approaches. It implies the need to put ...