Ann Fordham on Friedman et al.'s “Has United States’ Drug Policy Failed? And How Could We Know?”

Abstract

The conclusions drawn by Friedman, Mateu-Gelabert, and Rossi [Substance Use & Misuse, 47(13–14), this issue] that analysts of drug policy should challenge assumptions regarding the stated goals of such policies, and acknowledge the competing interests and underlying motives that shape policy development in this field are well received. Recognizing that there are multiple underlying goals of drug policies that have little to do with their stated objectives may help us to better understand why these policies are so difficult to change. At the international level there has been almost universal adherence to a strongly punitive, prohibition-based approach (of which the United States has been the lead proponent), founded upon zerotolerance ideology about the production, trade, and use of drugs. The stated goal of prohibition-based policies is to reduce the scale of, and eventually eliminate, drug markets by stopping the supply and use of drugs. However, after over a century of prohibition-based drug control policies, there has been minimal change in the overall scale of the global drug market. But the costs borne by individuals and societies for such policies have been profound. We are now well versed in the multiple negative consequences that the pursuit of prohibition-based strategies have led to: an HIV epidemic among people who inject drugs, destruction of the livelihoods of subsistence farmers dependent on drug crops, over-incarceration, drug market violence, and powerful organized criminal groups. This is not an exhaustive list. The evidence points unequivocally toward the failure of these policies to eradicate or reduce the scale of the drug market—the primary stated aim—and yet these policies have endured. It is indeed important to inquire into the motives of the actors and groups that benefit from the continuation of drug policies that harm others. Research elsewhere has already helped to shed light on the underlying agendas that belie stated goals, notably in the development of the “drugs as a threat” narrative as part of international and national drug policies. It is clear that drugs have been framed