Although there appears to be some rhetorical shift on prohibition of drugs
(within the UN for example - see the Channel 4 UK TV documentary from last
September 'Our drugs war') it remains almost unheard of to find a senior
politician or administration prepared to embrace the idea of
decriminalisation as policy.  Interestingly, in addition to the senior
Brazilian policemen that David mentions, the vast majority of drug
traffickers are also in favour of prohibition as it keeps the price of their
product artificially high. Misha Glenny in his book McMafia (2008) and
accompanying BBC world service documentaries, for example, has some nice
quotes from a Canadian cannabis trafficker outlining his and his colleagues
support for the US war on drugs. 

Also, and at the risk of blatant self promotion, there is a little towards
the end of my article on the geographies of organised crime (in Geography vol
95, part 1, 2010) on thinking about the problems of regions like Northern
Mexico in more networked terms tracing their links to spatially distance
places such as urban Europe and North America and how this might reshape
policy.  More an afterthought than anything else but.....

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Murakami Wood
Sent: 05 July 2011 19:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Drug de-criminalization in Portugal a 'success'

Of course it makes sense. 

From my own interviews, I can tell you for certain that many senior police in
Rio de Janeiro think that decriminalisation on a global scale is essential to
ending the violence and gang dominance in the favelas. They won't tell me
this on the record or speak out in public about it, though. It is still
considered unacceptable in a society still infused with a quite conservative
Catholic morality (although you would have though that the Portuguese example
might at least have influenced this thinking, Brazil being another lusophone
nation) and of course, one involved in the US war on drugs through its SIVAM
'environmental' surveillance system (even though the main reason why the
cocaine trade and the attendant increase in gang power and violence in Brazil
was at least partly the result of trafficking routes switching because of
earlier US intervention in Columbia and elsewhere). 

David. 

On 2011-07-05, at 2:24 PM, Jonathan Cloke wrote:

> Now here's an interesting proposition (see below) - this is obviously a
press report and therefore to be taken with a pinch of salt, however it does
kind of add to the canon of spatialities of social vulnerability. For
instance: 
> 
> 1) To what extent is drug-related socio-political disintegration in Mexico
related to social/community disintegration in Europe and to what extent are
both interconnected through the 'War on Drugs'? 
> 
> 2) Since the 'War on Drugs' is overtly a form of biopower a la Foucault, is
the degree of power it allows over a population a consequence of the harm it
causes (judicial/police structures, rates of incarceration, marginalization
because of drug-related criminal records, etc.)? In Mexico, the US and Europe
alike therefore are we seeing a biopolitics of harm, rather than a
biopolitics of harm reduction?
> 
> 3) There are a number of interesting pieces on 'Opium Empires' (can't
remember the authors here but will look them up on request) of which the
British Empire was a substantial one (can also be seen as a Slavery Empire).
When a 'great' power either monopolises OR prohibits a trade, it is using
that trade as biopower, so that for instance even after Britain gave up the
slave trade it used its navy to police the ships of other countries, thereby
expanding hegemony through a spurious moral supremacy. Are the 'anti-drug'
activities of the UN and in particular the frankly stupid ranting of the head
of UNODC, Antonio Mario Costa, little more than the subversion of the moral
structures of a supranational institution in support of hegemonic biopower?
> 
> 4) Given the arrogation of the right to intervene anywhere on the planet in
pursuit of the 'War on Drugs' in the name of domestic security and the proven
damage this does to the intervened country at the same time that domestic
anti-drug policy worsens social well-being in the host country, does this
constitute a domopolitics of harm?  
> 
> 
> Portugal drug law show results ten years on, experts say
> (AFP) - 3 days ago
> LISBON - Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal's decision 10
years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing
them is an experiment that has worked.
> "There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in
Portugal," said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs
Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.
> The number of addicts considered "problematic" -- those who repeatedly use
"hard" drugs and intravenous users -- had fallen by half since the early
1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.
> Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor
added.
> "This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a
confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies."
> Portugal's holistic approach had also led to a "spectacular" reduction in
the number of infections among intravenous users and a significant drop in
drug-related crimes, he added.
> A law that became active on July 1, 2001 did not legalise drug use, but
forced users caught with banned substances to appear in front of special
addiction panels rather than in a criminal court.
> The panels composed of psychologists, judges and social workers recommended
action based on the specifics of each case.
> Since then, government panels have recommended a response based largely on
whether the individual is an occasional drug user or an addict.
> Of the nearly 40,000 people currently being treated, "the vast majority of
problematic users are today supported by a system that does not treat them as
delinquents but as sick people," Goulao said.
> In a report published last week, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said Portugal had dealt with this issue "in a
pragmatic and innovative way."
> Drug use statistics in Portugal are generally "below the European average
and much lower than its only European neighbour, Spain," the report also
said.
> 
> "The changes that were made in Portugal provide an interesting
before-and-after study on the possible effects of decriminalisation," EMCDDA
said.
> Copyright (c) 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More >
> 
> Dr Jon Cloke
> Lecturer/Research Associate
> Geography Department
> Loughborough University
> Loughborough LE11 3TU
> 
> Office: 01509 228193
> Mob: 07984 813681

David Murakami Wood
Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Surveillance Studies, Surveillance Studies
Centre,
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology,
Cross-appointed in Department of Geography,
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.

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