It is bad enough that the United States government year after year spends enormous sums and violates rights in abandon to continue fighting in America its war on drugs — a war it has been losing and will continue to lose. Unfortunately, the US government keeps pursuing its war on drugs abroad as well.
A new report out this month from the Drug Policy Alliance and Harm Reduction International relates that since 2015 the US government has allocated almost 13 billion dollars to “counternarcotics activities” internationally. That is on average over a billion dollars a year.
The Report titled “A World of Harm” also provides details about how this spending has resulted in many negative outcomes in regard to the liberty and health of people around the world while financially benefiting connected companies. Bad results of US drug war spending abroad is highlighted in the report through discussion focused on US counternarcotics activities in the Philippines, Colombia, and Mexico.
In response to the trouble caused by these activities, the report calls for the US government to replace its “punitive drug responses around the world” with “evidence-based and health- and human rights-centered harm reduction initiatives that align with global development and other commitments.” This approach may yield improvement. But, the best course for liberty, health, and peace would be for the US to go cold turkey on its drug war abroad.
The war on drugs was sold to the American people as a benevolent endeavor to protect against harms from drugs. In reality, the war on drugs has instead meted out great harm of its own as harm related to drug use continues. Why put faith in the US government, whose destructive and corrupt bent is well established, to achieve beneficial results with an adjusted approach to countering harm from drugs? It is best to just end the US government’s war on drugs, in America and abroad.
The US government specializes in a foreign policy of false pretenses. Its National Endowment for Democracy fosters overthrowing elected governments. Its State Department that in the past was expected to engage in diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions and keep the peace now instead jockeys incessantly for war around the world. Many of the people who support tasking the US with reducing the harms associated with drugs abroad in a new way that they expect will actually help people would be horrified with the twisted way such an effort would end up operating. To best help, the US government should butt out.
