Lost war on drugs

Drug abuse, misuse, addiction, or whatever you might consider more politically correct, have been around since time immemorial. The psychological, physical, social, and political concerns are many, as are the consequences to the many people who make use of them.

The war on drugs declared ages ago is lost, in spite of the resources deployed. Beating the network of illegality amounting to a turnover of billions of liri has proved rather impossible. It simply didn't work and if anything, drug abuse continued to rise unabated.

So what war against drugs is this? Aren't we realising that the way we fought has only made the cartels stronger and richer? Can politicians be so naïve and not realise that charities and governments constantly beg for money to run stripped and skeleton services? On the other hand, those who traffic drugs get richer by the hour.

One only needs to look around and see the continuously decreasing age of onset, the amount of syringes distributed by health centres, the constantly increasing number of people going to the Detox centre, the syringes you find in the public garden across the street from your house, the constantly increasing drug related crime, the admittedly drug infested prisons, and so on. This does not include the extensive use of cocaine, marijuana, and Ecstasy, for which people often don't register as drug addicts and about whom we know very little.

It is very easy to blame the police, the government, the pushers, or a failed educational system which is not teaching our children how to live. My belief is that it's a whole farce of ill-directed efforts based on the belief that the law is the way to fight drugs. It is not and experience is supposed to have taught us this. We don't seem to have learnt.

It is very hard to abandon the idea that we are so familiar with. Yet various forces indicate that free drug distribution to registered drug addicts is actually more beneficial in the end.

The main reason is that the drugs bought on the street are dirty and dangerous. They are cut and re-cut by dealers and junkies alike to increase the resale weight, and therefore their profit margin - all this is to the detriment of the consumer's health.

All of us know how many infectious diseases are associated with drug use. The burden on the health services cannot be underestimated. I am always interested to know how much the government spends on treating these conditions and related ones. Giving free methadone to registered addicts is not the same.

Most of those who take methadone as a harm reduction strategy simply go out of the hospital's door and buy more drugs to supplement the dose. Yes, just right out of the hospital door pushers and junkies alike sell drugs.

Drug addicts, users, and abusers often resort to stealing to support their habit. First they steal their families' wealth and when that dries up they move on to petty theft, robberies and armed robberies, at times even aggravated by violence.

The costs involved here are high and include police efforts at investigating, court proceedings, victim support services, insurances, and a prison service which we know is full of drug addicts who are there on drug-related crime. Drug addicts who have children are also unable to provide enough care for them and often they are either in care or at the mercy of their other relatives. Moreover, many drug addicts register as unemployed and get benefits as well, to simply hand over to the dealer in exchange of a miserable dose or two.

Another problem related to illegality is that we never have a clear picture of what is really going on. Because of illegality addicts don't come forth for help as quickly as they should, they don't register themselves. Research becomes biased and therefore knowledge is also unfaithful to the real picture. Clearer information about the local situation is needed.

Because drugs are illegal, they become more attractive to adolescents. Research has proved this. By its very nature, adolescence is an exploratory phase. It is also a phase of rebellion against all authority structures, particularly parents and teachers. Defying the Church, and the law, and other structures becomes a very exciting and attractive business during adolescence.

The corrupted systems are all flourishing because drugs are illegal. Had drugs been distributed free to registered drug addicts by the health services, they will not only be cleaner and safer but drug addicts would not resort to stealing, the prisons won't be so full, and the existing corruption would definitely subside. The tax paid on the imported drugs needs also be considered. Currently illegal importation yields no tax to the government even though drug dealing is the most profitable business in the world, equalling only the oil industry.

In view of all this, the question arises: Who is benefiting from illegality? Is the law protecting our children from taking drugs? Or is it there to guarantee the making of millionaires?

If anything, one has to admit that drug abuse generates a lot of business, some of which is legal business too. I honestly doubt that drug prohibition is there to protect our children, though. While the state consumes its feeble resources, the dealers get richer and richer and the poor get poorer. Meanwhile, our children continue to be at increased risk all the time.

I don't believe that there will ever be a strong enough government to convert this whole farce into a serious war on the source of addiction generation. Mostly because the pressures exerted on governments not to distribute free drugs for drug addicts are many and various.

But what's the use of distributing free methadone as a replacement when drug addicts just don't want it, and when we know it's actually harder than heroin itself to give up? Our harm reduction policy has to change into a more realistic one by giving clean drugs to drug addicts thus reducing their risk, and that of others, to engage in illegal activities, increasing health problems, while guaranteeing the reduction of pushing that puts at risk our young.

Charlie Azzopardi, B.Psych. (Hons), M.Sc. (Lond.), is a systemic family therapist