Law & Politics

DPA's Ethan Nadelmann Gives TED Talk, Source: http://tedconfblog.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/tg14_100714_dd5b9081_1920.jpgEthan Nadelmann, former professor and current Executive Director of Drug Policy Alliance, recently gave a TED talk on the War on Drugs, why it’s a miserable failure, and why the world desperately needs it to be retired to history.

Opening up his talk with a loaded question, Nadelmann asks, “What has the War on Drugs done to the world?” In the US, Nadelmann thinks our in-country War on Drugs is akin to Prohibition and Al Capone, magnified by a factor of fifty. Worse, the USA has been the driving force behind much of the global war on drugs.

Why does the USA push so hard to globalize a drug policy that has domestically been a travesty? Conspiracy theorists are quick to point out that it is all part of a larger scheme to advance American political ambition. Mr. Nadelmann, however, simplifies the answer: The United States is batshit crazy when it comes to drugs.

“So think about our global drug war not as any sort of rational policy, but as the international projection of a domestic psychosis,” quips Nadelmann. For what it’s worth, Russia is now leading the charge on the War on Drugs. So, at least the US is beginning to wash its hands of such a terrible policy, but it doesn’t help that the Russians have decided to pick up the slack. The War on Drugs is no longer a domestic issue, it needs to stop planet-wide.

Nadelmann has worked in the government and has had high-level security clearance. He has had the chance to interview many people who operate at all levels and locations of this Drug War. He says that those on the supply-end of things say that you need to cut demand to stop the problem; those at the demand-end of things say just the opposite, if you cut the supply, demand will subside. When interviewing border patrol and DEA agents, they said that the problem is not with enforcement, but with supply and demand. Everyone is placing blame elsewhere, no one knows what is really going on.

Dissatisfied by the confusion of those who were in the thick of fighting this war, Nadelmann turned on his academic mindset and began to learn everything he could about psychoactive drugs. He concludes that there has probably never been a truly drug-free society. Drugs, in some form, have been intimately entwined with human existence.

As Nadelman puts it, “virtually every society has ingested psychoactive substances to deal with pain, increase our energy, socialize, even commune with God. Our desire to alter our consciousness may be as fundamental as our desires for food, companionship and sex. So our true challenge is to learn how to live with drugs so they cause the least possible harm and in some cases the greatest possible benefit.”

Something else that Nadelmann learned on his quest of narcotic inquiry is that health risk has almost nothing to do with whether or not a substance is legal. Rather, many of the laws were racist knee-jerk reactions based upon who used (or who was perceived to use) a given substance.

For example, in the early 19th century, many modern day illicit substances were perfectly legal and easy to get. Middle-aged white women were once the heaviest users of opiates, which were quite legal. Only when the throngs of Chinese railroad workers began showing up and puffing their opium after a hard days work did the sweeping laws against opiates arise.

Cocaine and marijuana have similar histories. Cocaine only became illegal after it was perceived that black people liked to use it and marijuana was criminalized as a means to subjugate Mexicans. Around that time is when we actually start to see the term “marijuana” show up, as opposed to cannabis which it had long been called. “Marijuana” sounds distinctly Hispanic.

Another key point that Nadelmann discussed in his TED talk was the horrid American proclivity toward incarceration. The US has about 5% of the world’s population, but about 25% of the global incarcerants.

Does Nadelmann think legalization is the answer? He’s not sure, but he does think that criminalization and prohibition are doomed from the get go. Drugs, legal or not, are a commodity just like alcohol, sugar, or coffee. Where there is demand, a supply will always find a way. He references several other countries who do not criminalize drug use and says that the negative effects of drug use are significantly diminished while the positives are magnified.

Nadelmann thinks that legalized marijuana won’t really lead to an increase in teenage use, because it’s still illegal for them based on age. He does think that older people may be the biggest growth sector for marijuana use, positing that they may opt for cannabis as opposed to a myriad of medications, sleeping pills, glass of scotch at the end of the day, etc.

As for teens, Nadelmann had this to offer as advice: “First, don’t do drugs. Second, don’t do drugs. Third, if you do do drugs, there’s some things I want you to know, because my bottom line as your parent is, come home safely at the end of the night and grow up and lead a healthy and good adulthood. That’s my drug education mantra: Safety first.”

At the end of his talk, the host asked Nadelmann if anyone who has lost a loved one to drug use has taken issue with his stance. He said that the drug war protects no one, in fact, it likely has put people at undue risk. He said people who have known that loss may have immediately wanted to line up every drug dealer and shoot them in the face, but 10 years down the road, he sees many more of those people joining his fight to reform drug policy.

It makes sense. Our national drug policy is effectively a mission statement on how we handle this issue and it has spread to the far reaches of the globe, a projection of “domestic psychosis.” The USA needs to stop drinking the Kool-Aid and perhaps the rest of the world will follow suit.

Be sure to check out the full recording of Nadelmann’s TED talk. He’s poignant and articulate and is a great mouthpiece for this movement.