For the last century or so, the vast majority of governments has approached the fight against drug trafficking with force, whether police or military. However, after decades of relying on this method, a question arises: is it effective? The question may be simple, but the answer is complex. And if we take the recent events on the border between Paraguay and Brazil into account, the answer would seem to be “no.”
Last Sunday saw the seizure of a cargo just short of a ton of weed that was being snuck from Paraguay and was ultimately apprehended by agents of the Brazilian Federal Police and Military Police, according to La Política Online.
Hold on: if such an amount of drugs was seized successfully, how come we consider this militarized approach a failure? The thing is, the events took place just days after the deployment of Operation “Guaraní Shield” by Paraguayan law enforcement. The National Defense Council had announced the mobilization of 4,000 soldiers and 7,000 police officers to reinforce the fight against organized crime on the borders with Brazil and Argentina. And it’s worth noting that this deployment was specifically targeted at areas like Canindeyú and Alto Paraná, very close to Lake Itaipu, where the seizure occurred.
In other words: with 11,000 armed personnel in the area, they still failed to stop the illegal transport of 952.3 kilos (about 2,100 pounds) of weed.
Just two days before the incident, Enrique Riera (Paraguay’s Minister of the Interior) and Ricardo Lewandowski (Brazil’s Minister of Justice) had signed an agreement to coordinate both countries’ security forces. Under said agreement, they would share information and carry out joint operations in response to drug trafficking, in addition to the establishment of the Salto del Guairá/Canindeyú – Guairá/Paraná Joint Command.
As reported by La Nación Paraguay, the Paraguayan security ministry declared that “with this progress, the Ministry of the Interior is consolidating a solid, modern, and results-oriented bilateral agenda, strengthening security in border areas and contributing to the protection of citizens in both countries.” However, these results were not quite what they expected.
It’s About Time We Rethink the War on Drugs
It goes without saying: the situation is dire. We are in the midst of an increase in military responses to the threats of drug trafficking worldwide; cases like the US attacks on Venezuelan ships or the recent operation in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro paint a bleak picture, not only because of the scale of the violence and its effects on civilian populations, but also because of its repeated ineffectiveness.
The War on Drugs has failed. Such is the word of activists, politicians, academics, presidents, even the UN. It has not stopped illegal drug trafficking, consumption, violence, or corruption. It harms not only people‘s health and physical well-being, but the planet itself, and its history is marked by racism and media manipulation. Its cost in human lives is incalculable. Billions of dollars that could be used to improve the lives of the most vulnerable are squandered on this gamble that never seems to bear fruit.
So what then? What can we propose instead? If we don’t meet fire with fire, weapons with weapons, what can be done against an illicit system linked to violence and that threatens public health?
An answer has been circulating for some time, though falling on deaf ears. It seems counterintuitive, but expert voices are speaking of drug legalization as the most effective way to curb drug trafficking.
Shifting from a punitive approach to one focused on harm reduction, health, and human rights, moving away from prosecuting drug users and toward providing them with support, and designing systems that enable responsible use (as it is being done with cannabis in a growing number of places) are some proposals that are gaining momentum.
In fact, at least 16 countries—including the UK, Colombia and Portugal (which, by the way, is the only nation in the world where all drugs have been decriminalized)—have opened “safe consumption rooms.” While the drugs used in said rooms remain illegal in most cases, people can use them in a controlled and supervised environment to mitigate overdoses, deaths, and the spread of diseases.
Across the globe, a growing number of countries are witnessing firsthand how, when we legalize drugs, it’s cartels that suffer, instead of citizens. If we develop an efficient legal market, the illegal market withers.
Of course, we’re dreaming big here. The reality is way more complex. Factors such as the hidden relationships between economic power and drug cartels, outdated prejudices and a lack of education about drugs, and political inertia, to name a few, all play a role. But it is becoming increasingly impossible to ignore the plain facts: faced with the repeated failure, perhaps the most logical (and most humane) course of action is to try something new.
