Pompidou Group Ministerial Conference
Dublin 16 October 2003
Statement by Mr. Antonio Maria Costa
Executive Director
Drug Control Policy in Europe:
Innovative Responses to New Challenges
Dear Ministers,
Friends and Colleagues,
I would like to thank the Pompidou Group for the invitation to this Ministerial Conference. I also wish to express my appreciation to the Irish Government for hosting the meeting.
The Pompidou Group is at the forefront of the fight against illicit drugs. It is a forum for co-operation and information exchange especially important to my Office: we have collaborated on various projects and always found this partnership quite productive.
Today I should like to share with you the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes latest analysis of the illicit drug situation, especially in Europe. I shall frame my statement keeping in mind three of the most frequently asked questions in our business:
(i) Over 200 million people have consumed drugs in the past 12 months. Illicit drug trafficking over the same period has once again dwarfed the resources at our collective disposal to fight it. Are these numbers so enormous as to make us despair?
(ii) New drugs, some designed by mad lab scientists and evil genetic engineers, are threatening the health of our societies. Do we have in place adequately targeted policies, able to complement law enforcement with effective prevention and treatment?
(iii) Contemporary cultural trends are weakening traditional sources of education and values, especially for the young. Can drug control succeed by counting only and exclusively on counter-narcotic measures? Namely, can it succeed without society strengthening its psychological and ethical barriers against substance abuse?
As you can predict, my answer is a triple no. I will use three metaphors to explain why.
First , the question of the adequacy of the resources, given the gigantic drug addiction and trafficking problems we face. I shall use an IT-based metaphor. In this time and age of large-scale computing needs, the past approach to problem-solving, centred on the development of larger and larger mainframe computers, has failed. Modern IT engineering is no longer based on gigantic IBM-type Cyber machines, almost as large as this hall. Thanks to the power of partnership, an adequate number of small PCs -- working together -- can cope with any realistic-size computing problem. In other words, size is not an issue any longer: what counts is mutual support. Are we all, around this table, contributing to the partnership needed for effective drug control? I am deeply convinced that if -- and only if -- we develop the right kind of partnership, we need not be afraid of the hundreds of billions of euros mobilized by drug traffickers.
Second , I am sure you share my Offices major concern regarding the spreading abuse of cannabis and, especially, of synthetic drugs (amphetamine type stimulants, ATS). Some of you have devised innovative responses to these new challenges. Yet, these responses will be effective if -- and only if -- we all find a way to fight for the common purpose, with due respect to national cultures and individual comparative advantage. If you allow me another metaphor, we should play like an orchestra, with every instrument contributing to the overall polyphony.
Unfortunately, todays drug-control concert -- which should be based on a score unanimously agreed with the general ratification of the drug control Conventions -- well, todays concert is rather cacophonous.
Some countries, even though they have ratified the Conventions, have a relatively tolerant approach to the abuse of cannabis, even of ecstasy. Other countries have put in place anti-drug programmes focussed on law enforcement and not balanced with prevention and treatment. Again, other countries keep changing policy, on the basis of the political cycle rather than of a comprehensive and long-term vision. If we intend to progress in this common endeavour, then the concert must become more pleasing to the ears and our musical instruments better tuned.
The third question concerns the importance of looking at the overall picture namely at the systemic changes in our societies. There is something more to drug policy than drug control. We are facing a tide of socio-cultural changes (my final metaphor). A rising water level indeed lifts all boats, including the drug boat. But the impact of changing sea level can be controlled -- just as the Dutch did, London also did and the Venetians will soon do.
Are we sure that nothing can be done about waning family values, about the growing assertiveness of individual rights irrespective of public interest, or about our kids Saturday-night rave to master the universe at the risk of ecstasy dependence, psychosis and early Alzheimer-type symptoms? I believe that if -- and only if -- we are willing to recognize these trends as problematic, and we are similarly willing to do something about them, will the drug control measures envisaged in the Conventions be effective.
To conclude on all this, I believe that, because:
(i) our partnership is not always strong;
(ii) the (drug control) music we play is not always harmonious,
(iii) of weakened socio-cultural protection against drug abuse,
because of all these factors, your work is more difficult. These factors limit effective use of the resources taxpayers put at the disposal of drug control. These factors confuse public opinion and favour the spreading of (at times deliberately) erroneous views about the harm caused by illicit drugs or about the success of policy. In short, these factors make it easier for the pro-drug lobby to proselytise in their effort to weaken, even abolish the drug-control Conventions.
Global trends and Europe
For most countries drug trends -- production, trafficking, addiction and health consequences -- can be estimated with a certain accuracy, and I welcome the Pompidou Groups emphasis on evidence-based policies.
According to our latest information, efforts to control the cultivation of organic drugs (coca and opium) continue to register significant progress. For example, opium production in the Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand) is foreseeably coming to an end, closing a very tragic, century-long chapter in drug production. In essence, drug cultivation is now localized in two countries (Afghanistan and Colombia) that have been devastated -- and this is not a coincidence -- by terrorism and organized crime. It may take a generation to solve these countries problems, as was the case for Thailand, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey (for opium), Bolivia and Peru (for coca).
The trends in the abuse of cocaine and heroin vary. Addiction is stable or generally decreasing in North America and Western Europe, where the age of addicts is increasing (30 45 on average). On the other hand, abuse is spreading in Eastern Europe, CIS and Asia (China). All considered, it seems that abuse of heroin in particular, is a disease of industrially advanced societies, later replaced by other substance abuse (ATS).
The problem of cannabis is different. Its cultivation is widespread enough, and spreading further, including to some very affluent countries in Europe and North America despite their obligations under the drug Conventions. Demand is also increasing, facilitated by recreational abuse, to which some governments turn a blind eye.
Synthetic drugs are another new threat, also involving rich countries in Europe. Production and trafficking are increasing -- as reported in the first UNODC Global Survey on Ecstasy and Amphetamines presented last month. World production is about 500 tons per year (a volume equivalent to that of heroin), worth about 65 billion dollars, and generating extraordinary profits (up to 3000%).
In Europe like anywhere else, designer drug tablets are a grave threat, especially to young people. They find the tablets more practical than syringes and needles, and more in tune with todays pharmacology that helps to deal with frustrations and inhibitions anytime, anywhere: at the workplace, in the club, or in the bedroom. One more pill in the familys pill-box is not seen as abuse, but rather as a socially sanctioned behaviour. Put more generally, it looks as if in Europe designer drugs are the next narcotic infection, chronologically following heroin.
Should we be alarmed? Yes, because the harm caused by synthetic drugs is serious and cumulative. Although often abused in a leisure setting, these drugs are not like cocktail drinks. Abuse is rather a Russian roulette: when the bullet is fired, it makes a hole in the brain. Science has ascertained that amphetamines cause dependence and psychosis; ecstasy damages the brain and accelerates its normal ageing process. In general, the abuse of synthetic drugs is having an impact on society, with todays young people risking premature Alzheimer-type symptoms.
Facing the challenge in Europe
I am especially concerned because some countries in Europe maintain a fatalistic approach, even benign neglect to drug abuse in general, and to the consumption of cannabis and ATS in particular. Some families, many educators and a great many MTV entertainers consider drug abuse to be an exhilarating part of growing up.
This attitude has stretched, among others, to the testing of pills in discos to guarantee that the poison being ingested -- for example, MDMA, the main ingredient of ecstasy -- is indeed the one of choice. Since you care for your youths health, I propose a different method to discover what goes on: test the kids as they leave a rave party. Test them as is done for alcohol to prevent drunken driving: you will see the Saturday-night road massacres decline.
Above all, our collective responsibility to reduce the suffering caused by drugs -- and the underlying costs -- needs to keep in mind the broader picture. Drug abuse is spreading because it is riding life-style and fashion trends that are communicated, advertised and shared almost instantly, worldwide.
To conclude on this subject, I call on you all to challenge simplistic and counter-productive recipes, such as suggesting that society surrender unconditionally to drugs, by making them legal. Let us graft freedom from drugs onto the tree of individual liberty and collective right.
The pro-drug lobby has become part of the drug problem
Wherever I go, to meet with representatives of the pro-drug lobby to understand their reasons and discuss their proposals. Our openness to this dialogue is total and without inhibitions -- obviously starting from the assumption that the UN Conventions are and remain law until governments decide to change them.
However, it should be clear that:
well, all these people, trying to justify the unjustifiable, end up accepting the unacceptable. Namely they gamble on our societys health. These people are becoming part of the drug problem.
Arrogantly, the lobby has divided all of you between the progressives and the troglodytes, namely between those who agree with them and those who do not (including my humble self). This is confusing public opinion -- maybe this is the objective. The spreading of the (false) notion that some drugs are soft, namely not so dangerous and soon-to-be legal, causes drug addiction to increase. Look at the following sample-based correlations:
(i) In countries where the pro-drug lobby is more active (and the anti-UN Conventions rhetoric is stronger), opinion polls show that young people perceive ecstasy and cannabis as not quite so harmful and their possession OK.
(ii) The perception by young people of the relative un-harmfulness of drugs is correlated with higher drug abuse;
(iii) Polls also show that, when people perceive that drugs are OK with the law , they abuse drugs even more.
(iv) Finally, and as a consequence of all the above, statistics show that when people perceive drugs as widely abused , they abuse drugs even more.
Some people point to the greater harm caused by licit substances, as a justification to liberalize drug abuse. Statistical evidence indeed confirms that tobacco kills twice as many as alcohol worldwide, and that alcohol kills many times more than illicit drugs. But please, do not compare apples to oranges: tobacco and alcohol are legal and are consumed massively, while illicit drugs are illegal and their availability is indeed reduced by the controls in place. Abuse would obviously increase if drugs were legalized, although it is impossible to predict by how much. Yet, the correlations mentioned earlier -- especially the one between drug availability and drug consumption -- are convincing enough to fear a major increase of drug abuse as a consequence of drug liberalization. In other words, the preferential option should be for safety over pleasure.
The analogy between drug and tobacco abuse could be further elaborated. The international community is well aware of the harm caused by tobacco (and alcohol) and it is doing something as evidenced by the recent WHO convention on tobacco control. Why are the new, strict sanctions against tobacco successful? Not because of police measures, but because non-smokers exert irresistible moral and social pressure on smokers to refrain. And why are smoking rates declining in the countries committed to stop it? Because of the major court cases against tobaccos merchants of death; because of the severe financial penalties; because of the sky-rocketing health insurance premiums; and because of the massive public awareness campaigns. All these measures have pushed the tobacco business in some countries close to bankruptcy, and have put smokers on the defensive.
It is necessary to do the same for illicit drugs. Instead, and despite the controlled nature of the drug business, no European country that I know has engaged in similarly tough measures against cannabis. Ironically, cannabis contains many of tobaccos carcinogenic components, plus 400 odd cannabinoids among them the dangerous THC.
The silent majority that abuses no drugs and pays the bill of addiction control should mobilize to contain drug abuse just as it is doing for tobacco. Without the participation of civil society it is not possible to reach sustainable results in any area, particularly in controlling drug abuse.
In the next two days, you will discuss the new challenges for drug policy in Europe. I am confident that your wisdom and sense of responsibility will guide you to find a common approach and identify innovative responses. I hope my statement will help you in your deliberations.
Thank you for your attention.
Dublin, 16 October 2003