The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) has this week published a report providing a global overview of the use of the death penalty in drugs offences. The publication makes alarming reading, finding that the total figure exceeds 1,000 judicial deaths per year. “Hundreds of people are executed for drug offences each year around the world, a figure that very likely exceeds 1,000 when taking into account those countries that keep their death penalty statistics secret,” state the authors, Patrick Gallahue and Rick Lines.
Some 32 states permit the use of the death penalty in drugs cases, mostly in relation to production and trafficking. Of these countries, 13 retain a mandatory death sentence for certain types of drug offences. The leading executors are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia; these are the only states that have, in recent years, deployed capital punishment to an extent that the report judges to indicate ‘high commitment’ to the practice. Iran, for example, executed 172 people last year. Some cause for optimism lies in the fact that a number of these countries have, however, greatly reduced their reliance on capital punishment over the last years.
IHRA’s legal experts argue that recourse to the death penalty in drugs cases is contrary to international law, and that the measure should, pending full abolition, be limited to a discretionary option in cases of willful murder.
The report is available here.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Wednesday 12 May 2010
News US drug strategy
The new US drug strategy, the first to be published under the Obama administration, was released yesterday. The strategy’s appearance was heralded by the Whitehouse with claims of a new direction for US drug policy, and a new emphasis on combating the problems around illicit drug use by focusing on the demand side of the equation. This tactic is based around a broad set of community based prevention interventions, and an expansion of drug treatment into mainstream healthcare. And while the language itself continues to be rejected, the strategy involves measures which embody the principles of harm reduction.
The strategy can thus be said to build on the administration’s movement away from drug war rhetoric, its repeal of the ban on federal funding for needle exchange, and its acceptance of (or non-interference in) state-level medical cannabis provision. There are also encouraging signs that congress will, over the next year, end the mandatory minimum sentencing disparities between powder cocaine and crack, laws which are racist in effect if not intention.
At the same time, beneath the rhetoric of change there are large areas of continuity with the drug war, readily apparent in the fact that two thirds of the budget remains devoted to law enforcement. A more profound and significant break with the failures of the past would be demonstrated by a strategy aimed not so much at stopping or reducing drug use as such, but at minimising the harms associated with both drugs and drug policies. These harms are tightly interwoven with the mass incarceration of US citizens for non-violent drug offences. Nonetheless, such changes as there are should be welcomed, and it will be interesting to compare the performance of Britain’s new government when its new drug strategy appears.
The strategy can thus be said to build on the administration’s movement away from drug war rhetoric, its repeal of the ban on federal funding for needle exchange, and its acceptance of (or non-interference in) state-level medical cannabis provision. There are also encouraging signs that congress will, over the next year, end the mandatory minimum sentencing disparities between powder cocaine and crack, laws which are racist in effect if not intention.
At the same time, beneath the rhetoric of change there are large areas of continuity with the drug war, readily apparent in the fact that two thirds of the budget remains devoted to law enforcement. A more profound and significant break with the failures of the past would be demonstrated by a strategy aimed not so much at stopping or reducing drug use as such, but at minimising the harms associated with both drugs and drug policies. These harms are tightly interwoven with the mass incarceration of US citizens for non-violent drug offences. Nonetheless, such changes as there are should be welcomed, and it will be interesting to compare the performance of Britain’s new government when its new drug strategy appears.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Mexico: War without end?
Last weekend in Mexico, in a new escalation of the drug war, 24 people were killed in a 24 hour period. While falling short of the grisly record established in January this year, when 69 individuals died violent deaths in one day, it should give pause for thought to anybody who still believes that repressive methods can suppress the illicit drug market. In total, since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, over 23,000 people have died in the bloody war the US government continues to support.
Plan Merida, the government’s assault on the country’s massive drug trade, is funded by the US to the tune of $1.4 billion. It relies heavily on military intervention, with the bulk of the money going to equip the Mexican army. However, the project’s ‘successes’—centred on the arrest of cartel bosses—have only exacerbated the violence, creating a power vacuum quickly filled by violent conflict. And, despite the army’s new US weaponry, organized crime appears able to match it, using a combination of corruption and guns flooding in from across the US border. Human rights groups in Mexico have claimed that this southbound traffic is more severe in its consequences than the northward flow of drugs, despite the publicity generated by the latter.
To add to the human rights deficit associated with the drug war, Arizona has recently passed an anti-immigration law that gives the police the right to search and detain anyone they think looks like an illegal immigrant. Naturally, this is going to impact on US citizens of Hispanic appearance, adding a new layer to an old pattern of racism linked to the war on drugs. It has led the Mexican government to issue a travel alert urging extreme caution to its citizens travelling in Arizona. The measures have also been highly divisive inside the US, with mass protests across American cities and opposition from prominent figures including President Obama. In a final irony, traffickers have started avoiding border controls by moving the growing operation into the US, setting up plantations in National Parks, a displacement tactic familiar across decades of prohibition.
Plan Merida, the government’s assault on the country’s massive drug trade, is funded by the US to the tune of $1.4 billion. It relies heavily on military intervention, with the bulk of the money going to equip the Mexican army. However, the project’s ‘successes’—centred on the arrest of cartel bosses—have only exacerbated the violence, creating a power vacuum quickly filled by violent conflict. And, despite the army’s new US weaponry, organized crime appears able to match it, using a combination of corruption and guns flooding in from across the US border. Human rights groups in Mexico have claimed that this southbound traffic is more severe in its consequences than the northward flow of drugs, despite the publicity generated by the latter.
To add to the human rights deficit associated with the drug war, Arizona has recently passed an anti-immigration law that gives the police the right to search and detain anyone they think looks like an illegal immigrant. Naturally, this is going to impact on US citizens of Hispanic appearance, adding a new layer to an old pattern of racism linked to the war on drugs. It has led the Mexican government to issue a travel alert urging extreme caution to its citizens travelling in Arizona. The measures have also been highly divisive inside the US, with mass protests across American cities and opposition from prominent figures including President Obama. In a final irony, traffickers have started avoiding border controls by moving the growing operation into the US, setting up plantations in National Parks, a displacement tactic familiar across decades of prohibition.
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