For the second year running, I have been a
delegate at the UN CND held in Vienna. I have a feeling it will be my last!
The whole event possess a surreal quality,
starting with the “out-of-worldly” buildings which comprise the UN complex
based in the Vienna International Centre, a few stops on the U-Bahn from the
centre of this most beautiful of old Eastern European cities.
The UN complex, which includes the building in
which the CND is held, resembles nothing so much as some demented architect’s
futuristic vision of what a global-administrative agency should look like, but
situated in a galaxy many light years away from here, hence the Star Wars
connection! It is ugly beyond belief and rears up over the individual, dwarfing
him by its sheer grotesque size, but to soften this overbearing image, there
are no hard edges or sharp corners.
Everything is rounded off, windows, in
disciplined ranks are oval ended, the whole edifice is a study in curves and
elipses, and painted in sickly pinks, oranges and beiges. It looks like a model
made by a child from sticky Plasticene.
One is already having one’s mind programmed
before gaining admission to the event – this is the UN, and you are being
reminded of their almost unlimited power, but in ever such a user-friendly and
politically-correct manner.
The delegates to the event represent a major
cross section of just about every agency, NGO, lobby group, think tank and
fellow traveller whose interests coincide with the issue of the legal or
illegal status of narcotic drugs, their cultivation, possession, usage and
dissemination.
There are some very exotic delegates, tattoos
and body piercings abound, people will introduce themselves proudly with such
words as, ‘Hi, I am a medicinal Cannabis user and a Ketamine injector” or
whatever narcotic is their choice of achieving personal gratification. One
gentleman, it turns out, is a registered user of Heroin and receives it on
prescription, so I am advised. He is a highly intellectual debater and a
powerful argument for demonstrating that under proper supervision, even the
hardest drugs can maintain the user in a balanced equilibrium. The man who says
he uses Ketamine ( I had always thought of it as a horse anaesthetic), is a
well-balanced and gentle exponent of drug counselling and has spent many years
as a drug mentor and guide, advising and supporting young people in managing
their drug issues.
One woman talked quietly to me about her
lifestyle choices involving Cannabis and Ecstasy, as well as occasional forays
into other drugs, and she counselled me seriously on the many dangers inherent
in my own personal choice of red wine which even taken in moderate quantities
‘...can do very bad things to you...’
Virtually every country in the world which
grows, produces, exports, imports or uses these narcotics is represented, and
every point of view is capable of being heard.
The UN and its mind-boggling bureaucracy is
represented everywhere, from the gun-toting guards who stand around at every
doorway and corridor, to its wholly unfriendly, surly coffee-bar staff, who run
their posts with machine-like order.
They do not open for service before 9.00,
despite the fact that a vast queue of thirsty coffee addicts is lined up at the
counter. (Ironic how no-one at a drug conference appears to equate caffeine
addiction with any of the other habit forming commodities being discussed)! Requests
for service to the staff behind the counter are met with a mumbled refusal, and
only when the clock passes the appointed hour do the staff then busy themselves
cashing up the tills, bustling about, and eventually serving, but in a most
inefficient manner. Don’t ask for change for the free-standing machines which
dispense drinks at half the counter price, it will be refused.
One should never overlook the message being
sent by these time serving ladies, who are exactly the same ones whom I
experienced last year! This is how the UN works, it has rules, it has a
bureaucracy, it has apparatchiks, and nothing will or must be done to change
anything that is written into the status quo. It is as if when you come to work
in this building your brain is automatically taken over by a UN control mechanism
which puts you on an auto-pilot mode which fits their design.
Having negotiated the almost incomprehensible
agenda, and decided which of the many main events and side programmes are of
greater or lesser interest, it is always worth reviewing the stalls and
exhibitions. Until I attended last year, I had no idea just how much of the
world’s rain forests are destroyed to meet the insatiable demand for paper on
which to publish the outpourings of the groups who inhabit this strange world
of drug discussion. A few examples will serve to explain my wonder!
“Sentencing policies for drug offences: Best
practices in the UK”. Organised by a group calling itself the Academic Council
on the UN System. Considering that some of our worst drug addictions are to be
found inside our prison system, and the chances of leaving prison addicted to
hard drugs, even if a prisoner was not so addicted upon entry, is so high, I
hoped to hear a paper which talked of alternative means of sentencing
drug-offenders which avoided custodial sentences. I may have missed it, but I
am not sure if the issue was raised at all.
Or how about “Drug Trafficking and Consumption
in West Africa” Organised by Cape Verde, Benin, et al.
Other papers dealt with ‘Violence against women
who use drugs’,’ Protecting youth with drug policy’, ‘ Evidence-based tools and
resources’, I could go on and on.
One extremely valuable presentation was made by
the Portuguese during which they talked openly of the successes they had made
in reducing narcotics harm through the use of a focused decriminalised drug use
policy. But for every sensible and well-balanced presentation, there were
others like the Drug Policy Futures Group who have set their hearts and minds
against the entire campaign for decriminalisation and are determined to work
against the well-intentioned agendas of those disparate groups who see
decriminalisation as representing, ultimately, the only real policy which will
have any meaningful effect against the influence of organised crime in the
global drug markets.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I could not discover
any willingness to discuss the issue of the criminal laundering of the enormous
proceeds of criminal drug trafficking, and as far as I could ascertain, there
were no banks or financial institutions present, and willing, to discuss their
attempts and methods to limit the amount of drug money entering their systems.
"...My deluded friend" he said,
"...Everybody in this business knows that all the drug money from the
narco- trafficantes finds its way to the City of London. Look at the HSBC bank,
how they moved all those millions of dollars for the cartels in my country. Why
your country did not prosecute them is clear to us, Great Britain does not care
where the money comes from, as long as it comes to Great Britain, and no
British Bank will be punished for bringing in the drug money. You people did it
to China in the 19th century, and now you do it with the rest of the world. .."
What is clear to this overworked law
enforcement agent from a country which is truly suffering from the corrupting
effects of Cartel Heroin is that the UK has absolutely no agenda to promote or
support any agenda for legalisation, because it would mean a strangling of the
supply of illegally-generated drug profits, but then, the UK is not alone in
having no intention of lifting the yoke of prohibition!
Regardless of the fact that the UNDOC, in the
form of their President Raymond Yans, will discuss UN prohibitionist policies
in terms of health, welfare and national benefits, he continues to talk down
the likelihood and possibilities of legalisation in other countries of certain
initial drug issues. This is in the face of the evidence now before the
Conference from Uruguay, Washington State, and Colorado, where a degree of
legalisation has now been achieved.
Listening to Mr Yans, I get the overwhelming
impression that he is nothing so like the small Dutch boy, sticking his fingers
in the dyke to prevent the leaks from leading to the entire edifice crumbling.
And this, or so it seems to me, is the
essential conundrum behind this major annual jamboree. It seems to exist for
the benefit of a very large number of people who belong to exotic-sounding
organisations, and whose ambition is to continue pouring out learned papers and
discussion documents on such issues as harm reduction, health management, youth
protection, and who enjoy travelling to attractive venues to discuss their
vested interests.
These people are dependent, for their cushy
lifestyles, their expenses, and maybe their jobs, on the likelihood of drugs
remaining prohibited for the foreseeable future. They have a vested interest in
ensuring that the drug laws are not amended, or at least not too much, so as to
threaten their functions. If these drugs were decriminalised and prohibition
ended, bureaucrats and apparatchiks like Raymond Yans would be out of a job.
The organisation I represent, "Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition", a global body of former law enforcers
who have long since seen and realised the inherent dishonesty and futility of
the so-called ‘war on drugs’ had put forward a discussion document for
consideration and wider dissemination on a proposal to amend the United Nations
Drug Treaties, essentially eliminating the criminalisation-oriented drug policy
paradigm, replacing it with a health-harm reduction and human rights oriented
policy.
You might think it odd that thousands of
ex-police officers in a number of countries might see eye to eye on the logic
and pure sense of such a policy, but it was there in black and white, on the
table in the Meetings.
The effect of such a policy if accepted and
enacted would begin to curtail the activities of many of the exotic delegates
all clustering around the bar of wider discussion (hence the bar scene from
Star Wars image), and it would begin to usher in a wider policy of decriminalisation.
This is the first time, as far as I am aware,
that such an important enactment has been proposed, as it cuts, like a hot
knife through butter, through the bullshit being talked at so many of the
meetings. (One group was talking about decriminalising cannabis use for adults,
while maintaining in the same legislation, criminal penalties for children
caught using the stuff !!!)
I was very hopeful that our campaign would
catch the imagination of delegates, and in one way, it did! We were almost routinely
attacked by many of the major NGOs who were present. We were accused of failing
to ‘discuss and debate’ our proposals with all the other groups, a process that
would have been never ending and would have been subject to so many proposed
amendments, that in the end, the poor bleeding rump that was left would not
have had enough life in it to limp over the starting line of the amendment
process.
At the same time, we attracted a lot of informed
attention from a number of interested parties, and particularly delegates from
a number of South American countries. (Now those boys and girls know the human
cost of the war on drugs, I had a long and detailed discussion with a police
colleague from Colombia, and I realised we were not even starting to scratch
the surface when we talk about social harms from organised crime)!
So, how will things develop?
It’s very hard to say. Our amendment cuts
through an enormous volume of red tape and bureaucracy and possesses some very
desirable outcomes, if properly enacted. It enables member states to operate
their own policies within the overall ambit of the UN, thus enabling them to
create a Uruguayan-style outcome if they so wish. It also envisages through its
flexibility, a Portuguese-style model format which many European states might
find more to their taste.
We shall see. I do not expect any great speed
to be generated in enacting our amendment, but it is there on the table, if the
UN authorities want to bend down and pick it up!
This is the last-chance saloon for so many
countries, if they are not to see and experience an entire organised crime
makeover in the style of that experienced by Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia and
other narco-states. There is a lot of good-will out there to bring forward and
enact a sensible drug policy. We in the UK must start to examine our pathetic
response to the conundrum, and begin to take steps towards developing an
evidence-led debate, with information and medical facts supplied by people like
Professor David Nutt. I don’t want to hear any more diatribes from Melanie
Phillips or Peter Hitchens on this topic.
At the same time, we have to start really
enforcing our anti-money laundering laws and Regulations and make them mean
something, if we are not to be seen as merely pious hypocrites in the eyes of
the rest of the world, to whom we are so willing to preach on their shortcomings.
Our attitude towards openly accepting every narco-state's profits is doing us
huge harm in the eyes and ears of those countries who know the reality of what
dealing with 'Perfidious Albion' really means!
Finally, the papers this morning were all over
Russell Brand and his personal contribution to the discussion in Vienna.
I find myself (again not unusually) in a small
minority in my view of Mr Brand. It's not that what he says is wrong, it's that
he is saying it! After all, this is the man who had an ill-advised obscene public
discussion with Jonathan Ross, the tv presenter, and verbally defiled the grand-daughter
of Andrew Sachs, a charming and harmless man who has given pleasure to
countless number of people. This is the nature of the man, and he can be
adjudged by his actions. Seductive though his message sounds, if we want to be
taken seriously by international policy makers and law givers, the kind of
people we really need to impress and influence, in order to see our side of the
argument, then it is my personal view that Mr Brand, despite his high-flown
rhetoric and his clever arguments, will not be the sort of person who will
bring home the case for reform in the longer term. He is a celebrity, a
creature of the night and the flashlight. He can put on an argument with the
same ease he puts on a designer jacket, but, like the flashlight on the camera,
which he seeks out in his lifestyle, he flares brightly, but fleetingly, and
whether he will be there when the hard yards have to be put in to bring home
the case for the reformers, I seriously doubt.
Time will tell, and I may well be proven
horribly wrong, but for me, the jury is still out on Mr Brand!
