My friend Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the U.S.-based Drug Policy Alliance, makes the cover of Foreign Policy arguing (yet again) for the legalization of drugs. "It’s always dangerous when rhetoric drives policy" he says "and especially so when 'war on drugs' rhetoric leads the public to accept collateral casualties that would never be permissible in civilian law enforcement, much less public health. Politicians still talk of eliminating drugs from the Earth as though their use is a plague".
Worst of all, those politicians, sell their "war" to the public as an urgent enterprise to fight evil if their are conservative, or as a necessary campaign for the welfare of mankind if they are progressive.
In Europe that "war" is fought in a different way and there are timid moves towards a different kind of scenario, but we are still in continent that does not consider legalization a possibility. At the beginning of September the European Parliament will discuss a proposal, tabled by MEP Marco Cappato on the medical use of Afghan opium. Here soon more news on the matter.
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