NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–March 2, 2016. A new report from the Count the Costs initiative, ‘The War on Drugs – Undermining Peace and Security’ (PDF), finds that in sixty countries around the world national security is fundamentally compromised or threatened by the UN-led global drug war.
Despite claiming to protect society from the potential harms of drugs, the approach pursued through the United Nations – which involves prohibiting drugs, and punishing users and dealers – has created a criminal market so vast that drug gangs now pose a significant threat to international security.
Danny Kushlick, the report’s co-author and Head of External Affairs at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, said:
“This is a classic case of security blowback. The UN’s own analysis shows that it is the drug control system that fuels organised crime, and that this in turn threatens the security of as many as one in three UN member states. Indeed, a report published tomorrow [Wednesday 2nd March 2016] by the UN International Narcotics Control Board concludes that drug trafficking is creating failed states.”
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime – the body in charge of the global drug control system – has described how the war on drugs undermines international security:
“Global drug control efforts have had a dramatic unintended consequence: a criminal black market of staggering proportions. Organized crime is a threat to security. Criminal organizations have the power to destabilize society and Governments.”
And in its new Annual Report, the UN International Narcotics Control Board states:
“Impunity and ungovernability pose a challenge to the collective security and well-being of any State … When state structures become involved with and affected by violence and systemic corruption, drug trafficking can further weaken the efficacy of Governments to the point of creating ‘failed State’ conditions at the national or subregional level.”
Kushlick concluded:
“It is a tragic irony that, although the UN was formed in order to end global war, UN member states are signed up to treaties which oblige them to fight a futile drug war that creates insecurity, conflict and violence. The UN has its very own war machine, putting it in violation of its founding charter, to maintain international peace and security.
“In April this year, heads of state meet to discuss international drug control at the UN in New York. As an organisation pledged to promote peace, its member states must end the UN’s longstanding global drug war and explore the alternatives.”
Source: http://www.countthecosts.org/
