How the United States Fueled a Global Drug War, and Why It Must End – Open Society Foundations

Within the United States, the momentum for drug policy reform continues to accelerate. At least one in three people in the United States live in states where the recreational use of cannabis is legal. Several bills have been submitted to Congress tolegalize cannabisand todecriminalize all drugsat the federal level. The focus on ensuring social justice, racial equity, resisting corporate capture, and reparations for communities harmed by the war on drugs is a more recent and very welcome phenomenon. In addition, harm reduction now features among the top drug policy priorities of the new administration, with a new $30 million fund dedicated to scale-up services.

The winds of change are blowing in the United States. But it would be a travesty for the United States to promote progressive reforms at home while imposing repressive and inhumane measures elsewhere.

As the arch-enforcer of the war on drugs, the United States now has the moral and political responsibility to proactively promote drug policies that are grounded in health and social justice, and above all in human rights.

This would mean moving away from providing international funding and political cover for the harsh enforcement of disproportionate drug laws, the militarization of drug control, aerial spraying and forced eradication, discriminatory policing practices, forced treatment programs, drug courts, and mass incarceration.

But it also means promoting positive reforms, discussing reparations for communities that have suffered the brunt of repressive drug control to the international level, fully recognizing the ancestral rights of Indigenous communities worldwide, and endorsing and funding life-saving harm reduction services both at home and abroad. These are not unrealistic fantasies, but real and concrete policies that are already being adopted in some U.S. states, often with overwhelming popular support.

On June 26, 2021,thousands of activistsaround the world mobilized for the 9thSupport. Dont Punish Global Day of Actionand rejected the traditionally self-congratulatory message of theUNs World Drug Day. They united with one clear, strong, and urgent message: it is time to end the war on drugs. Fifty years after Nixons administration strengthened heavy-handed international prohibition through UN drug treaties, with devastating consequences, the current U.S. presidential administration has an opportunity to begin to right the wrongs of history and start a real conversation on dismantling the global prohibition regime.

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How the United States Fueled a Global Drug War, and Why It Must End - Open Society Foundations