Dear editor,
As the
Bangkok Post correctly suggests, two reasons for the persistence of "drug wars", those long proved failures at reducing drug harms to society, are willful ignorance and the rejection of reason. The cited "Rat Park" studies are but one demonstration of the failure of drug wars and the inability or refusal to reason that fuels those murderous assaults on citizens by brutish authority acting out under unjust law.
The historical proof that drug wars fail is even better known and at least as compelling as the reported scientific research. The US experiment with the war against the drug alcohol in the US during the Prohibition era, from 1920 to 1933, showed that it not only failed to reduce the use of that popular drug, but was a boon to the mafia and corrupt officials, from police to judges and politicians. Drug harms to society increased because the drug was criminalized. Similarly in China during the 18th century: it was only after opium had been made illegal that the use of that popular drug soared, along with the social harms related to that drug use, all were worsened by the state making opium illegal. Thailand has experienced exactly the same. Drug harms to Thai society have been worsened by making a range of popular drug illegal.
Yesterday's
Bangkok Post, for example, reported that 14 million speed pills were seized in Chiang Mai. The most amazing thing about this latest massive drug seizure of enough drugs for more than half of the adult Thai population is that it is not in the least amazing. Similar stories occur weekly. To argue, in the face of such consistent evidence, that current Thai law is reducing even the quantities of drugs being produced, dealt and consumed by Thais is evidence of ignorance and willful foolishness.
But the
Post's editorial is also correct that the social malaise of which wars on drugs are symptomatic is yet more malignant. Authoritarian political players such as the Philippines' Duterte and Thailand's Thaksin play up the fake claims of drug wars to an uninformed and unthinking populace because they distract from the authoritarian's refusal or incompetence to address the real social problems in society that cause some small minority of users of recreational drugs such as alcohol, yaa baa, heroin, cigarettes, cocaine, marijuana, and the rest to become addicted. An even smaller number of the users of any drug ever go on to commit a crime that actually harms anyone else, although here, alcohol is the drug most often implicated in crimes that harm others, from drunk driving to domestic abuse, rape and arguments that end in shootings.
The very real killings by authorities under cover of the unjust law inciting them is but the start of harms that drug wars inflict on society. That entire authoritarian assault by conservatives on decency perpetrated under ignorance and willful rejection of reason has other malignant social effects long know: it encourages corruption, seen in recent reports of extortion by officers of the Royal Thai Police of harmless citizens alleged to have possessed small quantities of illegal drugs; and only the most naive fail to suspect more active involvement in the drug industry by corrupt police and other Thais in uniforms. Even the current cabinet of the Thai government of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha has a brightly uniformed member with a conviction for heroin dealing in its Deputy Minister for Agriculture and Development, who famously spent four years in prison in Australia after being tempted, as so many criminal types are, to get rich quick thanks to the bad law that creates such tempting opportunities for corruption.
If Thailand were to accept the facts and follow the lead of Portugal, which saw great reductions in drug harms to society after decriminalizing the personal possession and use of all drugs in 2000, or those nations and US states that have more recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana, with no sharp increases in the use of that drug, drug harms to Thai society by that reform of long-failing policy would be substantial. Police corruption would take a massive blow, surely a good thing. Mafia activity would be severely hit, surely a good thing. Decent Thai people, especially the young, would not get criminal records that harm them and their families, surely a good thing for society. The grossly over-crowded prisons would be freed of those who should never have been there in the first place, surely a good thing. Tax could be collected on more modest profits made from the various drug industries, instead of going solely to the pockets of mafia scum and corrupt officials as is now the case, yet another boon to the Thai nation. The fortune in financial resources and wasted human resources currently consumed by the useless drug suppression efforts could be diverted to programs that could actually reduce drug addiction and related harms, surely a far better outcome for society.
Naturally, those who traditionally profit from the bad policy that lauds drug wars will oppose any reform that benefits society by reducing their own power or prestige, but such selfish motives should not determine policy.
The moral argument against drug wars and the bad thinking based on fake claims that leads to them is stronger still. But even before considering that there has never been any sound moral defence of drug wars or of law that criminalizes the personal decisions of adults that do not directly harm or threaten to directly harm others, the purely practical benefits dictate reform to abolish the authoritarian love of the socially destructive policy whose final expression is killing drug users or dealers under cover of the law.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
