CHRONICLE
 

We don’t share goals with the harm reduction movement

At times, drug policy is as many other policies an enterprise that is rather difficult to understand. For an uninitiated it might seem that there is a lot of mere arguing and intern disputing about details around the drug issue. “Why, everybody is after the same thing”, as one of my friends put it. If it was so, then some of these discussions were indeed unnecessary.

When goals are the same, there always are some ideas how to reach them. It is necessary to agree upon a common goal in order to have a constructive discussion about methods.

“Drug issue demands resources. These resources are limited. That is why the most important is to reduce harm associated with drugs and not that the number of people using drugs decreases”, it is what Mike Trace from Beckly Foundation, one of the prominent figures of the legalisation movement, said recently at a reception.

We, who are used to easily agree that we should make our children do not try drugs, have no discussion partner there. We, who think that the entire production chain for illegal drugs needs to be fought, speak to deaf ears. Even in regard to harm reduction, which is a treacherous term, we miss each other semantically. If I would like the drug treatment’s supreme goal to aim at that an abuser should get his/her health fully back, become completely drug free and live independently, their goals are much lower than that.

We do not share the same goals and that is why any discussion about methods is worthless.

Antonio Maria Costa said that we should be able to chew gum and walk at the same time. Unfortunately, the legalisation movement manages only chew gum.

Tomas Hallberg,
Reflection after CND’s 50th Session in Vienna 12-16 March 2006

You can fool some of the people all the time
And all the people some of the time;
But you can’t fool all the people all the time
(attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Fighting organised crime in the modern sense has been on the political agenda since the beginning of the last century. An absolute majority of politicians, law enforcement agencies, and citizens in general has regarded organised crime not only as a threat to any decent society but lately also to the very fabric of society – to democracy.

Intelligence, law enforcement, and customs agencies worldwide have been responsible for combating the members of organized crime groups wherever their ugly faces have shown up. Sometimes they have been successful, sometimes not. As for the victims of organised crime, they have primarily been referred to relatives, friends, and voluntary associations to try to get whatever help and protection society failed to give them. The social welfare system is a fairly recent invention that in no way combats organised crime but in this respect, at best, tries to deal with those afflicted by organised crime.

Drug trafficking has always been a favourite business for organised crime groups, regardless of their origin or present domicile. The enormous amount of money involved in the drug trade today makes it one of the largest businesses in the world and, consequently, the top men of such enterprises have no intention to give up their business unless a natural death, a long prison sentence, a bullet in the head, or occasionally, the death penalty, puts an end to it.

Many years ago, some countries realised that fighting the supply of drugs was not enough. Hoping to find a successful solution, there was an increasing interest in trying to find ways to reduce demand for drugs as well. This “discovery” of a “balanced view” led to a worldwide discussion about possible measures resulting in various ways to deal with the problem, including anything from extensive counselling at outpatient clinics and stays at treatment centres, via distribution of methadone and subutex and, believe it or not, also heroin to caning and the death penalty.

So far, the “balanced view” has not solved the drug problem, let alone other aspects of organised crime. Basically, there is nothing wrong with this “balanced” view but without proper funding, a comprehensive strategy, and the establishment of proper instruments to carry out the ideas and the contents of the “balanced view”, it is and will remain a play to the gallery.

This, in turn, made it possible for a group of “respected” citizens, supported by active (ab)users, to come forward and give vent to the idea that the so-called “war on drugs” is lost.

In a resolution, initiated by the George Soros-supported Lindesmith Center (today the Drug Policy Alliance after a merger between The Drug Policy Foundation and Lindesmith Center), published in The New York Times in connection with the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in June 1998, signatories to the resolution said, “We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.”

Such a statement gives a clear indication that the signatories lack even basic knowledge about the mechanisms of the drug scene and the drug trade. What the signatories to the resolution are in fact saying is that all the combined effect of work carried out by parents, relatives, social welfare services, nongovernmental organisations, and law enforcement agencies “are causing more harm than drug abuse itself.” This is an outrageous and intolerable insult, and a direct attack by the signatories on what they have been asking for themselves for a long time – a “balanced view” – with support from and actions by these very groups.

It ought to be obvious to everybody by now that the signatories to the resolution are as big a part of the drug problem as those who produce and distribute the drugs. The signatories to the resolution in The New York Times, of course, have no stated links to organised crime. A majority of them claim to be well-educated academics, but obviously academic education is not always a guarantee for knowledge.

What then about the so-called “war on drugs?”

As a matter of fact, the war has not even started yet. To start a war against drugs you need to know your enemy, you need knowledge about the issues involved in the “war”, strategy, co-ordination and leadership. It is no good having one without the others. Having a leader without knowledge of the enemy and issues involved is as bad as having knowledge without being able to create a proper strategy. Unfortunately, this has too often been the case. There are too many examples where leaders have fought a pseudo-war against drugs, neglecting the real issues, due to a lack of real interest and commitment, and sometimes due to fear of breakdown in business relations or other financial consequences, of blocking a personal career, or fearing that links to the criminal groups they were supposed to fight might be revealed.

Today we are indeed in a situation where the ideas put forward in the above-mentioned resolution have created a situation where some of the people are fooled all of the time and all the people some of the time. To make sure we don’t end up in a situation where all the people are fooled all the time, knowledge is needed – knowledge instead of wishful thinking, facts instead of myths.

It seems as if we have long since passed the time when getting people off drugs was the No. 1 issue. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is advocated that everybody should be “tuned in and turned on”, but the advocates of so-called harm reduction measures certainly not only give the impression that you should not be afraid to use drugs in what they prefer to call “a safe way” – they are prepared to give you any advice to promote their “business” accordingly.

The hitch though is that there is now safe way to use drugs. The “safe way” message adds up to a gigantic lie presented under disguise of harm reduction, when instead it should be termed more properly harm production.

How can anybody who is serious about the drug problem even come up with the idea to wean heroin addicts off heroin by using heroin? It is about as intelligent as trying to cure an alcoholic with whiskey. Nevertheless, treating heroin addiction with heroin has now become state-of-the-art treatment in Switzerland, the Netherlands and some cities in Germany. This, in combination with extensive needle exchange programmes, taught techniques about “safe use” of drugs, municipal injection rooms, distribution of heroin in prisons as practised early in Switzerland – all this is called harm reduction! Would there really be any reason for any heroin addict to stop using heroin when the government provides such a total customer “service?”

Hungarian-born billionaire currency speculator George Soros, generally referred to as a philanthropist is one of the largest single financial contributors to efforts to ease drug laws. In his book, Soros on Soros, he states, “I’ll tell you what I would do if it were up to me. I would establish a strictly-controlled distribution network through which I would make most drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like crack, legally available. Initially, I would keep prices low enough to destroy the drug trade. Once that objective was attained I would keep raising the prices, very much like the excise duty on cigarettes, but I would make an exception for registered addicts in order to discourage crime. I would use a portion of the income for prevention and treatment. And I would foster social opprobrium of drug use.”

The quote is an excellent example of what happens when lack of knowledge provide the basis for strategy. It is not too difficult to figure out that the above strategy has more to do with earning money than caring about drug addicts. However, it must be pointed out that Soros’s strategy would open up marvellous business opportunities for less fussy business managers to make money. An enormous amount of money could be made by selling low-priced drugs to registered customers already dependent on drugs. It is easy to imagine that such projects would get full support from active drug (ab)users, but it is important to remember that it wouldn’t change anything for the better for drug addicts. The drug addicts would still be addicted and dependent on his drug dealer, exactly as in the old, illegal system. The only difference is that one trafficker has been substituted for another – the government. The drug(s) would still have the same effect, maybe even better as the government would be more careful when it comes to purity – keeping the addict dependent and thereby limiting his freedom.

Are organised crime groups in favour of or opposed to legalisation of drugs?

There is reason to believe that organised crime groups wouldn’t be too disappointed with Soros’s proposed system even if legalisation of drugs isn’t their No. 1 option. Like in any other business, they prefer that governments tolerate drug use, stay away from any detailed legislation, and promote “safe use” and harm reduction measures which in turn opens up additional opportunities for them, not only to continue their dirty business of selling the drugs, but also to introduce fantastic offers, including individually tailored customer services, day and evening classes to teach “safe use”, and the production of educational (i.e. promotional) material etc.

If certain or all drugs were to be legalised, trade regulated and taxed, this wouldn’t present an obstacle to organised crime groups either. Target new segments of potential customer groups, lower prices and better quality would be expected measures from organised crime groups to compete with various governments’ “legal” drug dealing.

Today we find ourselves in a situation where the old enemies – drug producers and distributors – have been joined by new enemies – those who are in fact promoting drug use by advocating “safe use”, easier access to drugs or legalisation of some or all drugs.

The old enemies have been the targets of law enforcement agencies and customs worldwide and should remain so, whereas a majority of the ignorant new enemies have to be dealt with in a variety of ways.

One of the best basic weapons is knowledge. Without knowledge you are an easy target for disinformation, lies, undue pressure, and corruption. Knowledge, based on facts – not hearsay, myths or wishful thinking – should constitute the platform for strategies to deal with organised crime groups as well as educating those who still nourish the vain hope that drug addiction can be cured by making illegal drugs legal.

ECAD, 17 January 2007

San Patrignano 2005: FEI - European Jumping Championship at the rehabilitation community for former drug addicts! In co-operation with ECAD: Read more here!

Drug policy – there is always more than one alternative

Tomas Hallberg, Director ECAD, puts “drug injection site” issue into a historical perspective and urges to see a drug abuse problem in its complexity.

Some time ago I got a phone call from a Canadian journalist who asked me about ECAD’s view on injection sites. We are categorically against them, I told him, and that is one of the very reasons ECAD was launched. But what is to be done then with all those drug addicts who are drifting about downtown and spreading infections and endangering their health? The question was put as if other alternatives didn’t exist. It is fascinating how we, in our globalized world, still have such a narrow view of the reality, that our own hometown practices always seem the best and the only possible ones.
Furthermore there is an impressive number of those who keep inventing the wheel again and again.
When the advocates of harm reduction tell us that we need to legalize illegal drugs and open municipal injection sites, it is simply a repetition of what went on in many places in the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, those places were called opium dens, where millions of addicts smoked their lives away.
Possession, sale and production of drugs were legal. The opium production was six times higher in the world hundred years ago, while the population was only a sixth of what it is now. At that time, when the international community first started to co-operate to combat narcotic drugs, drug abuse in many parts of the world was more widely spread than it is today.
Already early on (during the first American experiment in the Philippines in 1905), drug addicts were given drugs according to the so called maintenance philosophy. The results turned out to be less than satisfactory, and the last clinics where doctors could prescribe drugs to drug addicts in USA were closed down in 1925. At the most, 13,000 drug addicts were registered at these clinics in USA at the same time. Some 25 years later, in 1950, similar treatment was launched in USA, but this time with methadone instead of heroin.Historically, all major drug epidemics have coincided with liberal drug policies and/or with lack of control: China in the 19th century, Japan in the late 1940s, USA between 1840 – 1914, Sweden in 1965 – 1967, Russia in the 1990s.
There are various factors that influence the size of the drug problem in a society.
Financial factors, some say. If so, how do you explain the fact that two of the richest countries in the world, Norway and Switzerland, have considerably bigger drug problems than Sweden?Decisive of the size of the drug problem is the chosen drug policy. Drug policy can be changed but it takes time. Even a 10-year perspective may be too short sometimes.
All methods used within the framework of the chosen drug policy should be seen in this light. What are the effects of the methods in the long run? How can we adults convince young people that drugs are dangerous, when at the same time other adults claim that they are harmless? Surely it must mean that they are harmless if there are ”safe injection sites”? Why should a drug addict try to stop, if nobody around thinks it is possible? Isn’t it the worst sort of stigmatization to open a special site for drug injection to clean up the city so that ”ordinary people” don’t need to see the misery?
The concept of gathering people with the same problems to the same place and assist them to administer their drug addiction is deeply inhumane. When the society besides takes it for granted that a citizen doesn’t have any responsibility for himself, you take away half of his human dignity. Having only rights and no obligations doesn’t constitute a full membership of the society. Full members of the society are expected to take responsibility for the environment, for equality, for fight against child labor and terrorism and so on. Conscious members of the society don’t buy ivory, or furniture made of endangered rain forests.
What about the heroin addict’s responsibility then? Are visitors of injection sites at all made accountable for directly, or in the second, third, fourth hand, financing corrupt regimes, organized crime syndicates and terror networks?

There are plenty of heroin abusers who have risen from the quagmire of addiction, and lead normal lives. Go to any NA meeting or visit San Patrignano in Italy if you have lost hope. San Patrignano, the largest treatment community in Europe, shows very high figures of abstinence after concluded treatment. The University of Bologna has evaluated the results, and according to them, over 70 per cent of the former addicts, most of them heroin addicts, are still drug free four years after they have left the community.

Tomas Hallberg,
17 October 2006

Björn Ericson, Colm Burke (Lord Mayor of Cork), Barry Galvin

in Swedish

Criminal Assets Bureau in Ireland

Criminal Assets Bureau, or CAB for short, is a success story, maintains one of its founders Barry Galvin from Cork at a meeting with the deputy prosecutor general of Sweden, Björn Ericson. Galvin, who now has left the bureau, was one of the front figures of CAD, and one of the few who exposed his face in public. When the bureau was launched in 1996, he lined out the action plan and led the work.

- It all happened very quickly, says Galvin. It took only a couple of weeks from a proposal to the decision making to set up the bureau. We worked under hard pressure from the very start and continued to do so. The explanation for the quick and spectacular launch of the bureau was the public crisis of confidence in the justice system in Ireland in the summer of 1996.

The public sentiment was provoked by two murders committed within a few weeks time; the first of a police officer, the second of a journalist. Both had worked against organised crime and both posed a threat to the criminals' activities. Above all it was the murder of the journalist Veronica Guerin which caused a public outrage. In numerous articles she had challenged well-known criminals, written about their activities, followed them to their homes and faced them with compromising questions. Although having been assaulted and threatened, she stated publicly that she would never give up. The organised criminals on the other hand threatened to kill her if she did not stop to report on their trade.
Guerin was assassinated with 6 shots at close range by two men on a motorbike.
Her assassination led to a massive outcry from above all the media, demanding that the politicians take measures against these criminals who lived in fancy houses, drove expensive cars and flagrantly challenged the society.
Galvin together with his colleagues soon realized that actually there was only need for one new piece of legislation, namely to bring in civil confiscation and put the Bureau on a statutory basis for free exchange of information. What was needed most was co-ordination between a number of authorities. In order to effectively combat the drug barons, their weakest point should be attacked. To take their money became the watchword, and thus the Criminal Assets Bureau was born.

Some 50 persons were recruited from various authorities and placed in Dublin with all of Ireland as their working field. Their number included highly qualified specialists from Revenue authorities, the police, the customs, social welfare and legal back-up, and they started to use all legal means available to confiscate illegally gained assets.
To avoid drowning in cases, a lower limit of 13.000 euros was set to open an investigation.
An area of great success turned out to be revenue legislation. In Ireland there is a general 45 % tax on all income, including illegal income. The Irish taxation law also has a reversed burden of proof. It is the person liable for taxation who has to prove or make it believable that he has honestly earned his assets.

- CAB is by no means cheap, but it is money well spent, Galvin emphasizes. During these past years it has cost some 25 million euros to run the bureau, but that should be compared with the 100 millions confiscated from criminals.

CAB has successfully investigated 350 heavy criminals in some 300 cases. To take a comparison from the world of sport, if we earlier went after Manchester United players, we now chase the bottom division, continues Galvin. The big drug traffickers and organised crime bosses no longer live openly in Ireland.

- Another positive side-effect is that the general public's confidence in the justice system has increased, Galvin concludes. Before CAB, the police landed on the 3-4 bottom places regarding public confidence in various professionals. After one and a half year with CAB, confidence in the police was second only to the nurses.

 
 
 
 
 
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