[APPLAUSE]
JEMIMA KHAN: Good evening to all
of you here in London and
to everyone that's joining
us from around the world.
I'm Jemima Khan from
Intelligence Squared.
Welcome to the fist in our
series of Google Plus Versus
Debates organized by
Intelligence Squared.
I'm now going to go backstage
where we'll be fielding
questions from you in the
audience and you on the web.
And now please welcome
our chair for the
evening, Emily Maitlis.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY MAITLIS: Thank you
very much, thank you.
Good evening, good evening
ladies and gentlemen.
Tonight the big question is
whether or not we should be
calling an end to the
war on drugs.
To debate this, we've assembled
the cast the world
needs to hear from.
We have former presidents
of nations on the front
line of this war.
We have leading spokesmen and
women on the subject.
We have Richard Branson, Louise
Arbour, the former head
of The United Nations Office
on drugs and crime, Antonio
Maria Costa, we have the
actor, Russell Brand.
We have the activist,
Julian Assange.
We have law enforcement
specialists.
We have experts and writers
on the subject.
Now as you know, some of our
speakers are with us here at
King's Place in London.
Others are going to be joining
us via Google's new Hangout
Technology.
Wherever you are, you'll get
the chance to put your
questions to the speakers.
If you're in the hall you can
text your questions to the
number on the handout sheet
that you've been given.
If you're on the web, enter your
question, and remember to
tell us who you're addressing it
to, also, if you can, where
you're from.
Jemima, our audience rep, will
be sifting through the
messages, your thoughts,
your questions in real
time on the hang out.
And your vote is, of
course, crucial.
So as with all Intelligence
Squared debates, we've already
asked you to vote, either in
the hall here or online.
In a short while I'll
be announcing the
result of that pre-vote.
Then at the very end of the
debates, when you've had a
chance to listen to both sides,
we'll be asking you to
vote again.
For those of you here in London
they'll be a ballot box
which will come around about 10
minutes before the end of
the debates, and you just need
to tear the ticket in two.
Use the for or against half to
put it in the ballot box.
And if you still haven't
made up your
minds, that's fine too.
Just put the whole ticket
back into the box.
Let us get into the meat
of the subject, then.
And the motion tonight
is, it's time to
end the war on drugs.
That war, declared by President
Nixon over 40 years
ago, and involves agreements
by all the countries of the
world that they will prosecute,
punish drug takers,
suppliers, and producers.
Has it worked?
Does it still do more
good than harm?
Is there any reasonable
alternative?
So is it time to end
the war on drugs?
Well to frame this evening's
discussion, please welcome,
first up, the president of
Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos.
[APPLAUSE]
JUAN MANUEL SANTOS: Good evening
to everyone around the
world watching this event.
The first Google Plus Versus,
I think it's called, Debate
organized by Intelligence
Squared.
The subject under discussion
is one of worldwide
importance.
And it's going to be debated
in true democratic fashion,
not just by international
speakers, but also by a huge
audience watching all over the
world, who have a chance to
listen to all the arguments
and make up their minds.
More than 40 years ago,
President Richard Nixon
declared the war on drugs.
Since then, we have been
fighting against this global
problem, but at a great cost.
Sometimes we feel that we have
been peddling on a
static bicycle.
You look right, you look
left, yet you always
see the same landscape.
Demand for drugs keeps
rising and,
obviously, supply follows.
That is why we think it is
time to have an in-depth
discussion about
this situation.
We believe that we must look
at all the possible
alternatives to face this
huge challenge in a
more effective way.
All, I repeat all the options
must be considered through a
non-ideological,
non-politicized, rigorous,
evidence-based discussion over
the costs and benefits of each
alternative.
The scientists and the experts
must be the ones that do the
analysis and the research, and
lead the discussion, which I
hope, all nations concerned
should participate--
especially the largest consumer
and the largest
producer countries.
In Colombia we have been,
I would say, relatively
successful.
We have made great progress in
reducing coca cultivation and
in fighting the traffic
of drugs.
We have dismantled the once
all-powerful cartels.
But we have also paid a very
high cost. We have lost our
best judges, our best
journalist, our best
politicians, our best policemen,
our best soldiers.
But the problem has not
disappeared, and our success
has meant that it- this
problem has now
moved to other countries.
So we don't think it is our
responsibility to determine if
we are doing the best
we can, or if
there are better options.
I think it is time to be
creative and open-minded.
We need to address the real
root causes of the
consumption of drugs.
I have said Colombia cannot and
will not act unilaterally.
A new international consensus
is needed.
Because this is a global
problem, and
therefore must have--
it must have a global
solution.
EMILY MAITLIS: We heard there
from president Santos of
Columbia talking about a need to
be creative and to be open
minded, but warning that
Colombia could not act
unilaterally.
Well now to kick off the debate
itself, welcome our
first orator.
In favor of relaxing drug
control, Misha Glenny.
[APPLAUSE]
MISHA GLENNY: The war
on drugs has failed.
It just doesn't work.
40 years after Richard Nixon
launched this senseless
campaign, drugs are more
available than ever, they're
more powerful than ever.
And let's talk a little about
the unintended consequences of
the war on drugs.
And for this I want to quote
an expert in the field, who
writes of a huge criminal black
market that now thrives
to get prohibited substances
from producers to consumers.
The author of that quote, why
it's none other than my
opponent this evening, Antonio
Maria Costa, so even those who
prosecuted the war on drugs
recognize the terrible damage
that it inflicts.
But I want to introduce you to
some of his most resolute
allies, members of a major
marijuana trafficking
syndicate, that I got to know
while I was researching my
book on global organized
crime mafia.
These narco-traffickers support
the war on drugs.
The very guys that we're
spending billions trying to
track down every year want
the policy to continue.
Why?
Because they're making so much
money from an unregulated,
illicit market.
And they are so confident that
they'll never get busted, that
they'd be crazy to switch to
an alternative which would
regulate them, which would tax
them, and perhaps pay for
public health services.
What about the unintended
consequences for public health?
Well, in a regulated market,
governments can protect people
from the deadliest ingredients
of narcotics.
But by refusing to regulate,
governments allow our young
people, for example, to snort
cocaine which is cut with rat
poison or with fiberglass.
That is not protecting
our young people,
that is killing them.
And talking about killing, let's
think for a moment of
the tens of thousands of
innocent victims in Mexico,
Afghanistan, and elsewhere,
whose deaths are the
consequence of the unintended
consequences
of the war on drugs.
Why do so many Latin American
leaders now insist to end the
war on drugs?
It's because it's their
compatriots who are paying
with their lives for a policy of
prohibition which The West
can't even enforce.
Oh yes, law enforcement.
Now this evening you may hear
some witnesses from the other
side who will say that the
reason what war on drugs isn't
working is simply because we
don't put enough police
resources into it.
The UN says that to make this
business unprofitable, then we
would have to block
75% of the trade.
The current estimate
between 20 and 30%.
It's not even close.
If you want to have the
requisite police forces to do
something about the war on
drugs, to make it successful,
I'm afraid you'll have
to go to North Korea.
You know recently I was talking
to a senior official
of the British foreign office.
And he said to me, when they
look back in 100 years time,
will they see this policy
for what it is, The
emperor's new clothes?
The time has come for this
immoral, for this inhumane,
and this irrational
policy to stop.
Because the emperor is not
a only stark naked, he's
drenched in blood from
head to toe.
So please join in me in
demanding an end to this
senseless war on drugs.
Thank you.
EMILY MAITLIS: Thanks, Misha,
now please welcome the orator
in favor of retaining drug
control, Antonio Maria Costa.
You have four minutes,
Antonio.
[APPLAUSE]
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA:
Good evening.
Good evening.
Ladies and gentlemen, forget
about the war on drugs, jargon
I never used.
The motion tonight is not about
war or peace, it's about
drug legalization.
And this motion must be opposed
for many reasons.
The first reason is factual.
For over a century now,
countries have unanimously
agreed that drugs are dangerous
to health, and must
be controlled.
Without doubt, over time
controls on drugs has
protected our health.
Listen to the numbers.
Tobacco, Misha this is
a good example--
or a bad example of a
regulated market.
Tobacco is consumed by one third
of humanity, and kills
five million people year.
Alcohol, regulated in Muslim
countries otherwise free, is
consumed by a quarter of
humanity, and kills 2 and 1/2
million people.
Drugs, cocaine, amphetamines,
et cetera, are universally
controlled and are consumed
by a fraction of humanity.
Less than 5% admit to using it
once a year, which is a very
broad definition.
Drugs kill 500,000 people a
year, 1/10 of people than
killed by the regulated market
Misha mentioned, tobacco.
My next point is about crime.
And I confirm what I said,
and I will say it again.
Drug prohibition has
caused crime.
We must fight it, but not with
the simplistic argument,
legalize drugs, and crime
will disappear.
Please, Misha the world is not
flat with only two dimensions,
drugs and crime.
What about health?
I said and repeat that
legalization will
cause a drug epidemic.
And I gave you the evidence, not
based on the common-sense
notion that greater availability
of anything,
drugs or anything else,
causes great use, and
in this case addiction.
There is something much, much
more sinister around here.
Behind posh meetings like
tonight are big investors, in
the expectation that drugs,
one day, will be legal.
And I have in mind bankers and
venture capitalists and
pharmaceutical companies.
They are all developing drug
brands and marketing plans
ready to enter the
drug market.
Just Google their names, and you
will discover that in the
future there will be no
more drug mafias--
Misha's expectation.
But why collar drug investors?
The pro-drug coalition can even
count on politicians who
expect tax revenue from drugs,
it was mentioned before.
The tax revenue from drugs--
think of California and
a referendum there.
Drug legalization was even
suggested to Greece-- was even
suggested to Greece to
avoid bankruptcy.
In short, after financial
crisis, home foreclosures, job
losses, the world does not need
addiction and death for
drug legalization.
Ladies and gentleman, drug
legalization is privatization
of investors gain
and socializing
of our health losses.
The 1% strikes again.
I conclude with a third point,
very briefly chair.
Governments need to protect
both health and security.
Therefore rather than legalizing
drugs, which is an
easy way out, I invite leaders
to show political courage.
First, treat addiction as an
illness, send the addicts to
hospitals rather
than to jails.
Second fight corruption, the
main lubricant to drug crime.
Mexico is a good example,
President Fox.
It ranks 99th in The World
Index of Integrity.
How can a corrupt country
fight crime?
And of course, oppose
money laundering.
Think of the Wachovia bank in
New York, caught recycling,
last year, 480 million dollars
of Mexican drug money.
And they were not
even indicted!
Governor Spitzer, you better
go back to New York fast.
Ladies and gentlemen, stand
united against this threat to
health, and vote against the
motion to legalize drugs.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY MAITLIS: Thank you
very much, Antonio.
Now before we continue with the
debate, I'm going to read
out the result of the
pre-vote on the web.
Now there we have 92% of you
in favor of the motion-- in
favor, that is of ending
the war on drugs.
3% were against on the web, 5%
abstained or didn't know.
Here in the hall a rather
different picture, but perhaps
a similar reflection--
60% for, 15% against, 25% of
you right in the hall have
abstained or said
you didn't know.
Remember, we're looking for
the change that we see, if
there is any, at the end of
the night after debate.
We're going to move on to the
next stage of the debate in
which our two advocates on
either side of the argument
are going to question our
eminent witnesses.
Now the stage will be divided
into three separate acts, each
devoted to a major theme
relating to the war on drugs.
And we start with this, end the
war on drugs to break the
power of the drug cartels
and release
their grip on politics.
I'm going to hand over, first of
all, to Geoffrey Robertson
QC, the advocate for the motion
it's time to end the
war on drugs.
The floor is yours, Geoffrey.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC:
Thank you, Emily.
In 1971 Richard Millhous Nixon
declared a war on drugs with
the words, and I quote, it will
achieve a drug free world.
Has it, Richard Branson?
RICHARD BRANSON: No it hasn't.
It's filled our prisons, it's
not cut down the usage, it's
cost millions in taxpayer's
dollars, it's fueled organized
crime, and its basically been
an unmitigated failure.
The problem's got worse and
worse every decade.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Mm-hm.
In one of Mr. Costa's reports,
recently, he said the 250
million people take
illicit drugs.
Less than 10% have any
problems with it.
So that rather means about 225
million people take drugs for
pleasure or to relieve pain.
Are they the enemy?
RICHARD BRANSON: No, no
they're not the enemy.
I mean, I just want to make
clear that I'm part of
something called the Global Drug
Commission, which has got
people like Kofi Annan and Paul
Walker and George Shultz
and 15 ex-South American
presidents.
And they looked at the whole
war on drugs in the last 40
years, 50 years and
realized that it
certainly hadn't worked.
And what they said was, don't
necessarily legalize it.
I mean I don't know why--
why he's saying that we've
gone from, has the war on
drugs worked to it we're
advocated legalizing it.
They said, don't necessarily
legalize it--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Well
they're trying to change the
nature of the debate.
Mr. Costa wouldn't even mention
the war on drugs.
He's pretending that this is a
debate about whether all drugs
should be legalized.
Is that-- is that
your position?
RICHARD BRANSON: So what the
commission said, and was an
experiment with different
approaches.
In Portugal, 10 years ago, they
decriminalized drugs and
not one person has
gone to prison.
And as a result, they help
people who've got--
who are on heroin.
They give them methadone, they
give them clean needles, and
they've managed to reduce
the amount of
heroin addicts by 50%.
They have managed to stop people
breaking and entering--
an enormous percentage of
less people are now
breaking and entering.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: And
what about young people--
people under 18, that's
gone down.
RICHARD BRANSON: That's gone
down I believe on all drugs.
But, anyways--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC:
and any sign of use--
RICHARD BRANSON: The most
important thing is there's no
sign, no sign of, you know, a
major increase in a problem in
any sectors.
And--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: And no
sign of big corporations
making money out of it?
RICHARD BRANSON: No-no, so all
they've simply done is
decriminalize.
Now that-- that is one approach
that I think would
get rid of--
it basically means that if my
brother or sister or my
children have a drug problem, I
do not want to go to prison.
I want to be helped.
And I think that survey, which
talked about 97% of people
believe the war on drugs
has failed, everybody--
a lot of people in this
world are looking for
an alternative approach.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Mm-hm.
When you want to change your
mood, do you have a drug?
RICHARD BRANSON: Well I'm afraid
I drink alcohol, which
Lansit says is worse
than marijuana.
I know that the current
president
of America has smoked.
I know--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Barack
Obama, Bill Clinton--
RICHARD BRANSON: Bill Clinton,
he didn't inhale, I believe.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC:
No, though-uh--
you don't inhale
hash brownies.
[LAUGHING]
RICHARD BRANSON: Steve--
Steve Jobs-- we might not have
had the iPad if he'd been
arrested for the kinds of
drugs he's taken in his
lifetime, so--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: If Steve
Jobs had been arrested
for his LSD use, they wouldn't
have the iPad.
RICHARD BRANSON: They-um, but
anyway, obviously the war on
drugs is as ass.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Mm-hm,
and we've got Russell Brand,
have we not, hanging out?
RUSSELL BRAND: Hello.
[LAUGHING]
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC:
Hello, Russell, what
do you make of this?
Should we end the
war on drugs?
RUSSELL BRAND: I don't
think having wars on
anything is a solution.
I think that even in the
nomenclature if declaring war
against a problem,
you exacerbate
and enhance the problem.
I'm a recovering drug addict,
and know that drug addiction
is an illness.
It's a disease.
So by criminalizing that, you
criminalize a huge percentage
of the population.
You malign them and stigmatize
them, you generate more crime,
you create a criminal culture.
And speaking from the
perspective of a sufferer,
it's simply not helpful.
You feel like that
you're outside of
the mainstream culture.
You and Richard made some
interesting points about
influential figures, I mean
the president the United
States, he's kind of
influential, Steve Jobs, he's
kind of influential, that
have used drugs--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Russell
Brand, too, what was your drug
of choice, Russell?
RUSSELL BRAND: I don't know
if it was a choice.
That's the nature
of the disease.
I used a lot of heroin, I used
a lot of crack, I used a lot
of marijuana, I used
a lot of alcohol.
And I think, regardless of the
state of legislation that is
prescribed for the drug,
I think they--
I don't think that drugs
are not dangerous.
I don't think people should
be taking drugs.
I think the country--
I don't to take drugs,
I don't drink.
But I think by treating it as a
crime instead of trading at
an illness, we have the
wrong perspective.
I think we need to behave
altruistically and
compassionately towards
people that are ill.
And I think that then we can
systematically affect our
society more positively.
I think the minute you say that
someone is a criminal,
you ostracize them.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: OK so,
ha, you're not the enemy.
RUSSELL BRAND: I don't think
we should regard anyone as
enemies or villains within our
culture, certainly not people
that have got drug problems.
I think that we need to be
inclusive and tolerant.
And this is from my-- just for
my own experiences as a
suffering drug addict.
I think more inclusive to host
culture is, the better we can
resolve these problems.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Russell
thanks very much
for being with us.
RUSSELL BRAND: Ciao!
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC:
We have now got--
[LAUGHING]
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: We now
have hanging out Vicente Fox,
the former president
of Mexico.
Can you hear me, Vicente?
VICENTE FOX: Yes, very clear.
Hello to everybody.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Thank
you for joining us.
You were the democratically
elected president of Mexico in
the year 2000.
You said when you started,
the war on drugs is
mother of all battles.
How do you feel about it now?
VICENTE FOX: Well, uh, I feel
that in the case of Mexico,
it's most urgent that
we stop the war--
that we need to reach peace.
Because from peaceful and
helpful and joyful and
hilarious is the only way that
human beings perform at their
very best.
So we have to stop the war
that has caused close to
60,000 young kids killed, 15,
25-year-olds among them, Many
innocents among them, over
hundreds of policemen and
hundreds of military.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: is
there a real climate--
is there a climate of fear in
Mexico today, because of the
war on drugs?
VICENTE FOX: It's the lost and
the cost is incredible.
They're starting with the fear
that has caused loss of hope
for the future.
Our young can not even
think about a future.
They want this war
to be stopped.
Number two, this war has caused
a strong and heavy
economic burden on the
development of the mission.
The loss of tourism, the loss
of foreign investment, the
loss of our face of growth.
There is my friend, Hernando
Enrique Cardoso, when I was
president, Mexican economy was
25% larger than Brazilian.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC: Mm-hm.
VICENTE FOX: And today,
Brazilian economy is 50%
larger than Mexican economy.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ:
I just want to--
I'm going to come back to you,
but you've come under pressure
from the White House haven't
you, in 2006, not to
decriminalize small amounts
of cocaine and cannabis?
VICENTE FOX: Well, uh, of course
Mexico's consumption of
drugs is not penalized.
United States' consumption
of drugs is penalized.
And millions of consumers in
that nation are working on the
street without nobody making
them responsible for, what
they call, a crime.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ: President
Fox, I'm going to
come back to you later.
But because of our shortness
of time, I'm
going to you, Johan.
Is this is just a metaphor, war
on drugs, or are people
being hurt?
JOHANN HARI: No, it's not like
the war on poverty, which is a
politician's metaphor, this is
an actual war fought with
actual guns just as much
as Vietnam or Iraq.
And it's really important to
explain the mechanism by which
that happens.
When you criminalize
a really popular
substance, it doesn't vanish.
You transfer control from
doctors and pharmacists to
armed criminal gangs.
Those armed criminal gangs have
no way of establishing
contracts, they don't
have franchises--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ: Are they
quaking in their boots,
the cartels?
JOHANN HARI: On the contrary,
we know that they are
absolutely on the side of
maintaining the war on drugs.
Jorge Ramon, the head of La
Mafia Cruenza, was caught on
wiretap saying, this war is an
absolute sham that keeps all
of us in business.
Everyone watching this should
know that the cartel bosses
watching tonight have definitely
got a side in this
debate, And it ain't ours.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ: Right,
what about other authorities--
what about other authoritarian
countries?
What about China,
what do they do?
JOHANN HARI: Well we know that
any country that enforces the
war on drugs has a significant
rise in the homicide rate,
which is really important
to understand.
After alcohol prohibition ended
in the United States,
the homicide rate fell by 20%,
and never rose again to the
same numbers again until
prohibition was enforces in
the 1970's.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ: Very
quickly, China and Russia,
please, to end.
JOHANN HARI: Sure, well China
is currently, as we speak,
detaining half a million
addicts in what are
effectively gulags, torture is
absolutely widespread, there
are forced labor camps, that's
the face of the war on drugs
in the largest country
in the world.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ: And what
about Russia, finally?
JOHANN HARI: Well Russia is
following the Chinese model,
absolutely.
And it's the reason why Russia
has the highest HIV rate--
fastest-rising rising HIV
rate in the world.
Because when you crack down
really hard on heroin addicts,
they hide their needles,
they throw them
away and share them.
The war on drugs is the biggest
friend that the HIV
virus ever had.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ:
Johann, thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Geoffrey
Robertson and witnesses, thank
you all very much, indeed.
[APPLAUSE]
FEMALE SPEAKER: I'm now going
to invite Eliot Spitzer, the
advocate against tonight's
motion, it's time to end the
war on drugs.
Eliot, approach your
witnesses.
ELIOT SPITZER: Let me invite
general McCaffrey up.
General you, just to set the
stage and so everybody
understands, not only a general
in the United States
Army, which is, not to continue
the metaphor of war,
but also were in charge of drug
policy during President
Clinton's presidency,
is that correct?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Yeah, and
I've continued since then
being heavily involved in
prevention, primarily, but
also drug and alcohol treatment
programs throughout
the United States.
I try to be supportive of the
National Institute of Health
Research Programs. I'm
still very much
engaged in the issue.
Governor Spitzer, if I can,
let me just begin by
complementing--
ELIOT SPITZER: Absolutely.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: --Antonio
Maria Costa on his comments.
They really summarize nicely
what we're talking about.
There's no reason for us to
debate whether we're either
going to prohibit major drug
cartels for murdering 60,000
Mexicans, or the other and
having effective prevention
education programs reducing the
consumption of alcohol and
illegal drugs by adolescents
from the sixth to the eighth
grade
And trying to deal rationally
with a medical model on
dealing with, in the United
States, 307 million of us,
probably 16 million of
us have a chronic
substance abuse problem.
So the underlined one data point
we've got to get on the
table in United States, which
frequently will be mentioned
in this debate, we have reduced
drug consumption by a
third in the last
three decades.
Cocaine use is down by some 43%,
Meth use has been cut in
half, if you're in high tech
industry, in the armed forces,
et cetera, we have
minimal drug use.
ELIOT SPITZER: General,
let me--
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: The bottom
line is, what I support is
prevention and education, and
effective drug treatment while
remaining adamant that we will
confront international crime
and the production of drugs.
ELIOT SPITZER: Well general you
have given a stupendous
summary of what the primary
objectives are, and I just
want to make it clear, when
you listen to the powerful
statements from Richard Branson
and the others, we do
not oppose any of what they were
suggesting in terms of
prevention, in terms
of treatment--
do you-- do we in the United
States send users to jail
merely because their users?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Look, I've
been in half the jails and
prisons in America.
We have a disgracefully high
incarceration rate, I might
add, probably 2.1 million
people behind bars.
I'm heavily involved in the
inadequate treatment capacity
we've built.
We've got about 3 and 1/2
million people in treatment--
way under what the
requirement is.
But as a general statement, if I
walked out the front door of
this beautiful resort hotel,
smoking a doobie, it would be
almost impossible to get
arrested for God sakes, never
mind prosecuted and jailed.
You end up behind bars, I'd say
80% of the people behind
bars have an alcohol or drug
problem, cause I was breaking
into your house, or stealing
your car, or doing male street
prostitution.
In fact people behind bars are
not arrested and jailed for
possession of two joints.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: So just so it
is clear and time is short,
we have to apportion among many
witnesses, and having
spent many years as
a prosecutor--
I am the governor of a state
overseeing a huge prison
system, we do not incarcerate
just for use.
It is the violence that attends
that use that sends
people to jail.
We treat users, is
that correct?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY:
Without question.
Again, and I go back to
real-world law enforcement
prosecutors, jails, that
isn't the problem.
The problem.
The problem with heroin and
methamphetamines and rohypnol,
isn't whether they're legal or
illegal, its that they're
ferociously addictive.
And you end up with medical,
social, work-related problems.
You end up chronically addicted,
then your life is
abject misery.
ELIOT SPITZER: OK, General--
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: We're going
to get you into recovering,
and we know how to do it.
ELIOT SPITZER: General, I'm
going to come back to you in
the subsequent chapters here.
We are going to pursue in
particular why-- and we will
not use the metaphor of the war,
it is the wrong metaphor.
We do not disagree you Richard
about prevention and dealing
with users.
We're going to come back
to kids in particular.
Ed Vulliami, I want to ask you
if, since the topic of the
first chapter was the cartels,
what in your view would be the
single best way to go
right at the blood
stream of those cartels.
ED VULLIAMI: The one thing
which stands a chance of
throttling the whole--
all of misery that's been
discussed on both sides of
this argument.
You stop the swill of blood
money from the cartels--
ELIOT SPITZER: And
how do you do it?
ED VULLIAMI: --Gratefully
received by the real cartels,
which is the international
banking system.
ELIOT SPITZER: And
how do you do it?
ED VULLIAMI: Antonio Maria
Costa has referred to the
Wachovia case.
It was a rare glimpse of how
all this works, 110 million
dollars, small change.
That's just-- that was just
direct drug money.
376 billion dollars, medium
sized bank, four years, a lot
of money, improperly--
improperly taken, not from a
banking system in Mexico, but
little holes in the whole.
Casas de Cambio,
they're called.
Nobody goes to jail, they get a
gentle rap on the knuckles,
they're in the clear.
ELIOT SPITZER: So--
ED VULLIAMI: You stop that.
If this thing didn't make any
money for anybody, whether
it's the cartels now--
ELIOT SPITZER: That clock
is going to run down.
I'm going to need to
interrupt you.
ED VULLIAMI: --or the
pharmaceutical companies that
will take it over if the other
side wins this argument.
Then it's not going to work.
You throttle the money,
go after the money.
We want to see the rattle
of the handcuffs in the
boardroom, and the bankers
in the cells,
not the poor addicts.
ELIOT SPITZER: All right,
stop, stop right there.
Now listen.
[APPLAUSE]
ED VULLIAMI: I'll stop.
ELIOT SPITZER: You're right.
We got to turn off this spigot
of blood money, and we have
lousy prosecutors who have no
backbone who aren't doing it.
But if we legalized these drugs,
which is what they're
saying, what would happen
to consumption?
[CHATTER]
ELIOT SPITZER: You'll get
your chance, sir.
ED VULLIAMI: What we have is
a political class which has
prostituted to the banking
system, and doesn't have the
guts to take on the--
ELIOT SPITZER: All right,
we can stop the blood.
All right now let's come
back to Portugal.
ED VULLIAMI: What happens--
ELIOT SPITZER: Ted, Ted,
hold on one second.
Ted, I want to come to you.
Give us your credentials, for
a second, Ed will be back.
THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Well
first of all, I was a--
I'm a doctor, and I worked in
a prison for many years, and
in a hospital in a poor area
of a British city.
ELIOT SPITZER: And tell
us what the lesson of
Portugal really is?
THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Well
it's difficult to say
what the lesson is.
First of all the war on drugs in
Portugal, if that's what is
the metaphor that you want to
use, and I think it's an
absurd metaphor, as always.
ELIOT SPITZER: We all
agree on that.
THEODORE DALRYMPLE: The first
thing is it hasn't stopped,
because it's not legal to
distribute drugs, it's not
legal to import them
or produce them.
That's the first thing.
So they've only legalized a
small amount of possession--
possession of a small amount.
Actually the crime rate
has increased.
It's not true that breaking
and entering has reduced.
It's actually increased
slightly.
I'm not saying it's increased
because of it, but it is not
true that the relationship
between crime and drugs is as
simple as presented.
ELIOT SPITZER: All right now,
we're going to come back to
you also later, because this
issue of Portugal is
critically important in terms
of learning the lessons.
But I want to go to Sandeep
Chawla who is
also from the UN.
Sandeep, let me ask you this.
You have studied drug
issues, you're up
there on the hang up.
Where are you?
You're up there.
No, that's General McCaffrey.
Sandeep, answer this
question for me.
If we were to increase the
access to drugs, do you think
that use would go
up or go down?
SANDEEP CHAWLA: I think--
I think use would definitely
go up as would
public health costs.
So while crime rates may come
down, public health costs and
use would definitely go up.
You've had the evidence of
alcohol and tobacco, you can
have it again for many other
substances like this where use
would go up.
So what we are looking to do
here is, we do not need to
stop the war on drug cartels
and trafficers.
But we do we need to stop
the war on drug users.
And we need to treat them.
So we all agree on that.
And everybody on both sides of
this is agreed that we need to
treat those who are users, but
continue the prosecution of
those who distribute and grow.
And you just said if use goes
up when you decriminalize,
does that mean addiction among
kids would go up as well?
SANDEEP CHAWLA: If that's a
question to me, yes I think it
probably would.
Because all the evidence tells
us that the largest amount of
experimentation with substance
use, with substance abuse,
with psychoactive drugs
is with people in
their younger ages.
And as you get older, the
tendency to reduce
consumption, call it an
age-containment effect if you
like, tends to happen.
So there is a greater tendency
in the young years to
experiment more with
substances.
So it's likely that any kind of
easing in availability will
increase use levels,
particularly among young people.
ELIOT SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
So if there's one imperative
here, which is to make sure
kids do not become addicts, then
making it easier to get
access to drugs, just as was
the case with tobacco and
alcohol, we will have more
kids who are addicts.
Is that correct?
SANDEEP CHAWLA: Yes I
think it's probably
likely that is the case.
And every other attempt to find
analogies, for instance
any kind of system in which you
would regulate the use of
of the currently illicit drugs
and remove prohibition, there
are several countries in the
world, for instance the United
States at the moment, which have
an upcoming epidemic with
prescription pharmaceutical
drugs.
And these are already regulated
and controlled, and
yet there's an epidemic
with them.
So it's perfectly likely that
you make availability easy,
you regulate it likely, and use
will go up, just the way
as it has done with alcohol and
tobacco over the years.
And now we are trying
to stop the
prescription drug epidemic.
We are trying to develop
grassroots movements against
tobacco consumption.
Do we really want to set the
clock back, and try and
lighten the regulation
we have these drugs?
I think the trick is to do
both of the health and
prohibition together.
And I think the trick is to
remember the fact that we have
in 50 years made mistakes,
because we put law enforcement
into prohibition, and we forgot
about public health.
ELIOT SPITZER: Sandeep,
Sandeep, our--
our time is up.
We don't want to overrun.
Thank you, sir.
That was a perfect answer.
I appreciate it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: And thank
you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
FEMALE SPEAKER: And thanks
to all the witnesses.
We come into a slightly more
freewheeling point in the
debate, when voices from the
panel and the audience can
join the debate.
And I'm going to start off--
I know we lose Russell Brand
very shortly, so perhaps we
should just take a response
to you first
of all Russell Brand.
You heard from Sandeep Chawla
there that drug use would go
up as a result of an end
to the war on drugs.
Can you--
RUSSELL BRAND: Well, yes, I
suppose it's kind of obvious
that if something is more freely
available, more people
would do it.
If we all lived in Willy Wonka's
chocolate factory,
perhaps we would eat
more chocolate.
But what I'm saying is, the
situation they're describing
is the one that currently
exists.
There is already prohibition
against drugs, and it
candidly, palpably, obviously
isn't working.
And also, there's no problem
with taking-- with people
taking drugs if they're
not drug addicts.
If people don't have a drug
problem, let them take drugs.
The problem is some people have
defective personalities,
like me, like if they take
drugs, it's problematic.
And if we criminalize them, it's
the wrong cultural model.
We need to treat
people as if--
that's why the crime happens,
that geezer there that said if
he could wander out of his
building smoking a doobie,
that that was the most
preposterous image of the many
lunatic images that have
been presented.
Like yeah that's no problem if
the people are innocently
walking around smoking
a doobie.
That's not creating
the problem.
But once people are addicted
to marijuana or any drugs,
than we need to have
infrastructure that protects
those people.
And if we fundamentally
categorized those people as
criminals, that's the wrong
way of addressing it.
Eliot Spitzer can make an
argument for anything.
He's a brilliant, articulate,
and wonderful man.
He should still be the
governor of New York.
But the simple fact is, is we
need to treat these people, in
which-- a category within which
I am included, as sick,
not as criminals.
And then they can have
treatment and help.
It's the wrong social model,
It's the wrong mindset.
We need to approach people
altruistically and lovingly,
not treat them as criminals.
Because the inevitable social
and criminal problems come
from drug use are as a result
of its criminalization.
That's the problem.
FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, Russel
Brand, thanks very much.
Let's take a question
from the front row.
Peter Hitchens, you
had your hand up.
[APPLAUSE]
PETER HITCHENS: Before he goes,
I'd like to ask the
alleged comedian in the
hat whether he--
[MURMURING]
PETER HITCHENS: --well, well I
know we've heard a lot of him,
and far too much for me.
But he says he's not
responsible for
his own drug taking.
Isn't The problem with the
western countries that we
repeatedly say, oh we're
not responsible.
When we take drugs, we do it
because we're made to--
somebody made me do it.
When in fact, it's a pleasure
that we seek.
People do it because they want
to, they do it for a pleasure.
And then as a result of the
demand, which was quite
rightly mentioned by the
president of Columbia at the
beginning of this, the demand
which drives the supply, then
ruin and murder and warfare
and bloodshed and all the
other evils descend on the
countries which supply it.
It all comes from us.
It comes from rich western
kids, selfishly following
their pleasures and creating--
and creating a worldwide
industry and a huge flow of
money which is disasters for
the entire globe.
And we don't ever address it.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Russell Brand,
I'll let you have a quick--
have quick right to reply.
I think you were being called
a selfish kid, there.
PETER HITCHENS: He
certainly is.
[MURMURING]
RUSSELL BRAND: Its nice to
receive your bigotry from
another medium other than the
hate rag you mail on Sunday,
through which you normally
peddle hatred into the
thought, lack of love between
human beings.
PETER HITCHENS: Have
an argument for a
moment, will you?
RUSSELL BRAND: Whether or not
I'm selfish or wearing a hat
is redundant and irrelevant.
These are the kind of personal
attacks, the aggressive styles
that you continually adopt to
vilify people needlessly.
What's next, Criminalized
being a bit brown?
Is that your next policy from
the mail on Sunday?
We can't listen to people
like you anymore.
Listen, we've evolved
as a species.
PETER HITCHENS: That's
an idiotic slur.
And I noticed you don't actually
answer my argument.
Are you responsible for your
actions, or are you not?
Do you take drugs because
you have to, or
because you want to?
RUSSELL BRAND: There is
something called society,
Peter. despite what Margaret
Thatcher said, there is such a
thing as society.
We are responsible
for one another.
If we treat people
compassionately and with love--
PETER HITCHENS: Are you
responsible for your actions,
Mr. man-in-the-hat?
RUSSELL BRAND: --then
people will benefit.
People, of course, are
responsible for their actions.
You're responsible for writing
for a bigoted newspaper--
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank
you, Russell Brand.
PETER HITCHENS: Are
you responsible
for your own actions?
[APPLAUSE]
PETER HITCHENS: I really don't
mind being unpopular with him.
FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, I'm going to
move the debate on, because
there's a lot of people that
we'd like to get questions
from and responses.
Richard Branson, just uh--
the point that Theodore
Dalrymple made, which was that
crime rate has actually
increased in a country like
Portugal, which has
decriminalized
some kinds of drugs.
What would you make of that?
RICHARD BRANSON: Well all I
can say is that I went to
Portugal on behalf of the
Global Drug Commission.
I met the head of the health
program who oversees the whole
program in Portugal, and looked
at all the statistics.
And in pretty well every single
statistic that I saw, crime--
crime seemed to have reduced
dramatically.
And um--
and those were the figures that
the commission got, and
those were the figures--
sorry.
JOHANN HARI: And you don't
have to take the word of
legalizers or decriminalizers
like us.
Joao Figueira, the chief
inspector of the Lisbon drug
unit, who was a skeptic, who
opposed this law, who was on
your side, said earlier this
year to Fox News, not an
institution sympathetic to us.
The levels of conflicts on
the street are down.
Drug related robberies
are down.
And now the police are not
the enemy the consumers.
It's really important to bear
in mind, virtually no one in
Portugal wants to go back.
RISCHARD BRANSON: Can I just--
can I just say-- sorry, can I
just add one quick one, and
that is just look at
the logic of it.
Somebody has a heroin problem,
and the state says that we
will supply your methadone and
we will supply your needles.
You don't need to go to break
and enter anymore, because we
will make sure that we help you
until we manage to get you
off this problem.
Then therefore, why would they
still be breaking and entering
if the states are
helping them?
FEMALE SPEAKER: OK Theodore
Dalrymple, last-- last word on
this, and then we
have to move on.
THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Well first
of all, I refer to Eurostat,
which says that the crime rate
has actually increased likely.
The relationship between heroin,
for example, is much
more-- and crime is much
more complex than
Richard Branson is saying.
In my prison, for example,
I've discovered that the
vast-- and I'm not the first
person to notice this--
the relationship between crime
and heroin was exactly the
opposite of what one supposes.
That actually, the vast majority
of heroin addicts who
end up in prison have committed
between 50 and 200
criminal acts before they
ever took heroin.
In other words, whatever it is
that causes people to become a
criminal also causes them
to become addicts.
And if you think that we have
errors in this country with
40% of youth unemployment, 20%
of our children coming out of
schools barely literate, 33% of
our children or more never
eat a meal at a table
with anybody
else in their household.
These are the perfect conditions
for the spread of
drugs if availability
is increased.
[APPLAUSE]
FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you
very much, indeed.
We're starting to creep onto
some territory that belongs in
the second act.
So I'm going to take
us onto that.
But before we do, over to the
orators to tell us what they
have learned from this act.
First, back to you, Misha.
MISHA GLENNY: Well I've learned,
first of all, that
the opposition is not prepared
to debate the subject under
consideration.
Let's end the war on drugs.
They're doing some fancy
footwork to try and dig.
They're trying to associate
themselves with the Occupy
Movement in the 99% against
the 1%, a few populist
arguments about banks, and
so on and so forth.
But I have to challenge Eliot
Spitzer and General McCaffrey.
I challenge you to
go to Harlem.
I challenge you to go to
Southside Chicago, and stand
in front of the African American
community there, and
say that America does not
incarcerate people for
nonviolent drug offenses.
Because--
[APPLAUSE]
MISHA GLENNY: --the number of
people arrested in 2009 on
nonviolent drug offenses
was one
million, six hunderd thousand.
And if you'd like to come to--
if you'd like to come to
Albany with me, I'll introduce
you to a former colleague of
yours, David Soures, and we'll
take you around the projects,
like he took me around the
projects, to show which
African Americans have been
put in prison for the fact
that they've taken drugs
without violence.
This is an appalling argument,
and one which I think has to
be highlighted.
This war targets the people who
are least able to defend
themselves in society,
and it must stop.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Misha, thanks
very much, indeed.
Antonio Maria Costa to you,
ELIOT SPITZER: Misha since you
challenged me directly, I'm
going to steal 15 seconds
from my colleague.
As the former Attorney General,
a prosecutor, the
governor of that state, I not
only accept your challenge.
You are dead wrong, sir.
If you look at the data, instead
of just experiential
standing on the street
corner, you would
understand this issue.
Those of us who presided over
changing the laws of that
state know exactly why
people go to jail.
You just heard it from Ted.
It's because of the violence
that attends to those crimes.
You sit down with the D.A.'s
across the state, the defense
attorneys, your data
is dead wrong.
You can stand on any street
corner you want.
I've been in the trenches
doing it.
That's the data we want.
MISHA: The data is involved
with Google Plus, where--
ELIOT SPITZER: The data is in
the New York State District
attorney's office.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON CQ:
6 million arrested on
non-violent drug charges.
FEMALE SPEAKER: We could take
this into the next act.
Antonio I'm sorry, they've
all eaten into your time.
You have 50 seconds left to
tell us what you, as the
orator have learned
from this act.
ANTONIO MARIA COSTA:
I'm sorry, I will
not accept that bullying.
OK, Misha and the Yes Party said
stop the war on drugs.
I say stop all drug wars,
and let me explain.
The people at this table
represent 10% of humanity.
And we propose that our policy
for the world, forgetting
drug's crime that
we perpetrate?
You see in 2012, we celebrate
a dreadful anniversary, one
that makes my guts
twist and turn.
150 from the end of
the opium wars.
When the west, our countries,
forced China to consume drugs.
At that time, just like now,
greedy investors--
it was the East India Company as
you recall, wanted to make
money by poisoning the
Chinese with opium.
China opposed this.
Our countries went to war, our
countries won the war, and
forced the Chinese to consume
drugs for a century.
Tens of millions of people died
in China for addiction,
war, and famine.
The tragedy of drug legalization
we forced on
China dwarfs what's happening
in Mexico, in Guatemala, in
Columbia, et cetera.
To conclude, when I hear
investors in Europe and North
America advocating drug
legalization behind a fig leaf
of a campaign to stop the
war on drugs, I cringe.
And I say, stop all drug
wars, whether fought by
bullets or by bombs.
Investors' greed can be as
harmful as mafia's guns.
Drugs have come from both
sides of the isle.
Therefore vote no, and vote
against this motion.
Thank you very much.
EMILY: Antonio Maria Costa,
thank you very much indeed.
That brings us to the
end of act one.
Thanks to all of our
witnesses for that.
We're going to a short change
of casts now, where we're
going to ask some new members
to join me up on the panel.
And if you could just welcome
now our witnesses for act two.
Theodore you're staying
with me.
We're joined by Ian Blair, who
will come up and join here.
Thanks very much, Ian.
Nigel Keegan and Neil McKaganey
on my left.
And joining Richard Branson is
Benard Kouchner former foreign
secretary of France.
Louise Arbour from the UN and
Steve Roles, If you could all
take your places
just beside me.
Bernard you're next to Richard,
Louise you're next to
Bernard, and we're there.
This time, the question we're
asking, or posing is this.
It's cheaper, it's more
effective, and it is kinder to
treat drug abuse as a public
health problem,
rather than a crime.
First of all we're going to hear
from Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, the former president of
Brazil, who's going to make
a brief statement.
FERNANDO HENRIQUE CARDOSO:
Well thank you very much.
I was paying attention to the
previous discussion and I was
surprised, because in our case
in Latin America, we always
talk to discuss the
question of drugs.
Some former presidents in
Latin America, one from
Columbia, President Gaviria,
another from Mexico, President
Zedillo, and myself,
from Brazil.
We had the mind, the idea that
the war on drugs was not a
concept, was not a discussion,
a direct discussion.
As a matter of fact, people have
been killed because of
that, massively.
And the results are very bad,
a kind of copious failure in
the sense that it w impossible
to control cartels, as present
Santos from Columbus just
said before me.
So for us this is not a direct
case as a principle question.
And it relates to democracy.
Our democracies are being
undermined by the existence of
powerful cartels.
And these cartels are
also in struggle.
And the point is that in some
cases, like in Mexico, they
are being armed.
Because in United States
it is possible to buy
armaments, buy free.
And then they came to Mexico,
and different groups--
different gangs are killing
each other.
So it is a practical
situation.
Secondly, we are facing a
situation of poverty, not just
in the countries I mentioned
already, but also in Africa,
mainly in the western
part of Africa.
And the cartels are taking
a large part of the power
system, you know?
Influencing through corruption,
and dismantling
the authorities in
these areas.
So for us there is a war in
process, and this war has
been, up until today,
a failure.
You have to try to look at
different approaches.
That's why president Santos is
asking just now, again, to
have a summit of the Americas,
composed by presidents, to
discuss what the options are.
In the case of our commission,
called The Global Commission
on drug policies, and I'm the
head of this commission, is a
commission that we create at the
Latin American Commission.
You know, the commission--
we have some consensus--
simple consensus.
First is to end the
criminalization of people who
use drugs and do not
harm others.
Maybe this is what I heard up
to now, was that this is
almost consentual, but in
practice it is not like that.
In fact it is true that people
are being put in jail just
because they are using drugs.
EMILY: Senior Cardoso I'm just
going to ask you to wrap up,
if you can, the next
20 or so seconds.
CARDOSO: So the second main
objective is to explore modes
of legal and social regulation
of drugs, kind of drugs like
marijuana, which are
less harmful
than tobacco and alcohol.
A lot has been said about
Portugal is not actually true.
I have been there.
We made a film, a documentary
showing different situations.
It is true that in Portugal the
Portuguese are reducing
the use of drugs, exactly
because they decriminalized,
but they also are keeping some
criminalization, but not
through the judicial system.
And the point is that in
Portugal they are being
successful in reducing
the amount of those
who are using drugs.
So I think it's important--
EMILY: OK--
CARDOSO: --to us again
and again to
question with open eyes.
EMILY: Thank you very much
indeed, Fernando Henrique
Cardoso, the former president
of Brazil.
Great to have you with us.
Well this time it is, Eliot
Spitzer, your time to start
the questioning.
ELIOT SPITZER: Thank
you, Emily.
General McCaffrey, I want to go
back to you on a critical
issue here.
And I think Russell Brand made
some very powerful points
about the way we, as a society,
should embrace those
who have a drug problem.
We should not deem them
criminals, we should not
ostracize them, we need to
help them and treat them.
But the question I've got for
you is, can you in fact create
a regime of treatment if you do
not have the potential of
coersive threats behind you,
such as the potential
prosecution of those who
are in fact addicts.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Well, you
know, actually Russell Brand
may have inadvertently made
a every powerful point.
He talked about a defective
personality he thinks he has,
which I won't argue with, but--
[LAUGHTER]
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: --one of the
challenges is that if you
use methamphetamine, if you use
heroin, the Cadillac of
all drugs, you're going
to like it.
And a very high percentage
of us will then become
chronically addicted, and
we're disaster to our
families, our employers, the
communities we live in.
Now one of things we've done
here in the United States,
which I would commend further
study is, we tried to tie
together rational drug policy
and the criminal justice
system-- we have the
drug court system.
We started with that dozen, I
got it up to around 1,000
while I was in public life
with the Clinton
administration.
We are now around 3,000.
If you're arrested on Monday
night for breaking and
entering, you're a chronic
heroin addict.
We put you in treatment,
we drug test you.
A year later, 80% likely you'll
have markedly changed
your drug taking behavior.
Notice I didn't say cure.
So I do think that the drug
court system is something that
needs to be looked at by
the other participants.
ELIOT SPITZER: And, general,
just not to put too fine a
point on it, though, I want to
come back to the importance of
having that coersive pressure
of a judicial system as part
of the opportunity to impose
treatment upon the individual
who is either an addict
or potential addict.
Is that what you're saying?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Yeah sure,
and by the way, coersive means
family intervention with your
employer or in a confrontation
to get you in the treatment.
Coercion means, in the drug
treatment facilities we use,
yes methadone's essential for
heroin and synthetic opiate
addiction, but you also have to
have counseling, where we
try and do reward and punishment
to get people's
lives stabilized.
We should have a tremendous
sense of compassion, in the
United States of the 16
million of us who are
chronically addicted to
poly-drug abuse, alcohol and
illegal drugs.
And the way out clearly is
treatment, but you've got to
continue to have high levels
of social stigma.
And part of that is drugs
should be illegal.
ELIOT SPITZER: General very
quickly, because again I'm
trying to reach a whole number
of witnesses here in this
brief segment.
The issue of whether or not it
has been effective, and again
I don't use the metaphor of
the war, do you look to
certain measures, certain
indicia of declining drug use
that, for you, say you know
what, the entire totality of
the policies we've got right now
somehow are productive and
are working?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Well, you
know, I frequently I get--
I unsettle some of my European
colleagues, and I tell people,
you know the crime rate in the
United States in the last 30
years has gone down
dramatically.
If we weren't all
carrying guns--
half of us, and 5% of us are nut
cakes, our homicide rate
would also fall.
But as a general statement,
our crime rate's down
enormously.
Teenage pregnancy down
enormously, drug use down
enormously, we're actually
on a pretty good track.
Now the one thing I think we've
inadequately done is
dealt with the world community
with money laundering, keeping
guns out of Mexico, President
Vicente Fox has every reason,
along with the current President
Calderon, to be
dissatisfied with the
level of effort out
of the United States.
But again, look, the problem
with drug addiction isn't
legality or illegality, it's the
misery that it brings to
the chronically addicted.
ELIOT SPITZER: All right,
general thank you so much.
I'm going to turn to Nigel
Keegan now Nigel, why do you
understand this stuff?
Well what are your credentials,
real quick.
The clock runs.
NIGEL KEEGAN: Well I'm a doctor
and an investment
banker, so hopefully I
understand the medicine and
the numbers.
And I'd just like to say
something to Richard and the
other people who've spoken
about Portugal.
Eurostat's statistics and focus
bulletin sets the crime
in Portugal is up by
17% since 2001.
And it also says that
the murder rate is
by 40% since 2001.
ELIOT SPITZER: Can I interrupt?
2 is--
what happened in 2001?
NIGEL KEEGAN: 2001 is when drugs
were decriminalized.
ELIOT SPITZER: That's
when they're
policy went into effect.
NIGEL KEEGAN: Yes.
And the European monitoring
center for drugs and drugs
addiction, which is actually
headquartered in Lisbon, and
whose chairman is exactly the
same person that Richard spoke
to, says that drug use has gone
up across all categories
since 2001, and the number of
problem drug users is exactly
the same today as
it was in 2001--
ELIOT SPITZER: Is
there a story--
NIGEL KEEGAN: --no significant
difference.
All they've done is succeeded
in getting 30,000 people
hooked on methadone as well as
heroin, with absolutely no
plan to get them off.
ELIOT SPITZER: Very quickly,
is there a story in the
Netherlands--
now you're a doctor and
an investment banker?
NIGEL KEEGAN: Yes, an investment
banker, too and I--
ELIOT SPITZER: We
like half of it.
NIGEL KEEGAN: --and I'd add--
[LAUGHTER]
NIGEL KEEGAN: --well I'm just
checking that Russell's gone
away, because he definitely
doesn't like investment
bankers, but--
I'd like to just address
something that
Antonio said, as well.
And that is that pharmaceutical
companies, and
I covered the pharmaceutical
sector for 15 years, and I've
been broker to GaxoSmithKline.
And I'm not saying that they're
interested in this
sector themselves, but other
drug companies definitely are.
Reckitt Benckiser makes half a
billion dollars profit a year
from one particular drug,
suboxone, which is used as a
heroin substitute in
the United States.
And it's got the highest margins
that I've ever seen,
including cancer drugs
or anything else.
Investors would definitely be
interested in this area if
Misha succeeds in getting
drugs legalized.
And if he doesn't want drugs
legalized, I'd like to know
exactly how he defines the
end of the war on drugs.
ELIOT SPITZER: I got to stop
you there, we're going to
continue this.
Now Lord Blair, and I know I'm
from the other side of the
ocean, this Lord stuff kind
of gives me the quivers.
But you're a Lord, and you were
also the commissioner of
Scotland Yard, you're supposed
to know something about this
stuff, right?
LORD BLAIR: Governor, I was a
cop for 35 years, I was the
head of Scotland Yard, and I've
stood in more crack dens
than I care to remember
ELIOT SPITZER: All right,
cop I can relate
to, Lord not so much.
OK, what's your take
on all this?
I mean--
LORD BLAIR: Well my
take-- my take on
this is Winston Churchill.
Remember Winston Churchill, he
was not the man who won the
second World War, he was the
man who didn't lose it.
And the argument for the
legalizers is really this--
what they are proposing is
a probably irreversible
experiments with, at least,
the possibility of total
catastrophe.
We have no idea what a totally
legalized drug
world would look like.
The only two places that are
being put forward at the
moment are Portugal and
Western Australia.
They are small, isolated
countries.
If the United States, the United
Kingdom, France, India,
utterly legalized drugs, then
we have no idea what that
would look like, we have no idea
what effect that would
have on children and
young people.
But we've got some clues from
the past. We know what 19th
century opium dens where like,
and they were appalling.
And if I can just take you to
one class of people, and we've
heard a representative of them
today, which is the people who
are effectively beyond the law
in relation to this, which is
celebrities and pop stars.
And just look at those
histories.
From Jimi Hendrix to Amy
Winehouse, from Keith Moon
through Heath Ledger, to Michael
Jackson, people cannot
withstand this level of
ability to take drugs.
90% of people don't take drugs
because it is illegal.
That is the key component.
ELIOT SPITZER: Lord Blair, I'm
being polite to you to try to
interrupt you.
Simple question, short answer,
if sanctions were lifted,
would use increase?
LORD BLAIR: Massively.
ELIOT SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
I want to go now to
Neil McKeganey.
Neal, I want to come
back to Portugal.
You've studied this at great
length, what is your takeaway
on Portugal?
NEIL MCKEGANEY: Well there's
been, I think, some misleading
statistics presented tonight
which give the impression that
Portugal is a rose garden.
That is not the case.
We are seeing now a steady
increase in some of the
indices of harm.
But I think I'd like to also say
that, you know, there is
no country in the world, there
is no country, not even a
single country that does not
have a drug policy comprising
three things.
That is treatment, prevention,
and enforcement.
And it's easy to say I prefer
treatment in all of that,
because it looks nice.
It's cozy, and I would like--
I would like my loved ones
to get that treatment.
But you know, drug policy
is a three-legged stool.
And you saw way at one of
those legs, and you can
predict what the consequence
is going to be.
Now we need effective treatment,
we need effective
prevention, but we need
effective enforcement as well.
And the research which I and
colleagues in Glasgow have
carried out shows that if you
have effective enforcement,
that often is a catalyst--
a powerful catalyst to get
people into treatment.
So it's completely misplaced
to playoff treatment as
against enforcement.
It would be absolutely crazy,
in the face of this global
problem, to take away one of the
strands of our prevention,
enforcement, and treatment.
ELIOT SPITZER: Neil,
we literally
have 15 seconds left.
I'm not going to get to Ted.
I apologize, we'll keep you
there for the next round.
But Neil let me ask you this,
if there were some regime of
legalization, regulation, call
it whatever the good folks in
the other side want to
call it, and you
created a profit motive.
So you had Glaxo, Pfizer,
Phillip Morris promoting use
of drugs, would use
go up or down?
NIGEL KEEGAN: Well of course
it would go up.
There's absolutely no
question about that.
These are companies that
are absolutely
perfect marketing devices.
And you put drugs into that
mix, and you will
unquestionably see the most
smart, the most well-financed
advertising campaigns.
And you will see a steady
increase in level of drug use,
way beyond the one percent--
ELIOT SPITZER: The same way that
tobacco companies have
killed millions of kids
for money, is that
we're talking about?
NIGEL KEEGAN: You will see
cocaine and heroin looking
like tobacco and alcohol.
And the consequences of that
are beyond imagination.
ELIOT SPITZER: Thank you.
NIGEL KEEGAN: Given the level
of addiction of these
substances.
ELIOT SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Eliot
and witnesses, thank
you very much indeed.
Over to you Geoffrey,
it's your turn.
[APPLAUSE]
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Let's talk
about how the war on drugs has
become a war on drug takers.
Louise Arbour, you have been the
UN high commissioner for
human rights, you've run
international chief prosecutor
at international criminal
courts, the kind go after
Milosevic and Joseph Kony.
What do you- what's your take on
the war on drugs, what does
the language tell you?
LOUISE ARBOUR: Well,
actually, I have
prosecuted real war criminals.
And this is a up war.
I think it's absolutely clear.
It looks very real, because
it's now fought in many
countries as a real war.
But the rhetoric, I think of the
war on drugs, discloses, I
think, a completely
failed policy.
If you have a war, presumably,
at some point, you should be
able to determine that
you've won it.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: [CHUCKLES]
LOUISE ARBOUR: There has to be
some kind of exit strategy.
When is it going to be won, this
50-year-old war, when we
have a drug-free world?
That's not going to happen
in my lifetime, or in my
children's lifetime, or in my
grand children's lifetime.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: And does
the notion that it's a war
give the police a kind of
license to go after people?
LOUISE ARBOUR: Of course,
of course.
This-- all of this rhetoric, you
know, in wartime you can
have emergency measures and all
kinds of extraordinary law
enforcement powers,
and we all rally.
And, of course, there are two
sides, so the other side is
the bad guy, these
terrible people.
It's a-- the rhetoric,
I think, cannot be
underestimated.
But it seems to me that what we
also have to recognize is
that it's an objective
that is unattainable.
People-- there is a gigantic
appetite for all kinds of
psychoactive substances,
alcohol, tobacco, use of
prescription drugs.
This is there.
I don't think we need to make
the case that we will
eliminate that.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: But you've
heard their argument.
Their argument is, oh you need
these laws, you need the
threat of prison stigma in order
to make treatment work.
As a former chief prosecutor,
does that
argument work with you?
LOUISE ARBOUR: Well
first of all, you
don't to treat everybody.
Not everybody is an alcoholic,
a lot of people have a drink.
Not everybody is an addict.
Those who are, are in very
profound distress.
And to link them to this
criminal underworld--
it seems to me only adds
to their predicaments.
It's Completely wrong.
So you can't make the argument
that you need both treatment
and the big stick
of imprisonment.
You have to--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Because does
arrest, does putting them
in the process itself,
dangerous?
LOUISE ARBOUR: Yes, and actually
let me take on--
people in jail, I won't
to speak for America.
I come from Canada.
I have been a judge in
Canada for 15 years.
They're not all in there for
violent crimes, and happen to
be drug users.
If that was the case, we could
abolish the offense of
possession of narcotics,
possession for the purpose of
trafficking, and trafficking.
We'd catch them all for these,
so-called, violent crimes for
which you have--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: And finally,
I think as the result
of the war on drugs, we have a
number of countries, 22, that
actually execute people
for possession
and carrying of drugs.
LOUISE ARBOUR: Well that's
the ultimate, I think.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: We have
Iran, we have Singapore, if
you've got 200 grams of
cannabis, you swing.
LOUISE ARBOUR: I hope we'll have
another debate one day on
the use of the death penalty at
large, but particularly for
drug offenses, even
mega trafficking.
It is even in international law,
which tolerates the death
penalty, to use it for drug
offenses is totally contrary
to the principles of
international law.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Mm-hm, let
me move to Bernard Kouchner.
You're a doctor, you were the
founder of [UNINTELLIGIBLE],
you've been the health minister
of France, the
Foreign Minister of France, how
does it stack up for you?
Is there anything in this idea
that we need to be penal in
order to get people
into treatment?
BERNARD KOUCHNER:
Well certainly.
But first, I believe very
clearly, for everybody it
should be the same.
We have lost the war on drugs.
Otherwise we have to wait
for one century more?
We have lost the war.
It was not effective.
The drug consumers are more
numerous and the consumption
is higher, So we have lost.
But if we were talking about
public health, because it was
an argument on both sides,
public health, I believe that
it is not the right place--
a prison, a jail--
to treat, to take care
of the people.
It's better to prevent.
How do you prevent
drug consumption?
This is a sociological, a
political, and a psycho--
sociology problem, OK?
So this is very difficult--
poverty, we were
talking about--
it's completely true.
And lack of ideal.
So they are transgressing
the law.
So we do we have to enforce
the law just to force the
young guys to respect that?
This is impossible.
Look, history has no memory,
but we were acting the same
way against alcohol and
against tobacco.
So what was the result?
First the alcohol consumers were
not so high after the end
of prohibition--
but meanwhile, we had to
face the mafia, we had
Al Capone, et cetera.
And it was a stupid war.
OK, tobacco.
it has taken 40 years
to convince--
and you were right, governor,
about the tobacco firms--
but, well, now we have
an experience.
And so it must be under the
control of the state,
government control.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Government
control?
BERNARD KOUCHNER: Absolutely.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: So ending
the war on drugs doesn't mean
open slather, it doesn't mean
legalization, it doesn't mean
big drug companies, it
means nationalized--
it could mean nationalization.
BERNARD KOUCHNER: It must be--
no, it must be a regulation--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:
A regulation.
BERNARD KOUCHNER: --a regulation
like we did with
alcohol, like we did
with tobacco.
It's impossible to smoke in a
public place, it's impossible
to drive if you are a certain
percentage of alcohol in the
blood, et cetera.
The same things-- this
is the first step.
After, for legalization,
we'll see.
But regulation, to--
to get confidence, to be in--
to be, let's say, in position to
talk to people, we have to
inform, to inform, to inform,
and to educate.
That is to say at school,
primary school, secondary
school, to talk about the
problem of drugs or not.
But don't, please, stop--
forbid it to all everybody
to take any psycho
stimulants, if I may.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:
Is there a right--
is there a right,
do you think--
a human right to take--
BERNARD KOUCHNER: Give us other
example to buy pot, in
the same the risk and
the transgression.
People are not robots, so let
them talk with the educators,
and sometimes the doctors,
and sometimes the
lawyers, public debate.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Right,
I'll talk to--
Steve Rolles I bring you in.
What do you make of this idea
that if you end the war on
drugs, you have, suddenly,
all the big drug
companies coming in?
STEVE ROLES: Well i mean
what would happen?
We're talking about moving from
a criminal sphere into a
sphere of government--
potentially government
regulation, which means as
strict or as relaxed
as we want to be.
It's effectively
a blank slate.
So you know the idea that the
big pharmaceutical companies
would take over these things and
aggressively market them
is-- you know that's, I think
that's wishful thinking.
We can be as strict and as tight
on our regulations as we
want to be.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: Have they
done that in Portugal?
Have they done it
in Amsterdam?
STEVE ROLES: No, they haven't.
They've only decriminalization
use in Portugal.
they're not talking about
actually regulated markets.
But if we do go in that
direction, and I think
certainly we should, you get
to a place where you can
regulate all the different
aspects of the market.
You can regulate the products,
you can regulate the vendors,
they can be licensed and
vetted, and so on.
You could regulate the venues,
the availability.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: So you could
have, for example, small
amounts of cannabis available
only in licensed premises for
persons over 18.
STEVE ROLES: Yes, I mean, a
lot of the opposition have
talked about free availability,
we're not
talking about free
availability.
We're talking about controlled
availability, and at that
level of control can be as
strict as we want it to be.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: And there'd
still be severe
penalties for anyone
who sold the drug
to a child, or whatever.
STEVE ROLES: Absolutely, if
you have a regulatory
framework, anyone who
steps outside it id
still subject to sanctions.
And yes big pharma may not be
ideal, but big pharma is
certainly better than big
gangster, and that's
what we have now.
And we need to move towards
a situation where we can
regulate and control and
intervene in the market in
ways that can reduce
the harm it causes.
At the moment we can't make
any interventions at all.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:
Mm-hm, right.
Now we've got David
Eagleman on--
hanging out.
Hi, David.
You--
DAVID EAGLEMAN: Hello,
Geoffrey.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: --one of our
top neuroscientist. Tell
me what neuroscience is
discovering about addiction.
DAVID EAGLEMAN: Well what's
clear is the reason that we're
losing the war on drugs,
is because
we're attacking supply.
And that's like a water balloon,
if you press it down
in one place, it comes
up somewhere else.
What we need to be addressing
is demand, and that is the
brain of the addict.
And at this point, we know a
great deal about the circuitry
in pharmacology of the
addict's brain.
And we're developing, in
neuroscience, several
different ways--
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: And what
does neuroscience have in
store for curing addiction?
DAVID EAGLEMAN: There are at
least three different ways
that are being worked on.
There are familiar
pharmaceutical treatments that
obstruct the effective
of the drug, thereby
blocking the high.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: OK,
you block the high,
then the next one--
DAVID EAGLEMAN: There are newer
treatments, there's one
called a cocaine vaccine, which
actually recruits the
immune system to sop up
the drug before it
crosses into the brain.
GEOFFREY ROBERTSON: So you
take an injection, and it
stops your craving for
cocaine, broadly.
Tell us about the third one.
DAVID EAGLEMAN: That's
correct.
There are new methods we are
working on that use real-time
feedback with brain imaging.
Essentially it's like bio
feedback where we train up the
frontal parts of the brain
to exhibit more
control over craving.
So in other words, we train
a person how to
deal with the craving.
And this is useful for people
who have tried to quit, know
that they would like to quit,
but have been unsuccessful.
And this is a solution that
we've been working on--
ROBERTSON: To put it bluntly
or broadly, the addict can
look at their own brain and
watch themselves actually
conquer the craving,
voluntarily.
That's what neuroscience
has in store.
EAGLEMAN: That's correct.
ROBERTSON: And we know, finally,
that there were $40
billion spent on the war on
drugs in America last year.
If that $40 billion was spent
on neuroscience and it's way
of curing addiction, would we
get that cure pretty quickly?
EAGLEMAN: We could do
a great deal in
neuroscience with that money.
ROBERTSON: Thank you.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY: Thanks very much to
Geoffrey and the witnesses.
And this is once again where we
open up the debate, allow a
little bit more freewheeling
thought and take some of your
questions, both from inside
the room, we'll be sending
around mics.
But first to Jemima who's
hanging out and can tell us a
little bit more about the sort
of things people are asking on
the web, Jemima.
JEMIMA: Hi, Emily.
With regards to act two, the
general view is overwhelmingly
pro liberalization, which I
suppose isn't a surprise,
given the vote.
But the web is saying, too much
focus on hard drugs, keen
for a debate on marijuana.
And the majority feel that
marijuana should be legalized
and that drug addiction is
indeed a self-- health issue.
Lots of questions also about
prescription drugs.
I've got a question here from
Kian O'Grady for Lord Blair
which is, Lord Blair mentioned
celebrity drug overdoses, yet
most of the recent celebrity
drug deaths, indeed most of
the names Lord Blair himself
mentioned, were due to the
abuse of legal drugs.
How do you explain that?
[SMALL APPLAUSE]
EMILY: Let's let-- if
you want to respond
to that, Lord Blair.
LORD BLAIR: Yes, just simply
because they were illegally
prescribed.
I mean that's exactly
what happened in
Michael Jackson's case.
They were illegally
prescribed.
It's just the same thing
in a different guise.
EMILY: Back to you, Jemima
for more questions.
MALE SPEAKER: They were also
regulated., I'd like to add.
JEMIMA: I'll give you, we've
had so many questions.
What--
another question here is just
for anyone on the panel--
a name that is not pronounceable
on YouTube.
What's the difference between
a codeine addict
and a heroin addict?
If the doctor prescribes
codeine, and the patient
becomes addicted,
we help them.
So why don't we do the same
for heroin addicts?
EMILY: Let's take one more
question, and then we'll put
them to the panel.
JEMIMA: And then this is the
counter view from Jake Weiss.
He said he addresses this
to liberal people.
He says--
can you hear me?
He says, if alcohol is more
harmful than cannabis, instead
of legalizing cannabis,
shouldn't we criminalize or
restrict alcohol?
EMILY: All right let
me take that first
one to Nigel Keegan.
As a doctor do you recognize the
difference, Nigel, between
a heroin addict and
a codeine addict.
NIGEL: Yes, I actually know
quite a bit about codeine,
because I used to work for a
company that marketed a drug
called solpadeine, which
contained paracetamol,
codeine, and caffeine.
Codeine is actually a very
similar drug to morphine,
there is only one very small
chemical difference.
And I point out that it's a
illegal drug in this country,
it's available over the counter,
and it's regulated in
exactly the same way
Steve Rolles wants.
But people still do you get
addicted to these drugs.
They'd get addicted--
they used to get addicted to
solpadeine, they'd use it as a
pick-me-up in the morning,
and I think
people should be helped.
And I think heroin addicts
should be helped, too.
I just don't think they should
be helped in the way they are
in this country, which is,
essentially, getting them
hooked on methadone instead
of, or as well as heroin.
I think we should help--
I think we should help
them into residential
rehabilitation, and we should
help them stop taking drugs.
In this country we have 600,000
prescriptions a month
for methadone.
That's 150,000 addicts
prescribed
methadone every month.
We have 4,000 cases a year for
residential rehabilitation.
I think one needs to go
down and the other
needs to go up markedly.
EMILY: Before we move
on, are there any
questions in the hall?
Just a show of hands if there
are people here that would
like to ask a question.
We'll send a mic around.
Catch my eye or catch the mics
if there are-- you sir, just
halfway down here in the green
t-shirt, if you can just get a
mic to him.
Would anyone on the panel like
to answer Jake's question that
Jemima just posed?
It was really just a point
of information, I guess.
RICHARD: I mean the
criminalizing alcohol question
has been-- it's been tried,
and I think it failed.
So--
EMILY: Would anyone on
this side say that
the prohibition worked?
MALE SPEAKER: Well first of
all, people mistake the
statistics of prohibition.
You may be surprised to know
that the rate of increase in
violent crime and murder
increased more in the 14 years
before prohibition than during
the 14 years of prohibition.
No one seems to take any notice
of that, so there may
be secular trends which have
nothing to do with that.
But if you take something like,
for example, drunken
driving, we see, that in France
for example, they
criminalize it, the enforcement
of the law saves
3,000 lives in accidents
a year.
And the same thing has
happened here.
Now it is true that people
will eventually become
accustomed to not drinking and
driving, but you do need the
sanction behind it.
If you didn't have
the sanction--
do you seriously think that if
they were no sanction against
drunken driving, there will
be fewer drunken drivers?
It doesn't make sense.
EMILY: OK, let's just-- let's
just go to you, sir, because
you have the mic, and I was
going to come to you.
Yeah, right.
MALE SPEAKER: I'm just finding
the argument from the against
side quite disingenuous when
it comes to children.
Sorry, the Governor Spitzer
said that legalizing would
increase the number of child
addicts, but there's no
mention of the numbers of
children in Mexico and
Colombia that are killed in
drive-by shootings and
abductions and things
of that nature.
So when we're talking about
the body count and the
consequence of these things,
it's not as simple as saying
that if we legalize it then
we'll have more addicts, and
that's a bad thing.
Because the consequences of the
criminalizing are just terrible.
EMILY: You were name checked,
you can pass it onto one of
your team, if you prefer.
SPITZER: Well just very briefly,
your point is, of
course, extremely well taken.
The horror of what is happening,
and the violence in
certain communities
attendant to the
cartel power is heinous.
It's one of the most horrifying
stories one can read.
However that does not address
the absolute stark
methodological certainty of what
we are saying, which is
that if you permit greater
access to cocaine, Meth,
heroin, there will be more
kids who become addicts.
And that will then set off a
trend line, because we all
know that those who become
addicts before the age of 18
are the ones who are almost
impossible to cure.
So they're separable problems.
We're, of course, recognizing
the one you talk about, but
you must recognize the one
we're talking about.
NEIL: Can I just add, also, that
we have in this country
an estimated 300,000 children
with the addicted parents.
Now these children's lives are
lost as dramatically and as
tragically as those children
that you just instanced.
But they're not lost because
heroine is illegal, they're
lost because their parents
care more about the drugs
they're using than the children
they should be
looking after.
And you see, that
will increase.
EMILY: Neil, thanks very much.
I'm going to give a right to
reply to the other side,
because they haven't spoken
on this one yet.
BERNARD: Thank you very much.
But this is--
we were talking about poverty,
this is not a subject, but
poverty is a huge, very
important part of the
explanation.
And the second is that the
violence is coming out of war
in between the gangs.
I mean in between the
narco traffickers.
And that's why, not with
legalization at the first
stage, but certainly with the
regulation and control it
might be more difficult for
the gangs from all of the
narco traffickers
to get money.
And violence is partly--
because if they want to get
money inside without job,
without because of the
unemployment, et cetera-- this
is also a political
problem and a
political-economical problem.
EMILY: OK, thanks very
much, indeed.
We're going to move on
to our orators, now.
Antonio, first of all, can you
tell us what you feel you've
learned from this act.
ANTONIO: Yes, indeed.
I am happy to confirm that
personally, institutionally, I
agree that addiction is a health
condition and addicts
should be assisted
in hospitals,
and not put in jails.
In fact, international
agreements of the United
Nations and elsewhere leave
countries free to control
drugs in the way they prefer.
Decriminalization of users which
is being an advocated
for years has produced
important results.
Too bad that everybody here
is referring to Portugal.
It's the flavor of the month, it
used to be the Netherlands,
and used to be Switzerland.
In the field their experiments
crashed, and of course they
disappear from the
radar screen.
But don't be misled, Portugal
has not decriminalized supply.
Portugal is indeed constraining
supply the way
all other countries do.
And indeed as it was said,
erroneously, crime has not
declined, crime in Portugal
has exploded.
But there have been here
attempts to falsify the
information.
Now the problem with the
supporter of the motions
tonight is the focus that
they place on supply.
In a cunning way they propose
switching supply from mafias
to venture capitalist or
pharmaceutical companies.
Is this desirable what's
the advantage?
Ian Blair called it an
unmitigated disaster.
We will only succeed
if we focus on
demand, not on supply--
preventing it, treating in, and
integrating the addicts.
The tobacco example is a
devastating demonstration.
That regulation--
I hear so much about regulation,
I don't even know
what that means--
that regulation failed for
addictive substances, and we
have 5 million people killed
by tobacco every year.
I Really wish humanity will be
careful about causing similar
killing fields because
of legalization
or regulated drugs.
EMILY: Antonio, thank you
very much indeed.
To Misha now.
MISHA: Well Eliot Spitzer and
Neil gave us the answer about
what's really going on here.
They talked about the
need for coercive
force against addicts.
So this idea that they don't
want to fight the war on drugs
is actually not true.
They want to have the option of
putting people in prison,
despite the fact that they were
denying that earlier on.
Well let's talk about
regulation.
Lord Blair will know very well
about the proliferation of
marijuana farms all over
the United Kingdom.
And because of advanced
horticultural techniques, the
ability of those farmers to
produce skunk, which have
astronomically high THC
levels in them.
If you have regulation, what
you can do is you can say
there is a law which will not
permit you to produce anything
think like those THC levels--
THC levels in cannabis.
So one of the things what I want
to say is that these days
we will be in control with
the government--
the people will be in control
about what you
can and can't do.
It will not be an unregulated
market, like we have now.
And before the other side gets
too carried away about their
radical credentials, in terms
of attacking big pharma and
big corporations
and everything.
Let's remember plan Colombia,
which was a plan to transfer
$1 billion a year from the
United States to Columbia in
order to bring down
the cocaine trade.
Of that $1 billion a year
700 million never
left the United States.
It was, instead, given to
companies like Lockheed Martin
and other big companies, which
made a fortune out
of the war on drugs.
The war on drugs has also
benefited big corporations.
So let's not be too fooled
by this talk of a radical
intervention to prevent
some form of
corporate takeover of drugs.
Corporations already make lots
and lots of money out of this
war on drugs.
EMILY: Misha Glenny, thank
you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY: And thank you to all our
witnesses at the end all
of act two.
We're going to ask you
now to invite those
witnesses for act three.
Ian you're staying here, and
I'm going to be joined by
Peter Hitchens and Ed
Vouliami on my left.
Richard you're staying here,
Louise you're staying here,
Steve you're staying here, and
we'd like invite Johann Hari
back to the stage.
Whilst we're just changing over
a few seats, let's go get
back to Jemima.
And see what sort of questions
are coming through, Jemima.
JEMIMA: Jacob Wheeler would like
to respond to Lord Blair,
and he wanted to remind Lord
Blair that Amy Winehouse
actually died from alcohol, not
from prescription drugs.
Ella Robertson asks why is
cannabis use in Holland, where
it is legal, lower than the
UK where it is illegal.
And another question, why is
re-offending and recidivism so
high if rehabilitation is really
happening in prison?
EMILY: OK, questions that
we will come on to.
We will hopefully have a little
bit of time for at the
end, as well.
We're going to begin
act three now.
And this time we're posing
the following statement.
The case for continuing the
war on drugs is built on
political cowardice,
not on public good.
And Geoffrey it's your turn
to start the questioning.
ROBERTSON: Yeah, I mean who's
said, I beg the labor
government not to return
to the war on drugs?
David Cameron, when
in opposition.
Who said the war on drugs
is an utter failure?
Barack Obama, before he became
president and a dedicated $40
billion a year to fighting it.
So, Louise Arbour, why do the
drug warriors always win?
Why do they--
why do these politicians
never change?
LOUISE: Well I think there's a
tremendous amount of a culture
of fear that has been built
around-- and we've heard it
today, time and again, this kind
of over characterization
of this kind of flooding the
markets with cocaine and all
these terrible things if we move
towards, what is called,
legalization.
This kind of rhetoric
has tremendous, kind
of, populist appeal.
And so I think it's
all based--
like the war on terror--
these concepts are based on a
culture of fear, which is very
easily cultivated.
It seems to me the point we
should make is, the war on
drugs has had 40, 50
years of a run
trying to make its point.
And I think, just to put it very
mildly, hasn't exactly
been a great success.
I think I would not overstate
my case beyond that point.
ROBERTSON: So ending the war
would mean that other
countries could experiment
in their own way with
decriminalization,
with regulation?
LOUISE: Exactly, that's exactly
what this global
commission on drug policy--
that Richard is on, that
I'm also serving on--
is calling for.
The mere fact that we're now
talking about these issues is
progress after 40 years of a
kind of taboo conversation.
ROBERTSON: Let's have more
Portugals, let's have more
Netherlands, and see what
the evidence is.
Do they ever look
at the evidence?
RICHARD: And Switzerland, and,
I'm sorry and Germany.
ROBERTSON: And south Australia
and Western Australia.
JOHANN: There is a real
refusal to look at the
evidence, and it's really
important we get
these figures clear.
The British Journal of
Criminology, which has no dog
in this fight, it's just there
to find out independently what
facts are, says, unequivocally,
use went
slightly up, from 3.4% of the
population to 3.7% of the
population.
But addiction was significantly
down from 7.6
per 1,000 to 6.8 per 1,000.
HIV was down by 17%.
And the reason is simple.
We keep hearing from Eliot
Spitzer-- who I hugely admire,
I think he's one of the
best politicians
in the United States--
that we all agree
on addiction.
We have a way-- sorry, we
all agree on treatment.
We have a way to pay
for treatment.
What the Portuguese did is they
transferred all the money
that is currently spent on
arresting, harassing, jailing,
trying addicts--
they used all of that
for treatment.
That's how we're
paying for it.
In the middle of a global
depression, how are you going
to pay for a massive roll-out
of treatment?
ROBERTSON: All right, Steve
Rolles, what's going to--
what is going to happen if
the war on drugs ends?
Are we going to suddenly get
children with-- going home
from school with drugs?
They do that already,
don't they?
STEVE: No, no it's not going
to end overnight.
This is something that's been
in place of 40 years, it's
going to be a process.
The reform process will take
will take a number of years to
progress and go forward.
I mean we'll need to experiment
with different
models, see what works, and
follow the evidence.
I mean, again, you just
need to emphasize,
this is a blank slate.
We can follow the evidence,
we can approach this as
pragmatists, we can build our
policy on human rights
principles and public
health principles.
This is not about relaxing the
law, we're not liberalizers.
This is about looking at the
evidence, and finding which
policy works.
Because we have one option which
is probation, we have
another option which is
completely unregulated free
market, and in between we have
this whole array of regulatory
tools that we can use and apply
and experiment with, and
find out what works to deliver
the results that we all want.
We all want a safe and
healthier society.
Let's find out.
Unfortunately, the current
system means we can't even
experiment with a whole array
of those options around
regulation.
ROBERTSON: Well someone
asked Richard
Branson about cannabis.
There are, according to the
UN, 166 million people who
take cannabis from
time to time.
None of them die from it.
RICHARD: Now I mean for young
people, age, I don't know, 18
to 25 it is their drug of choice
in the same way that
older people over 25, alcohol
is their drug of choice.
And almost all those young
people, age 25, 26 seem to
switch to alcohol.
ROBERTSON: What we need,
obviously, and what
politicians need is
more information.
Ask for information,
go to WikiLeaks.
Are you there, Julian Assange?
JULIAN: I am, Geoffrey.
[LAUGHTER]
ROBERTSON: How are
you hanging out?
JULIAN: Well I'm here in some
secret hotel room--
ROBERTSON: Right.
JULIAN: --not far from where
I'm under house arrest.
ROBERTSON: Where?
And not for drugs.
Let me ask you, what could you
tell us from WikiLeaks cables
about how the war on drugs puts
pressure on countries not
to decriminalize, not too
end imprisonment?
JULIAN: Well look, Geoffrey.
Any situation which has clearly
come to an impasse
where there's a clear failure
needs experimentationing and
trials and limited models
around the world.
And there have been steps to do
that, but we see that the
United States, through its
diplomatic corps, has been
exercising its force to prevent
those sort of trials.
We see that sort of situation
in Bolivia, with the
interaction of the DEA
in 63 countries.
ROBERTSON: Drugs Enforcement
Authority, part of the US
surveillance--
I think it's got offices in
63 countries, hasn't it?
JULIAN: Yes, in 63 countries.
And we even see cables from
Paraguay showing how the DEA
agreed to allow the Paraguayan
government to use DEA
surveillance facilities to
surveil some of its political
opponents in Paraguay.
ROBERTSON: Mm-hm, and as far as
you're concerned, how does
it come down for you?
Is there a question of
individual rights here, of the
right to change your own mind,
to decide what you put in your
own body, the right to decide
how you'll think and imagine?
JULIAN: Well I think we must
start at basic principles.
And basic principles say that
we, as individuals, have a
right to our own self
determination.
We have the right to freedom of
thought, we have the right
to freedom of speech.
And provided that we do not
engage in some sort of
violence to others, then our
rights to do what we will with
our thoughts and our own
body are sacrosanct.
And the state should not be
interfering with those rights.
In order to keep up our freedom
of thought, we should
have the right to control
our own mental states.
And that gives some people extra
creativity, and that is
something we need all
across the world.
ROBERTSON: And so the 166
million people who take
cannabis, according to Mr.
Costa's report, they have a
certain basic liberty to decide
how they're going to
think and imagine and what drugs
they're going to use for
relaxation, for pleasure,
perhaps to reduce pain.
JULIAN: Well Geoffrey, we should
look at marijuana as a
good example.
I mean this is a drug that
is about as addictive as
potatoes, and yet it is being
swept up into this, so-called,
war on drugs.
We have to remember we really
do have a war on drugs.
And like all wars,
it is a racket.
It is a racket which has brought
up huge industries the
fight and lobby to keep
the money flowing.
ROBERTSON: Richard Branson,
last word from you.
Is civil liberty part of the
demand to end the war on
drugs, part of the reason?
RICHARD: Absolutely.
ROBERTSON: Vicente Fox, are
v you still out there?
VICENTE: Yes sir.
ROBERTSON: What have you thought
of the debate so far?
You began it some hour ago.
VICENTE: Yes, if I--
I'd like to comment on the case
of Mexico, because Mexico
is not a drug-producing
nation.
We produce marijuana, and not
even as much as is produced in
California.
Number two, we're not a consumer
nation, our fears are
extremely low.
What has happened is that we
are in between those who
produce the drug in the south,
Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia,
Ecuador, and those who consume
the drug in the north.
And this being in between is
costing us a severe, severe
problem to the nation.
ROBERTSON: Thank you,
President Fox.
I have--
I just have one question I want
Richard Branson to answer
to conclude.
The California referendum--
doesn't that suggest
that California
is going to go legal?
RICHARD: Yes, I think it does
the second time around.
ROBERTSON: 46%, wasn't it?
RICHARD: Right, so it looks like
the next time around-- on
marijuana, we're
talking about.
ROBERTSON: Mm-hm, yes.
EMILY: I have to cut you off.
ROBERTSON: Thank you.
EMILY: Geoffrey and witnesses,
thank you very much.
And now to Eliot.
SPITZER: Thank you very much.
Steve, I know we have not been
doing cross examination as
such, now, but I just want to,
actually have a little
interchange with you
about one thing.
Because you've been talking
about a regulatory framework
which would create thresholds in
terms of the potency of any
particular drug.
Isn't it logically the case, and
don't we know, as a matter
of fact, the moment government
does that, you will create a
black market with drugs more
powerful, more potent?
And that very second you then
have the black market we've
been trying to eliminate?
So you don't solve
the problem.
STEVE: Yeah, but you
solve most of it.
SPITZER: No, you don't solve
most of it, because the moment
the drug addict can go around
the corner and get something
more powerful, he does it.
And then you have the
crime and you have
not solved the problem.
You just said yes, isn't
that correct?
STEVE: Well most of the market
is not seeking the most
powerful drugs.
SPITZER: Sure it is.
STEVE: When you go into a bar,
people aren't ordering vodka.
SPITZER: When you were
going to college?
ROBERTSON: now we're in an
American Court, now.
SPITZER: When were you on
a college campus, Len?
[LAUGHTER]
STEVE: People aren't all going
into bars and drinking vodka--
SPITZER: Sorry, we're not
the QC here I'm sorry.
STEVE: I mean one of the things
we have with an illegal
market is that it tends to push
the market towards the
most potent, concentrated
versions.
I can buy crack on the streets
of London, but I can't buy
cocoa leaf.
Now if you made an array of
drugs of different potencies
and strengths available, you
might find, actually, that
people migrated in the
opposite direction.
And, in fact, if you then
superimposed on that a
regulatory system where the more
dangerous drugs were more
heavily restricted and the
less-dangerous drugs were less
heavily restricted--
SPITZER: Steve--
STEVE: --you could shepherd
people in the right direction.
We can't do that with
criminalization, because it's
completely out of our control.
SPITZER: OK, a lot of words
said very quickly, and I'm
sure most of them
are right, but--
[APPLAUSE]
SPITZER: --and you got--
we've got your colleague here
who wants to be up here, but
we couldn't fit hi in.
Yes or no, will there not be
another black market the
moment you have those
thresholds?
STEVE: There will be a black
market after legalization, but
it will be smaller than it is
now, and that's progress.
SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
All right, OK.
To General McCaffrey, you know
I want to come back to you,
and I want to ask you a question
that may seem a
little bit off, but
you'll see why.
Am I correct, sir, that you won
three purple hearts over
the course of your
military career?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: Sure.
SPITZER: OK now the reason
I ask that, is
because there was--
the predicate question here
was, are we pursuing the
continuation of the war on
drugs which is, again the
phrase we don't like, out
of a lack of courage?
Sir, are you-- are we following
this out of a lack
of courage?
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: It's a
statement that you don't trust
democracy, it's a statement that
parents and pediatricians
and school teachers and coaches
and ministers have no
right to have an alternative
view that the current rates of
drug addiction cause immense
misery, and we want to
prevent, educate, treat,
and confront the issue.
By the way Governor Spitzer,
if you'll permit me, three
quick comments--
SPITZER: Yes, sir.
GENERAL MCCAFFREY: One is to
commend Doctor David Eagleman.
We have a genius head of the
National Institute of Drug
Abuse, Doctor Norval, bringing
$800 million worth of research
to bear in the problem.
So there are terrific new
additions to our protocols to
deal with drug addiction.
Secondly, Plan Colombia--
President Santos had me down a
couple of years ago-- a year
and a half ago--
to look at the enormous change
for the better in Columbia.
A lot of it's due to the
courage, the skill, the
commitment of the Colombian
people, with the help of the
United States.
So don't tell me that Plan
Colombia was a disaster.
Thank God for the peace that
now, generally speaking,
exists in Columbia.
Third, President Fox,
we love Mexico.
Canada and Mexico are the only
two vital countries in the
United States--
100 million of them-- these
spiritual, hardworking
people-- they're a major
drug-producing country.
Methamphetamines, heroin,
along with the enormous
amounts of marijuana.
Most of the drug criminal
activities in the United
States are dominated by the
seven Mexican cartels.
50,000 some-odd odd murdered
in Mexico there are a major
mafia inside the
United States.
SPITZER: Thank you, sir.
And again to conclude, I think
it is not-- it is not a lack
of courage that continues the
drive to change all of that
and eradicate it, just as you
had been, and as the data
suggested you had.
Ed, I want to come back to you
on this issue of courage.
Which do you think would be
easier, as a matter of
politics, human emotion?
To actually do what you proposed
about an hour ago,
which is to actually go after
the money laundering, or to
actually just embrace the
flavor of the month?
Which is to say, let's create
a regulatory framework which
would still leave us with
the same black market?
VULLIAMY: Exactly,
and I think--
I mean I've said what I've said
about money. i mean, I
think what Steve talked about,
in terms of regulation demand,
it may applying Camden Lock,
it may apply Greenwich
Village, it may apply
to the Groucho Club.
This misconstruing that most
people take drugs for
recreational reasons, like I
have done and people in this
room, no doubt.
But this isn't the crisis.
The crisis is that life has
become so awful in the human
slag-heaps that global
capitalism has caused.
The best thing to do is
obliterate yourself.
The barriers of the America, the
townships of Africa, and
becoming the case in the
post-industrial wastelands of
our own country and America.
I've spent a lot of time
in these places, and--
I think, in parentheses, it's
unthinkable that big pharma
won't get involved in this, and
I think it's unthinkable
that they'll get involved
in it to sell
as little as possible.
Because big pharma
ain't like that,
capitalism's not like that.
And the thing is that if we
have this, OK, a brand of
crack that screws you up 80%
and is $5 a hit-- it's
regulated at that as Misha
described the skunk--
the addicts I've worked among,
they're going to scoff at
that, and they're going to go
for the crack that screws you
up 99% for $2 a hit from the
guys around the corner.
Because that's the desperation
of the addiction that they
live among.
So you're sort of back where
you started, and--
I mean I'm glad we're talking
about politics at last,
because the drugs-- the causes
of drugs are political in
these desperate places.
They are poverty and
exploitation, and the
political courage is
to realize that.
And at places like Cuidad Juarez
where I've spent an
awful lot of time, I see a
terrible future for everywhere
else in that place.
The war is the liberation of
the ghetto, the barrio, and
the township against the poverty
and exploitation that
causes the desperation and the
self-obliteration through drugs.
[APPLAUSE]
SPITZER: All right,
thank you Ed.
Very well said.
Now, Peter--
now I want to go to Peter
Hitchens because Peter was so
effective at winning over
the audience earlier
this evening, so Peter--
[LAUGHTER]
SPITZER: --but I want you to
make and close tonight-- and
Lord Blair I'm sorry, we're just
running out of time-- but
Peter, make the moral
argument.
This is not just a matter
of mechanistic policy.
There is a moral imperative from
your view, what is it.
HITCHENS: Well the main point is
that taking drugs is itself
wrong, and that is why
they are illegal.
[LAUGHTER]
HITCHENS: And one of the
reasons-- one of the reasons--
one of the reasons we don't
address this is because of the
extreme selfishness of our
society, in which so many
people imagine that
their own pleasure
trumps everything else.
Julian Assange said that
he was sovereign
over his own body.
Well maybe he doesn't have
anybody who cares about him.
But if your family has to put
up with you after you've
destroyed your mental health
or some other way deeply
damaged yourself by taking
drugs, then you and they will
discover that you are no an
island, and that you have
responsibilities to
other people.
And if there is no other force,
apart from the law,
which will deter you from taking
that semi-suicidal
step, then the law needs
to be there.
That's the main and
fundamental point.
The other things I hear Sir
Richard Branson talking about
the taking of drugs-- in
particular that especially
dangerous drug, cannabis,
sordidly
promoted as safe and soft--
as a freedom comparable,
apparently, to the freedoms of
thought, speech, and assembly,
which make this and others a
free country.
How can that be?
The purpose of drugs is to
befuddle us, to cloud our
brains, to make us passive.
If we are discontented with the
society in which we live,
surely it is utterly wrong and
immoral to turn away from
that, to dope ourselves into
passivity, to make ourselves
perfect fodder for dictators,
despots, and propagandists,
rather than to criticize,
change, and reform the society
which we find repulsive.
And I turn to people on the
other side, and I mean to be
polite to them when I say that
the politest thing that I say
about them is that they are
defeatists, dupes, and
profoundly irresponsible.
And I very much hope that
their message fails, and
fails, and fails again.
SPITZER: All right,
thank you all.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY: Thank you very much.
We are going to bring you
the result now, I think.
Is that right?
We're not going to bring
you the result yet.
We're going to have a little
bit more free-flowing
conversation, and I think the
best place to pick up is
Julian Assange.
What do you make of Peter
Hitchen's statement that
taking drugs is wrong, and that
is why they're illegal,
if you're still there?
ASSANGE: Well I was just about
to say, I couldn't believe
that you gave that twat
the last word, but
apparently it's not so.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
ASSANGE: Look, there's a certain
form of Calvinism
about the different types
of drugs that we see.
For example, nicotine, which
makes one work harder, and
worked faster, and
burn out faster.
It is perfectly legal.
So is coffee, it is perfectly
legal, and makes one work
faster and harder.
But those drugs which make one
relax or make one more
imaginative--
those drugs are made illegal.
And that's Western
Europe Calvinism.
Of course we can all see the
problems with severe heroin
addiction, but we can all see
that the solutions so far have
not worked.
So we need a time of sensible,
scientific, regulatory
experimentation to see what
works and what doesn't work.
And if it works in one
place, perhaps it can
be coined in another.
At the moment we have an
enormous drug war lobby.
That is the fact.
Billions of dollars spent every
year by that lobby,
pushing its desires to keep
the drug war going.
As a result, corrupting--
corrupting--
EMILY: OK
ASSANGE: --bureaucrocy and
producing restriction in
supply, which causes cartels,
which themselves corrupt other
countries near drug suppliers.
EMILY: Lord Blair, you said
earlier that it was probably
an irreversible--
irreversible policy and with
a possibility of total
catastrophe.
Are you saying that all those
countries that have taken
steps so far, cannot reverse
those and shouldn't?
LORD BLAIR: I don't think
anybody can be against limited
experiments, but so far
the other side have
confused two topics--
they've confused
decriminalization and
legalization.
They're not the same thing.
Decriminalization, which
Portugal is doing, is actually
handing all the advantages to
the bad guys, because they can
go on selling without
taxation.
And it gives us no advantages
at all.
Whereas legalization is the
experiment I fear, because
legalization is capable of,
once launched, being
unstoppable.
Julian Assange talks about the
civil liberty to take drugs,
but there's also a civil liberty
for children to grow
up in households where
adults don't take
drugs in front of them.
And if we legalize this,
that's gone.
EMILY: We'll go to Jemima for a
few of the web questions in
a second, but you want
to respond to
that, Richard Branson.
BRANSON: I was just going to say
that decriminalization in
Portugal means that if you have
a drug problem, you go in
front of the panel, including
a psychiatrist, and they try
to help you.
And it does-- it does help.
I mean, I will--
the statistics that you're
banding around today
are just not true.
Things in Portugal
have got better.
Nobody's been to prison
in the last 10 years.
Those people who needed the help
have managed to get help.
HITCHENS: If you'll excuse me,
Sir Richard, decriminalization
of drugs has taken place in this
country in all but name.
Since 1973 when Lord Hailsham
instructed magistrates to stop
sending cannabis possessors to
prison, cannabis has been
effectively made a
decriminalized
drug in this country.
In this country, there has been
an enormous increase in
drug-taking and an enormous
increase in crime during the
period of decriminalization.
Is that evidence?
The other point about the
decriminalizers is that they
ceaselessly talk about
prohibition of alcohol in the
United States, a story
about which they
often know very little.
But it actually is an argument
against them.
What they're saying is, here we
have a drug in a society,
alcohol, which has been
legalized, and any attempt to
criminalize it again after it
has been legalized, fails.
So what they're proposing, is
to make other drugs as legal
as alcohol was in the United
States before prohibition, and
to make them as impossible
to put back in the bottle
afterwards.
You don't know, and you don't
care, in my view.
You don't know, and you don't
care what the consequences of
what you argue will be.
JOHANN: It is a fact-- it is a
fact we do know and do you
care about-- at the end of
alcohol prohibition, the
murder rate fell by 20%.
And it never went back up again
until the enforcement of
drug prohibition.
The two most violent periods
in the history the United
States since the civil war
have been with when
prohibition was being
enforced.
First alcohol, then drugs,
that's a huge number of
killings your side and you
have to account for.
HITCHENS: He doesn't address
my point at all.
EMILY:
OK [APPLAUSE]
HITCHENS: He doesn't even
slightly address it.
you're proposing making drugs
legal in this country, and
therefore giving us another
problem on top
of alcohol and tobacco.
EMILY: I just want to
widen this out to--
HITCHENS: If it were
up to you, we would
be able to do nothing.
EMILY: --to some of
our audience who
are watching globally.
Jemima, are there any specific
questions for
panel members here?
JEMIMA: No specific questions
for actual panel members, but
a general sentiment--
EMILY: Sorry, I was just going
to say if there aren't
specific ones, I'll just go to
audience members, If there any
hands-- yeah you, madame,
yeah in the front row.
Can we just get a mic over here,
and just show me any
hands further back, just while
we've got the panel here.
And then I'll go
back to Jemima.
Yeah
FEMALE SPEAKER: You mentioned
that big corporations would
benefit and profit from
legalization.
Are you saying that you'd rather
organized crime benefit
from it than big corporation.
MALE SPEAKER: $300 Billion a
year, organized crime takes.
VULLIAMY: No, I'm--
going to take a risk
and go for the
political option, neither.
[CHUCKLING]
VULLIAMY: I don't see any
particular advantage in
handing, as it were, the middle
man's role over from
Los Zetas or the Sinaloa Cartel
to GlaxoSmithKline,
because in the places we
talked all about--
Portugal and The Netherlands--
I'm interested in the places
where there are no
psychiatrists--
where the addiction is desperate
and chronic, like
the Liber esto bravo in Ciudad
Juarez, where half the kids
are on crack or meth by the
time they're 12, where
newlywed couple's murder
children to get rid of the
debris from past lives.
This is all about drugs, it's
all about capitalism, it's a
place where--
that attracted a huge workforce
in order to--
and then decided to--
where people were working these
ghastly assembly plants,
and then, you know, ef'd off to
Asia, where they could do
it even cheaper.
That's a slag heap.
those are the places I care
about, and those are the
places where, you know big
pharmas record of-- what I
will call criminality in the
profits they make, even if
that's a little legally
dodgy--
is not that much different
from Los Zetas.
And on the ground, the effect
of their marketing and Los
Zetas is just the same.
EMILY: I'm sorry, I'm being a
ferocious time keeper, because
we've got a lot to
get through.
I just want to go
back to Jemima.
Sorry to cut you off, you were
giving us a sense of the
overall position that was coming
through to you now.
What is it?
JEMIMA: Well just that the war
on drugs is an extension of
aggressive foreign policy
of the super powers.
There's lots of theories
and questions.
Is it possible that the police
and government are continuing
the war on drugs, because
it's big business?
That's Solly Solomon.
You've got, from Bernardo on
Google, isn't there a clear
geopolitical motivation for the
militaristic approach to
the war on drugs that allows
the US to justify having
troops in Latin America,
Afghanistan?
There's sentiment sympathetic
to producer countries, and
very hostile to the big
consumption centers.
EMILY: Thanks very
much, Jemima.
Well it's now down to the last
part of this. our two
advocates are going to summarize
the arguments we've
heard evening, and give
us their final
thoughts on that motion.
It's time to end the
war on drugs.
Eliot, you're first up.
SPITZER: Thank you, Emily.
First let me say what I think
we always at the end of a
debate like this, but I really
mean it tonight, those who've
participated on either
side, thank you.
This is a heartfelt,
very tough issue--
a social problem that has
beguiled politicians,
academics, law enforcement, all
people of good faith for a
long, long time.
And there is no easy answer,
as we've all seen.
Which brings me to a quotation
that, supposedly I think, came
from Bertrand Russell.
He said-- parenthetically, I
saw it on the back of a tea
bag, I had to find out where it
came from, but I think it's
Bertrand Russell--
it says never be diverted
from the truth by what
you want to be true.
And I fear that in this debate,
we are falling into
the trap of finding an
easy answer, the
flavor of the month.
And having been in government,
having been a prosecutor, I
prosecuted those organized
crime cartels,
and we can beat them.
We desire desperately to find
the easy answer and latch onto
it, and say we will
decriminalize.
We will, somehow, make a more
permissive regulatory
environment or a tougher
regulatory environment, and
the problem will go away.
It doesn't work that way.
This issue of addiction is so
deep seeded in the social
problems of poverty, the profit
incentives of cartels.
We must have the nuanced
policies that
we have right now.
I don't call it a war on drugs,
because that sounds
massive, it sounds overwhelming,
it sounds as
though it is militaristic, and
that's not the image we want.
But as general McCaffrey
portrayed it, this is a policy
with so many different facets.
It does have treatment
for users.
I was in those trenches as
a prosecutor, front-line
prosecutor.
Misha, we don't send somebody
who is caught the first time
and is a user to jail.
We just don't do it.
If you look at those RAP
sheets and see 85 other
crimes, that's why that
person's in jail.
MISHA (OFFSCREEN): Three
strikes, and you're out?
SPITZER: No, this is not what
we're talking about.
Fellas, this is a
nuanced policy.
We have treatment and health
care for users.
We must have-- yes, we must have
that coercive pressure.
Tough love to get people to
pursue the treatment.
Have you ever had an
intervention with an addict?
Have you ever seen how difficult
it is to get them to
do what they desperately
don't want to do?
If you don't have some coercive
pressure, it won't work.
This is not because it's an
overbearing government that it
is not friendly to
its citizens.
these are the tools we have
to integrate into one,
overarching policy.
I wish the President Nixon
had never used the
war on drugs metaphor.
It hasn't helped.
What we have is a carefully
integrated, nuanced policy
that evolves over time.
Do I agree with you the
recidivism rate coming out of
prison is horrifying?
Yes, 80 plus percent,
because we don't
put enough into treatment.
Sir Branson, if I
could put triple
the budget into treatment.
I would do right now.
And you know what I'd do?
I'd tax everybody with
income over over $1
million to pay for it.
That's where I am
on these issues.
Because we need to do it.
BRANSON: Stop it, stop selling
people on the present.
SPITZER: You and
me, you and me.
That's what we need to do.
That's the way we're going to
solve this problem-- not by
decriminalizing, not
by pretending
there's a magic bullet.
Let me end in an odd place.
Peter Hitchens was right about
something, not everything, but
something
[LAUGHTER]
SPITZER: He was right
when he said--
HITCHENS: I was right about
everything, actually, but
you're calculating.
SPITZER: All right, well
we'll have that later.
He was right, we use the
criminal code to establish our
moral values.
We do.
That's what they are.
That's why it is illegal to have
heroin and to sell it,
and crack and meth.
We, as a community, define
or moral code through our
criminal statutes.
That's what a society is.
And that is why, as a society,
we've said certain things are
fundamentally wrong--
murder, selling crack
to kids, producing
crack, selling cocaine.
Those things are wrong,
we make them
illegal, and we should.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY: Geoffrey the
floor is yours.
You have three minutes.
ROBERTSON: Thank you, Emily.
Ladies and gentlemen, the war
on drugs is not a failure,
it's an absolute bloody
disaster.
The crime cartels, the gangs,
making their massive tax-free
profits, bribing police, bribing
politicians, bribing
judges, killing judges and
police and politicians.
The losers, those 250 people--
250 million people the UN
tells us use drugs.
Less than 10% have problems,
it says.
Well that's 225 million people
who don't have problems. Their
only problem is the police,
their only problem is the war
on drugs, which means
prohibition, which means
punishment.
We know that addicts do
not deserve prison.
I've been a judge in London.
I've been forced, by the
sentencing rules, to send
people to prison for certain
amounts of drugs.
And we all know that drugs are
the easiest place to get- that
prisons are the easiest
place to get drugs.
So the war on drugs has been
a disaster, and yet
still we hear it.
It's endless, this war.
It cant be won, this war.
It has no real enemies, it's
a war on a common noun.
The war--
of course it's created,
conceived by Richard Nixon and
J. Edgar Hoover in the days of
reefer madness, in the days
when it was thought that
drug takers we're
all degenerate evildoers.
40 years on, we know is the
truth, that most of the law
abiding citizens, except for
their decision to take--
and sometimes very
occasionally--
a drug other than tobacco,
alcohol, and coffee.
It's interesting, isn't it, that
Mr. Costa, and everyone
after him, is avoided the
phrase the war on drugs?
Because they know they
can't defend it.
After 40 years of
total disaster,
no sane person could.
So we have Peter Hitchens--
[LAUGHTER]
ROBERTSON: --we have--
who wants a surge
in the war on drugs.
But they say this is a motion,
let's legalize all drugs.
That's not the motion--
decriminalization, regulation,
you can have endless numbers.
Ed Vulliamy says, oh we've got
to have a war on the banks.
Fine, we're all in favor
of that, a war on
money-makers, sure.
In fact, cocaine, 70% of
banknotes in this country have
traces of cocaine.
An extraordinary statistic going
to prove that cocaine,
perhaps, is mother nature's
way of saying,
you're earning too much.
Cocaine, cannabis--
cannabis, for example, you can
have sold in coffee shops, as
in Amsterdam, you can have sold
at light pornography in
shops that are licenced, the
exclude 18-year-Olds, and you
can have a much better
way of control.
Today children can
get drugs easily.
There is a civil liberties
aspect to it, as Julian
Assange says.
There is a right to freedom of
thought, there was a right to
change our mood.
There is an individual
liberty here.
And what I gift the
war on drugs is to
authoritarian regimes.
To China--
500 million people in gulags,
because they're drug addicts.
I wonder how many of those are
addicted to democracy.
Well let us conclude by saying
this, politicians may be
cowardly, or they may just think
that we want them to
continue the war on drugs,
that we are in favor.
So this is your opportunity to
show them-- this is your
opportunity to tell truth to
power, to vote yes, to tell
them, stop wasting money,
stop wasting lives.
Vote yes to stop the war.
[APPLAUSE]
EMILY: Well that moment
of truth has arrived.
A ballot box has been around the
hall, and the votes have
been counted.
I can bring you the results.
Let me remind you--
[MURMURING]
[LAUGHTER]
ROBERTSON: What are you
voting, yes or no?
You're voting yes!
[LAUGHTER]
EMILY: OK, I need
a call on this.
Do you want to wait and
postpone the count?
How many plusses have we got?
MALE SPEAKER: Put
your hands up.
[CHATTER]
ROBERTSON: Just put your
hands in the air.
1-2-3-4-5-6.
EMILY: OK, you can have six,
if they're on your side.
This is how things stood--
you'll have to the math-- this
is how things stood
before the debate.
And I'm going to tell you the
web result first, which was
92% for-- that was in favor of
ending the war on drugs.
3% were against and
5% didn't know.
In the hall, just to remind you,
we had 60% in favor of
ending the war on drugs, that
was for, 15% against, 25% were
don't knows.
After all the rhetoric and all
the arguments, here is what
has happened tonight
in the hall.
We now have 64.8% in favor of
ending the war on drugs, we
have 29.6% against an end to
the war on drugs, and 5.6%
don't knows.
Just to take you through what
that means then, the vote has
swung for ending the war on
drugs by plus 5%, and
against plus 15%.
To make a little bit clearer,
so the vote for has gone up
5%, the vote against has gone
up 15%, and the don't knows
have gone down 20%.
That's all of you in the hall
here, plus you four.
[LAUGHTER]
MALE SPEAKER: Five.
EMILY: Five.
I told you I'd leave
the math to you.
The web voting, however, is
still continuing on YouTube,
and it will do so for
another 10 minutes.
So that web vote
is still open.
If you're here with is in London
tonight, do visit the
Versus Google Plus page when
you get home, or indeed on
your phones--
entirely possible in the
next 10 minutes--
for the final results.
But from here, I'd like to
thank all our wonderful
speakers, you the audience,
Intelligence Squared, and
Google for making all
of this possible.
And if you're online, please
stay, because the show
continues on YouTube and Google
Plus with you, the web,
for the next half an hour.
Even more importantly, or just
as importantly, go to the
Versus Google Plus page, and
tell us what you think should
be the next topic of debate.
Should it be foreign aid, should
it be gay marriage,
should it be religion,
the war on terror?
World, you decide.
This is where I leave you.
Thank you and goodnight.
