CENTURY OF LIES

NOVEMBER 20, 2016

TRANSCRIPT

DEAN BECKER: The failure of drug war is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors, and millions more now calling for for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century Of Lies.

DOUG MCVAY: Hello, and welcome to Century Of Lies. Century Of Lies is a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org.

STEVE ROLLES: I'm Steve Rolles, and I'm a Senior Policy Analyst for the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which is a campaigning, policy analysis, and advocacy group based in the UK but operating internationally in the field of drug policy and law reform.

DOUG MCVAY: The British Medical Journal just released three really important articles: an analysis piece from Baroness Meacher and Nick Clegg about how changes to drug prohibition could be good for the UK; another piece from the Global Commission on Drug Policy about non-violent drug users should face no penalty; and an editorial declaring that the war on drugs has failed and that doctors should lead calls for drug policy reform.

Tempted as I am to ask about UK policy for immigration for people from the US, tell me about these -- tell me about some of the stuff that's come out in these reports. This is some major stuff.

STEVE ROLLES: Yeah. I mean, the stuff from the Global Commission and Nick Clegg and Molly Meacher's no great surprise, obviously great to see but it's no surprise because this is stuff that they've all been saying for some time. I think more significant is the editorial position of the British Medical Journal, because it's one of the five top medical journals in the world. It's been around for more than 150 years. It's a very august institution, and I think that, you know, quite rightly, challenging the ethics and effectiveness of the war on drugs and saying that it doesn't work, and that we need to reform and specifically we need to explore ending the criminalization of people who use drugs and legally regulate markets for drugs, as ways of reducing the public health impacts of drugs, reducing the harms and increasing the health and wellbeing of citizens, which is what doctors should be doing.

And, it's not just that they identify the problems and some of the solutions, but they make a very clear call to medical professionals to lead the change. So, I was certainly very pleased to see this. And it fits in with a pattern of a growing number of medical and health professional publications and institutions getting behind the drug law reform cause. So, we recently saw a major piece in The Lancet, saying, making a very similar call.

Previously The Lancet has called for the decriminalization of people who use drugs, and actually, to give the BMJ credit, the British Medical Journal credit, in 2010, Fiona Godlee, who was the editor then and is the editor now, and actually put her name to the recent editorial, she actually endorsed -- she commissioned me, I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but she commissioned me to write a piece on alternatives to the war on drugs, where I called for legalization and she endorsed that. So, actually this isn't really a new departure for the BMJ, but it's a much more explicit call for reform from them. And it also calls on other medical professionals to get behind the reform cause.

So it's obviously very welcome, but I think it's also part of a broader shift amongst medical professionals into this area where historically they seem to have feared to tred in the past. So it's all good, it's very welcome.

DOUG MCVAY: And, just so listeners understand, they should go to BMJ.com and read this for themselves because these articles are available free, but they're not just talking about marijuana, this isn't just focused on the easy bit, but they're talking about the need to decriminalize all drug use. Right?

STEVE ROLLES: Yeah, that's right. I mean, I think there's often a danger that the legalization arguments only focus on cannabis stuff. I mean, clearly cannabis is by far the most widely used illegal drug, it's also one of the relatively less risky illegal drugs, and it's, you know -- people can get their heads around the legalization of cannabis pretty easily. But actually, all the logic and all the arguments that we apply to regulating cannabis actually apply to other drugs, because it doesn't really matter how dangerous a drug is, or how risky a drug is. The fact is that when they're illegal they become more risky, so this -- the argument is the same, it's a fundamentally pragmatic argument.

If people are using these drugs anyway, and they are, we need to manage and control those markets and that use to minimize the harms that it causes, both to the users themselves and to the wider community. So the regulation, the legalization and regulation logic that people use for cannabis obviously applies to all drugs, and, it may be more counter-intuitive to people that you would legalize and regulate more risky drugs, like cocaine, or ecstasy, or heroin, or methamphetamine, or whatever, but if people are using them, we need to keep those people as safe as possible, and clearly, criminalizing those people and putting them in the hands of gangsters doesn't do that.

So, the public health and community safety arguments for legalizing cannabis are the same really for all drugs. And it's very welcome to the BMJ to make that point very clearly, and it's also a point that the Global Commission, which is you know, of all these former presidents and UN luminaries, they've made that point very clearly as well.

DOUG MCVAY: We've been obviously quite distracted by things here in the US in the past few weeks, but progress continues, things continue to happen in -- at the international level. 2019 is the next year for any major international -- at the United Nations, correct?

STEVE ROLLES: Yeah, that's right, that's the next major high level gathering to look at the global drug control system. So, 2019 is when the next 10-year international drug control strategy will be discussed, and agreed, and the UN General Assembly Special Session that happened this year was a kind of curtain-raiser, so they discussed a lot of the issues, but they'll actually get nailed down and turned into a 10-year strategy in 2019.
DOUG MCVAY: Yeah. We'll be following that process rather closely, listeners. Loyal listeners know that I have a particular interest in the UN and some of these international developments. So, now, you are going to be speaking to some public health officials shortly up in Quebec. What are you going to be talking about?

STEVE ROLLES: Well, Transform's written, produced a book in 2013 about regulating --a sort of textbook, sort of 270 page, very detailed, really quite boring technocratic book on how you should regulate the different elements of cannabis markets. So, it was looking at production, and vendors, and outlets, and taxation, and prices, and potency controls, and, you know, all of that stuff. And the age controls, and marketing controls, all the different elements of, you know, an effective cannabis regulation model.

And we came at that, those questions, really from a public health and community safety position rather than a sort of industry or commercial sort of market position. And that -- the debate around that tension between public health and the interests of commercial profit seeking entities is a key one that's playing out now as we move forward in terms of legalization and regulation of cannabis.

People, the public health community, who are looking at this issue, seem to quite like the Transform position, and sort of recommendations that we've made, so we're getting quite a lot of interest from public health officials in Canada, who are now, now that Canada's made the decision to legalize and regulate cannabis, they're now working through the detail of what their cannabis regulation model should look like.

So, I'm going to be speaking in Quebec, in Montreal at the Quebecois Public Health Association's conference, on cannabis regulation. I'm going to be speaking there on Monday, and I'm here now meeting various public health officials and local officials to discuss those sorts of issues. And there, you know, there's clearly quite a -- as there is in the US, and everywhere else in the world, there's a range of opinions, you know, people from industry or more sort of free market oriented people, or people who are less keen on government intervention in markets, have one position. You have the kind of public health regulation advocates who have another position. And then of course you have the prohibitionists, who have another position again.

For me, the public health led regulation model is a kind of pragmatic middle ground between the sort of prohibition, the, you know, unregulated markets under prohibition, and unregulated markets under a sort of legal libertarian free market model. And I think the responsible approach is to have an appropriately regulated market using a public health model. And, it's interesting that, you know, we see in the US, they have the more commercial markets in the US state models. In Uruguay, you've got much more of a kind of public health led, really quite heavily restrictive, also government monopoly model for cannabis.

And I suspect that Canada will find some kind of accommodation between those two poles. I don't think they're going to be as restrictive as Uruguay, I don't think they're going to be as laissez-faire as Colorado. But that is the debate that's taking place in Canada now, and I'm very pleased to be here and participating in it.

DOUG MCVAY: Down here in the US, of course, we've just had four states approve legalization measures in the 2016 debacle. What advice do you have for these states as they move forward, that balance that you're talking about between public health and the interests of the industry?

STEVE ROLLES: Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's interesting that the way that change is happening in the US, and I don't know of any problem with the way that change is happening in the US, because, you know, people are using the mechanisms that they have at their disposal, and state-level ballot initiatives. You know, we don't have those in the UK, we don't that -- most countries don't have that option of changing policy by ballots in the way that some US states do. So it's great that that's happening, and that opportunity's there and it's being taken advantage of.

The problem I guess is that, when it is state level ballot initiatives, the policy framework is kind of drawn up by the activists and campaigners and industry people who are driving the ballot initiatives, rather than a legislatively led reform process. And I think it's reasonable to say that, if you have an industry and activist led ballot initiatives, it will tend to lean more towards a sort of commercial model, than if you had a legislatively led process, in which sort public health officials have a more hands-on role, as happened in Uruguay and as is now happening in Canada.

So I think the nature of the way in which change happens can actually influence the nature of the regulatory model that emerges. I think for the US, I mean, you know, to a certain extent I think we just have to wait and see, you know. I have some concerns about some of the US models, that they are too leaning in favor of commerce and industry and profit, and that they may have failed to learn some of the lessons from alcohol and tobacco.

But, you know, I look at the outcomes from Colorado, and they seem to be pretty good. I mean, there hasn't been this, the doom-mongers predictions of a jump in adolescent use, or drugged driving, or any of the kind of fear-mongering that, before those things happened, doesn't really seem to have manifested. And there's obviously been a huge number of benefits in terms of the reduction in criminality, and the tax revenue, and all the other very evident benefits.

So, I think we need to look at what you -- in a way, what we have now is a kind of controlled experiment. We've got a whole range of different models being tried out within the US. We've got a very different model being tried out in Uruguay, and now we're going to have another model I think that's going to be different from the US models coming out of Canada. So, I think what we need to do is look at the evidence from those different models and see what's working in terms of delivering the outcomes we all want to see, the public health, criminal justice, and economic outcomes.

And that can then inform policy as we move forward, both in the Americas and around the world. So, for me, it's quite an exciting time in terms of learning about what works and what doesn't.

DOUG MCVAY: You're of course listening to Century Of Lies, a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net.

Those four states, including California, how much of an effect do you think this is going to have on the international debate?

STEVE ROLLES: I think it's going to have a huge effect, California in particular. I mean, California is, what is it, the sixth or seventh biggest economy in the world. Everybody knows about California, and it has international status that's not dissimilar to a nation-state in its own right. And, which it may actually now become, apparently, people are talking about California seceding to escape Trump-megaddon. But we won't talk -- we won't go there, me and Doug have agreed not to discuss him. So -- but --

DOUG MCVAY: [laughter] I'll start crying, it's not even --

STEVE ROLLES: But, in terms of the international impact, it's huge. I mean, you know, the number of people living in legal cannabis jurisdictions basically doubled last week. And it's going to make it almost impossible I think for the federal government to, you know, even a terrible new federal government, can't really roll this back.

So, it feels like federal reform in the US is now an inevitability, even if it's not in this administration, it's become untenable, really, to have federal prohibition in the context of, what is it, a quarter of the country now living in legal cannabis jurisdictions. So, something has to give there, and the ripples of that, the impacts of that, around the world, combined with Canada, which is a G7 country, a very important player on the international stage, it has a great deal of status, you know, it's historically cherished its role within the UN in a way that the US perhaps hasn't.

I think it's become very clear that the current international situation, at least with regards to cannabis, is untenable. And it's not just that there are a few cracks in the dam, the dam has burst and is now, you know, the flood is heading down the valley. So something has to change in international drug control, and the discussions in the United Nations are going to become increasingly urgent.

And, you know, if something doesn't change, then the international drug control system just starts to look ridiculous and redundant, you know. If major countries, important member states within the international drug control system are openly flouting the UN system, it doesn't serve anybody's interest. I mean, the system has to modernize to reflect the needs of member states. I mean, that's what it's there for, it's supposed to serve the interests of member states, and if it's not doing that, it loses its power and authority to do anything useful in the world at all.

And we, you see, we don't want to get to a situation where UN treaties are flouted. I mean, we may not -- we may wish that for the drug treaties, but we have to remember that the drug treaties are just part of a system of hundreds of treaties, many of which are enormously important, like the international human rights treaties for example, which are incredibly important, and the climate control treaties, and many of these other agreements that we really value and cherish. Even if, within that system, there are these outdated and ineffectual, counterproductive, prohibitionist treaties from another era, the issue -- the challenge then is to modernize the UN system rather than to just dump it, trash it, because, or undermine and challenge the wider benefits of the UN system and international law more broadly.

So, the US, I think, is going to remain, the federal government of the US is going to stay fairly quiet, but in a way, even that is progress, because in the past, the US was actively suppressing debate and change. So if the US just shuts up on the international stage when it comes to drugs, that is already progress. And hopefully Canada can take on some kind of leadership role and be more proactive, to try and modernize the international system so that it is -- it aligns their treaty commitments with what's happening on the ground domestically. But it's a very interesting time for that debate, and things are moving in UN terms fairly quickly.

DOUG MCVAY: You mentioned the international treaties and flouting international conventions. Two different nations have threatened to pull out of the International Criminal Court, Russia and now the Philippines. How do you think this is going to shake out?

STEVE ROLLES: Well, I mean, the obvious reasons why the Philippines and Russia have withdrawn from the International Criminal Court is because they are committing international crimes and they don't want to have to face justice, because both Putin and Duterte are war criminals, and they will be, they're subject to prosecution and, you know, imprisonment. They could be tried in The Hague and found guilty and thrown in jail, and they don't think -- they obviously don't want that to happen. So, they are covering their backs by withdrawing from this.

What's important is that that is not tolerated by the international community, and that the international community exerts a price on those countries for the crimes that they're committing. Because, if that doesn't happen, then international law, rule of law at the international level, starts to crumble away and become meaningless. I mean, you can't, you know, order the execution, extrajudicial murder and vigilantism that leads to 5,000 deaths, which is what's happened in the last four months in the Philippines, and not face some consequences. I mean, that's a grotesque crime against humanity, and the International Criminal Court was one of the tools we have to try and combat that.

And, yeah, it is a very difficult challenge, because, you know, it falls to other countries to challenge that. But obviously, they have other geopolitical, economic interests, and Russia is a very powerful country, and can threaten and cajole and, you know, exert diplomatic influence. And, you know, it is very difficult for international member states to challenge countries like Russia individually. And that's why you hope that the UN allows for the international community, you know, to collectively, you know, say these sorts of actions and crimes happening in the Philippines and Russia, and elsewhere, obviously it's not just those two countries, there's awful crimes against humanity happening everywhere. The UN hopefully exists to be able to try and curtail those things.

But, you know, it doesn't feel like it's doing a very good job at the moment. But the UN is only as powerful as member states who constitute it, and if member states aren't committed to the values of the UN, then the UN becomes increasingly irrelevant. And the problem with the drug treaties is that, you know, they're so ineffectual and counterproductive and outdated that they actually undermine the authority of the entire United Nations.

They serve nobody's interests, and I hope that that is becoming increasingly clear, and that the group of member states who want to challenge the UN drug treaties can sort of stand together and, you know, collectively, because it's very difficult for an individual -- one member state to do it, but if there's five or 10 or 20 or 30 member states saying these, this system is malfunctioning, in need of modernization, is no longer serving our interests, it needs to change or we will defect from that system, then at that point, you have some momentum, some real possibility of actually reforming and modernizing the system.

And I suppose to a certain extent that's true with the International Criminal Court and crimes against humanity as well, but only if other member states and the international community stand up to the criminals and the bullies, like Duterte and Putin, and say, you can't do that. You can't flout international law. You can't flout people without, you know -- you can't do those things and get away with it. So, again, we're in a strange time in terms of international law, and what's happened in America recently, which we're not going to mention, I don't think it's helped matters. I mean, America's not always been the greatest of internationalists, and the new administration is probably even worse, so, who knows where we are. We're in, it's dark times and unpredictable times.

DOUG MCVAY: Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to, and I did promise we could keep onto some of the positive things.

STEVE ROLLES: Yeah.

DOUG MCVAY: But I needed to ask you about the Philippines, in part because, as you were saying, people have to speak up, and this is just one radio show, but, in each of our shows over the last several weeks, over the last several weeks we've been looking at the Philippines and the atrocities that have been committed there, and hashtag #DumpDuterte and hashtag #BoycottThePhilippines. Like I say, it's just one radio show, but somebody's go to start it.

Again, I've been speaking with Steve Rolles from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, one of the absolute best minds in drug policy reform in the world, and I am so very, very fortunate and very grateful to you for your time. Do you have any closing thoughts? And give us once again your twitter handle and also your website where people can follow what's going on.

STEVE ROLLES: Well, the website is www.TDPF.org.uk, so that's Transform Drug Policy Foundation TDPF.org.uk. My twitter is @SteveTransform.

Yeah, I mean, closing thoughts, you know, drug policy reform can often seem like, you know, one step forward two steps back, or two steps forward one step back, and, you know, I think that the election in the US reflected that, you know. A Republican administration is inevitably going to be more hostile to drug law reform than a Democrat one would be, so that was a big setback, quite aside from anything else about the new administration.

On the other hand, there was a major victory, or four major victories, particularly in California, that are going to force the issue, at least with cannabis, but drug law reform more broadly, onto the federal agenda, and from there, inevitably, onto the international agenda. So, within the darkness there is some glimmers of light, and I think we're, you know, even though you get these setbacks, we are seeing building momentum, and I think that what we were talking about earlier, with these august medical journals now openly and prominently and passionately and vocally getting behind drug law reform, we're seeing the sort of activist rhetoric, and the activist narrative is moving into a kind of institutional narrative.

So, you know, it's taken a long time, but the things that people like you and me, Doug, have been saying for a long time are becoming increasingly mainstream and institutional positions. And when that happens, you know, to a certain -- I wouldn't say our work is done, but, we, there's a multiplier effect, because other people are doing the campaigning and advocacy for us, and the people, those voices, are very powerful voices who have arguably more authority than, you know, advocates like we do, because they come with the authority of the medical profession, or law enforcement profession, and when you -- this is what we're seeing.

We're seeing institutions and law enforcement professionals, the medical professionals, and the religious leaders, and, you know, judges and people who the wider public will listen to, people who have authority, and I think that reflects a very, very significant sea change, and despite the bad things that are happening in the world, I think it's cause for significant optimism, at least within the drug law reform cause. So, whilst I am down about what's been happening this year, in many respects, whether it's Brexit or Trump or the Colombia referendum, I'm also very optimistic about drug law reform, and I see progress on multiple fronts. So, we mustn't get too miserable.

DOUG MCVAY: All right, well again, folks, we've been speaking with Steve Rolles from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. And, well, that's all the time we have. Thank you for joining us. You've been listening to Century Of Lies. We're a production of the Drug Truth Network for the Pacifica Foundation Radio Network, on the web at DrugTruth.net. I'm your host Doug McVay, editor of DrugWarFacts.org. Drug Truth Network is on Facebook, please give its page a like. Drug War Facts is on Facebook too, give it a like and share it with friends. You can follow me on Twitter, I'm @DougMcVay and of course also @DrugPolicyFacts.

We'll be back next week with thirty minutes of news and information about the drug war and this Century Of Lies. For now, for the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay saying so long. So long!

For the Drug Truth Network, this is Doug McVay asking you to examine our policy of drug prohibition: the century of lies. Drug Truth Network programs archived at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.