"The prohibition on drugs is over. Secretly, I believe that prohibition was a way of telling humanity: take note, this is dangerous…" said Antonio Escohotado during the World Ayahuasca Conference held in September in Ibiza. According to this drug historian and philosopher, his work The General History of Drugs, published in the 80s, "was already a post-prohibition book," as was the famous Pharmacotheon, by his friend Jonathan Ott, with whom he shared a table at the event. Are these venerable drug sages right? Is legalization (or, rather, the abolition of prohibition) just around the corner, or are we guilty of wishful thinking?
There is a very wide variety of illegal, alegal, and reluctantly tolerated substances, just as degrees of repression vary greatly in the different countries, but there are many signs that we may indeed be witnessing the beginning of the “50 years of folly” of which Juan Carlos Usó has spoken.
1. The war on drugs falters in the country which launched it
President Richard Nixon declared the infamous "war on drugs" in 1973. Paradoxically, the United States is now one of the countries at the forefront of legalizing one of the three "accursed" plants: marijuana (the other two: coca and opium). As José Carlos Bouse explains in the latest issue of the magazine
“In the U.S.A., 22 states have already legalized marijuana for therapeutic use, something that does not violate the Agreements, as they permit the medical use of controlled substances. But there now at least four states (Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, soon to be followed by New York and California) along with Washington D.C. that have also legalized recreational use, something that collides head-on with the Agreements' most stringent laws."
2. (Changing) public opinion
Perceptions of drugs are not the same today as they were 30 years ago, in the ominous decade of heroin, for example. The monthly CIS (Spain’s Sociological Research Center)bellwether that asks Spaniards about the problems they find most pressing has seen a dramatic drop in the percentage of respondents who consider drugs to be a serious problem: from 49% in June of 1988 to just 0.2% in 2014. For very good reason, unemployment has been Spaniards' leading concern during this quarter century.
With regards to the so-called “soft drugs,” the change is even more dramatic. The legalization of marijuana in some American states would not have been possible without a previous shift in public opinion. As can be seen in the graph, 2013 was the first year, ever since Gallup began asking the question, in which most respondents favoured the legalization of marijuana.
Image: Muy Computer.
3. The origins and establishment of the Deep Web
The prohibition of drugs is maintained, de facto, although, de jure, it was abandoned a long time ago. In countries like Spain it was never too difficult to obtain almost any substance, at almost any time of day, as long as you had the money to pay for it. Now, thanks to initiatives like Silk Road, and their inevitable successors, the same thing applies to the whole planet. JC Ruiz Franco, a scholar on the issue, explained the phenomenon to me thus in a letter:
“The appearance, development, proliferation and good health, in general, of the Deep Web drug markets seem to me one of the clearest signs that prohibition is, in fact, already dead. Being able to conveniently buy the substances that you want, without leaving your house, just as if you were buying any other product, and receive them a few days later in your mailbox, with the only hassle of having to previously acquire bitcoins to pay, I consider the nail in the coffin of prohibition."
4. The new consumer profile
In the wild 80s the typical drug user was a junkie (or a housewife totally hooked on Optalidón, but that's another story), which explains the “social alarm” related to everything that had to do with narcotics. Today, on the other hand, countless Spaniards under the age of 60 years have consumed or tried hashish, cocaine or pills, or know someone who regularly uses these substances and everything is ok.
What's more, the generation holding power in Spain today–politicians, business leaders, judges, journalists, police…–has lived around drugs for granted. For them drugs are no longer “that scourge” that terrified the preceding generation, but rather one more aspect of man's multi-faceted nature.
5. "Liberal pragmatism”
The recent inclusion of drugs and prostitution in the calculation of the GDP called for by the EU is part of a coming effort “to remove from the darkness” activities that account for 4.5% of the Spanish economy - to remove them from "fiscal darkness," of course. According to JC Ruiz Franco:
“All nations will end up adopting the same measures as the U.S.A., where, in opposition to conservatism, in the end liberal pragmatism will prevail, through the legalization of an activity–the commerce and sale of any drug just like one hundred years ago–that, thanks to taxes, will fill the state's coffers. The existence of this activity–along with the financial activity it entails– will stave off the spectre of economic crisis. In Spain, however, until political leaders have no choice but to give in to the worldwide trend, average citizens wanting to take something will have to watch out and continue resorting to the same old tricks, or invent new ones, not to have their bank accounts drained [by the current prices existing in an illegal market]. Don't say I didn´t warn you!"
Image: Static.betazeta.
6. Uruguay
Much has been said about the case of Uruguay, whose decision to legalize cannabis and its by-products has placed the little country way down south in the international spotlight. The decision was adopted in part on the personal initiative of President Mújica, and in part to defy the existing international prohibitions: “Uruguay has taken the definitive step, crossing the line drawn by the INCB [the UN's International Narcotics Control Board]", writes José Carlos Bousoin Ulises.
7. Morocco debates legalizing cannabis
Cannabis is one of the leading industries of Spain’s neighbour in the south: it is calculated that some 90,000 families live off the cultivation of cannabis, a business that is worth more than 12 billion dollars a year… and produces 38,000 tons of hash. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable to even suggest the possibility of legalizing cannabis.
Today, however, in the Moroccan Parliament the parties Istiqlal and the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) have presented two parallel bills to demand the legalization of cannabis cultivation for therapeutic and industrial aims, and to ask for amnesty for thousands of growers who live in semi-secrecy in the north of the country, as we reported on 10 November.
The proposal would not have been possible without the recent moves towards the toleration of the plant taking place in the American continents, which just might have set in motion a domino effect, with the first tile to fall having been...
8. ...Spain, like Morocco
What we said above about Morocco is applicable to Spain: following the examples of Uruguay, Colorado and California, the Izquierda Unida (United Left) party could dare to submit a bill for the legalization of cannabis, a movement that, even if it is doomed and destined to be rejected by the PP, shows that, as Bob Dylan said, "the times, they are a-changin."
But let's not declare victory just yet: the new Citizen Safety Law approved last year in Spain multiplies 50 to 100 times the fines for the consumption or possession of cannabis in public places. The "Golem" of prohibition will apparently go down swinging.
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