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The International Narcotics Control Board, a United Nations-based drug agency based in Vienna, is urging the US government to sue Colorado and Washington state over their approval of recreational pot use. “The entire international system is based on countries respecting the rules, and there’s a broad fabric of international treaties that are part and parcel to that,” says David Johnson, US delegate to the INCB. The Board is is a monitoring body for the implementation of UN drug control conventions, and the head of the Board, Raymond Yans, called on our US Attorney General Eric Holder, to challenge Colorado and Washington state law after we approved the measures. In addition, eight former US drug chiefs are criticizing the Obama administration for not moving faster to file lawsuits against Colorado and Washington state. I’m left wondering what motivation is behind all of this. I suspect it’s an effort to support the failed status quo, policies that have not only failed to achieve their goal of eliminating pot use, but also created an incentive to use and ruined lives with millions of arrests. Surely it is not the intention of these drug laws to cause severe social problems, but now that we know that has been the result, why are INCB members and former US drug czars hanging on in this way? What kind of self-interest are these people protecting? Is it really of no matter the astronomical expense of these current drug policies?
A majority of people in our state have rejected these failed policies, and now it is Barrack Obama himself who must make the call for his administration. I hope and pray that his ability to reason in the face of these voices will allow him to make the right choice. We in the US have already been through this scenario once, when forces against the use of alcohol drove through a constitutional amendment to prohibit its use, only to see the the amendment reversed in 1933 when the policy became a dismal failure. Tell people they can’t get high, and it only makes them do anything to do what they want.
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