In less than a week, 31 heroin overdoses have been reported in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. This is the highest number of overdoses in 11 years, and signifies the failure of the North America’s “war on drugs.”
The trafficking of illegal substances across national borders poses a threat to the state, as laws and regulations are not being followed. The conditions of the black market economy created by federal prohibitions against illegal substances and their procurement, are those of heavy violence and desperation. These conditions destabilize states as the low-income areas that are hubs of black market activity are made victim to violence and intimidation of cartels and drug dealers. Cartels in South America that supply the majority of the drugs available in the U.S bring the highest homicide rates in the world to their respective countries. They have led to mass influxes of refugees across America’s borders, which supposedly threatens existing resources and a bruised American employment rate.
The black market drug economy causes high prices and secret conditions of drug production. Drugs made in secret with no regulative body are often cut with different substances to maximize quantity. This processes creates unsafe drugs as the drug makers have no interest in the consumers. This is the case for the bad batch of heroin making its way around Vancouver; it was cut with fentanyl, a very strung pain reliever given to gunshot victims and other people in sever emergency conditions. The policies American governments have created to combat the circulation and consumption of drugs in society impact the safety of the drug user and their families.
These conditions weaken the internal fabric in local society, which lead to generational poverty and families of addicts. These harsh policies have done nothing to reduce the consumption of drugs, in fact there is more demand in the U.S. than ever before. Thus, violent cartels that are destroying the nation-states they exist within, have even more incentive to continue the drug trade.
I believe that drugs and their social impact are dangerous to national security both on a domestic level and internationally. I think than rather than imposing tighter regulations and punishments for drug users and sellers, a paradigm shift is in order. Understanding addiction as a disease, as a consequence of systemic inequality, and as a mental health/physical problem that can be managed so as to mitigate the effects of drug addiction on human productive capacity, are the first steps toward a paradigm shift. If we can produce this level of understanding on a governmental level, national security will not be impeded in the same way from the drug trade.