Da (ir)racionalidade da Guerra às Drogas

Os defensores do proibicionismo apresentam como seu principal argumento a necessidade de proteger as pessoas dos actos cometidos por si próprias, especialmente quanto praticados pelos mais jovens.

Uma primeira observação que ocorre é a estranheza de - sabe-se lá como! - haver um conjunto de seres virtuosos que conseguem não só escapar a imanente fraqueza humana de cedência aos prazeres fáceis como ainda participar, activamente, no combate ao flagelo social associado ao consumo das drogas nomeadamente através do recurso ao aparelho coercivo do Estado.

Ultrapassada esta perplexidade de ordem moral e biológica (haverá mutações genéticas que bafejem os "virtuosos"?), dir-se-ia que a preocupação principal dos proibicionistas se deveria centrar na eficácia das suas acções. Por exemplo: está a diminuir o número dos consumidores de estupefacientes? Os preços das diferentes drogas têm vindo sustentadamente a subir (sinal de escassez relativa de oferta)? A população prisional relacionada com o consumo e comércio tráfico de drogas tem vindo a decrescer? Em especial, o crime violento relacionado com os narcóticos tem vindo a descer?

Um último comentário a uma objecção clássica que "prova" que o combate às drogas tem vindo a conseguir "importantes sucessos" - o de que as capturas de drogas ilegais não têm cessado de aumentar. Repare-se que, mesmo admitindo a veracidade desta asserção, ela não invalida que se verifique, na realidade, um fracasso da Guerra às Drogas. Bastará que o volume de drogas que chegue ao mercado de consumo não diminua, e até mesmo aumente, para que o argumento do número de cargas interceptadas seja logicamente inválido para classificar o "sucesso" da Guerra.

Neste artigo do New York Times, Numbers Tell of Failure in Drug War, abordam-se com clareza estes dois últimos aspectos que poderíamos classificar de "económicos". Alguns excertos de um artigo cuja leitura integral recomendo (realces meus):

When policy makers in Washington worry about Mexico these days, they think in terms of a handful of numbers: Mexico’s 19,500 hectares devoted to poppy cultivation for heroin; its 17,500 hectares growing cannabis; the 95 percent of American cocaine imports brought by Mexican cartels through Mexico and Central America.

They are thinking about the wrong numbers. If there is one number that embodies the seemingly intractable challenge imposed by the illegal drug trade on the relationship between the United States and Mexico, it is $177.26. That is the retail price, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data, of one gram of pure cocaine from your typical local pusher. That is 74 percent cheaper than it was 30 years ago.
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Most important, conceived to eradicate the illegal drug market, the war on drugs cannot be won. Once they understand this, the Mexican and American governments may consider refocusing their strategies to take aim at what really matters: the health and security of their citizens, communities and nations.

Prices match supply with demand. If the supply of an illicit drug were to fall, say because the Drug Enforcement Administration stopped it from reaching the nation’s shores, we should expect its price to go up.

That is not what happened with cocaine. Despite billions spent on measures from spraying coca fields high in the Andes to jailing local dealers in Miami or Washington, a gram of cocaine cost about 16 percent less last year than it did in 2001. The drop is similar for heroin and methamphetamine. The only drug that has not experienced a significant fall in price is marijuana.
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The use of hard drugs, meanwhile, has remained roughly stable over the last two decades, rising by a few percentage points in the 1990s and declining by a few percentage points over the last decade, with consumption patterns moving from one drug to another according to fashion and ease of purchase.

For instance, 2.9 percent of high school seniors admit to having tried cocaine in the last year, just slightly less than in 1992. About 15 percent of seniors said they abused a prescription drug last year. Twenty years ago, prescription drug abuse was not even consistently measured.
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A war on drugs whose objective is to eradicate the drug market — to stop drugs from arriving in the United States and stop Americans from swallowing, smoking, inhaling or injecting them — is a war that cannot be won. What we care about is the harm that drugs, drug trafficking and drug policy do to individuals, society and even national security. Reducing this harm is a goal worth fighting for.