Wealthy countries have donated over $1 billion to the global war on drugs, a new report shows

A recent report from Harm Reduction International (HRI) sheds light on how richer countries like the United States and Europe continue to provide significant foreign aid to the global war on drugs. However, instead of addressing problems such as poverty, hunger, health care and education, these funds are allocated primarily to law enforcement and military efforts. As anyone familiar with the war on drugs knows, police and federal agencies rarely make things better, especially when given firearms.

For this reason, HRI is calling on governments, including the United States, to “stop using resources from their limited aid budgets” to support policies that negatively impact drug users. This causes more harm than good; The money could be used for other things and it’s just expensive.

The Aid for the War on Drugs report shows that between 2012 and 2021, 30 donor countries provided $974 million in international aid for “drug control.”

Shockingly, some of that aid, totaling at least $70 million, went to countries that impose the death penalty for drug crimes. Of particular concern is the provision of funding to 16 governments that carry out executions for drug-related convictions.

As detailed in the report, U.S. aid flowed to Indonesia in 2021 to support a “counternarcotics training program.” This came the same year that Indonesia handed down a record 89 death sentences for drug-related offenses. Japan has given Iran millions to help fund its drug-sniffing dog units, while Iran executed at least 131 people over drugs in 2021.

Within a decade, the United States emerged as the largest donor, providing $550 million, more than half of the world’s drug war funding. The USA was followed by the European Union (282 million US dollars), Japan (78 million US dollars), the United Kingdom (22 million US dollars), Germany (12 million US dollars), Finland (9 million US dollars). dollars) and South Korea ($8 million), Marijuana Moment reports.

The war on drugs receives more foreign aid than school nutrition, early childhood education, labor rights, and mental health care. During the reporting period, 92 countries received “drug control” assistance. The largest recipients were Colombia ($109 million), Afghanistan ($37 million), Peru ($27 million), Mexico ($21 million), Guatemala and Panama ($10 million each ).

“There is a long history of drug policy being used by world powers to strengthen and enforce their control over other populations and to target specific communities,” the report said. “The racist and colonial dynamics continue today, and wealthier governments, led by the United States, spend billions of taxpayer dollars worldwide to strengthen or expand drug control systems and related law enforcement.”

“These funding streams contradict existing evidence and international development, health and human rights commitments, including the goal of ending AIDS by 2030,” the report said. “They rely on and reinforce systems that disproportionately harm Black, brown and Indigenous peoples worldwide.”

While certain countries, such as the United Kingdom, have reduced their spending on foreign anti-drug initiatives, others have decided to increase their funding. For example, at the beginning of President Joe Biden’s term in office, the United States significantly increased its support for drug war aid.

News of the report comes as Biden, who has never been a proponent of Class A+ cannabis, is president as the federal government is finally seriously considering reclassifying cannabis.

But to show the public where it stands in a classic political game in the ongoing federal review of cannabis planning, the White House has reiterated that President Joe Biden has clearly supported the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes. They emphasized: “President Joe Biden has ‘made it very clear’ that he ‘always supports the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes.'”

In August, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the potential impact of reclassifying cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). She replied: “I don’t want to pre-empt the process. I’ve been asked this question before. Just so everyone is clear, the President has asked the Secretary of HHS and also the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to review the marijuana plan, as you just outlined.”

While the United States is the world’s largest contributor to the drug war, HRI’s report highlights how these numbers fluctuate, which is important to consider. For example, the US provided $301 million in “drug control” aid in 2021, a significant increase from $31 million the previous year. (However, this number represents a fraction of what the US is investing in the global drug war through other initiatives).

According to the report, Colombia was the largest recipient of this aid.

The only thing the report doesn’t reveal are the details, apparently to protect the “health and safety of implementing partners and the national interests of the United States.”