WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #360 - Politics - Repression: Ending 50 Years of the "War on Drugs" (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The "war on drugs" doctrine, applied by all imperialist states and

powers, has left us with a dramatic human, social, and political toll. A
key doctrine of security-led capitalism, it constitutes a war on the
people and a tool for the fascisation of the state. In January, Darmanin
and Retailleau, one at the Ministry of Justice and the other at the
Ministry of the Interior, declared their intention to wage war on drug
trafficking, referring to "narco-scum" and a "Mexicanization" of France.
Darmanin had already adopted the concept of a "war on drugs" since
becoming Minister of the Interior, with the political support of
Macron[1]. In the United States, Trump recently declared that drug
traffickers should be treated like terrorists and suggested sending
troops to Mexico. These heightened tensions are part of a long history,
between security concerns and the underground capitalist economy.

The Origins of the War on Drugs
The concept of the "war on drugs" was coined in the United States by
Richard Nixon in 1969. The issue of drug addiction had become a priority
at the time, against a backdrop of countercultures and the Black
Revolution. This would be the starting point for a process of state
violence that subsequently spread across the globe. France followed the
United States in 1970, and various international conventions would bind
most states.

Wanting to equip itself with the means to dismantle drug trafficking
networks through the DEA[2], the United States entered into agreements
with countries involved in coca production and export. But this struggle
would quickly become a new motive for interference, particularly in the
1980s under Reagan, when South America entered into their "containment"
logic, aimed at blocking the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence[3].

Among the catastrophic outcomes, in 2006 in Mexico, Felipé Calderón,
poorly elected and controversial, launched his war on drugs, which has
already left nearly 450,000 dead and 70,000 missing in 18 years. To
respond to the Mexican state's military deployment, the cartels armed
themselves, even equipping themselves with bomber drones, weapons freely
purchased in the United States. Far from stemming the tide of the
cartels, corruption has spread throughout the state[4].

An Ideological and Racist Dimension
Across the world, the war on drugs is accompanied by racist discourses
and the revival of the colonial imaginary (Negrophobia, stigmatization
of Latino populations, etc.). These discourses exacerbate state
xenophobia and discrimination, and have reinforced the theory of the
"dangerous classes," reviving the figure of the "lumpen" through those
of gangs in ghettos, favelas, and housing projects. It has enabled the
police control of working-class neighborhoods and shantytowns throughout
the world and a carceral policy of mass incarceration, particularly of
Black people in the United States, for the benefit of private prisons.
"The war on drugs is directly linked to the security-led
industrialization of prisons and internment camps."[5]Racist discourses
are articulated with an anti-marginal discourse. Drug trafficking is
sometimes the only outlet or means of survival for impoverished and
discriminated-against populations, but trafficking divides residents,
sometimes victims of gang warfare; moralistic discourses therefore
accompany repressive doctrine and thrive with it.

Michael Cetewayo Tabor, Capitalism + Drugs = Genocide, PMN Éditions,
February 2023, 52 pages, free (pdf online).
Resistance to the Police Order
The stigmatizing and racist dimension allows repression to supplant
prevention, for example, the traps set by the bourgeoisie to slow the
development of "shooting galleries," which allow for better care for
addicted users. Ultimately, repression is ineffective, and the means
used only superficially target the "sponsors" and focus on cracking down
on small-time dealers. This naturally provokes resistance to the police
order imposed on working-class neighborhoods and its violence.
International protests have emerged, with the UN recognizing that
repression is causing public health and human rights problems[6].
Furthermore, former Venezuelan President Chavez banned the DEA from
operating in the country, considering that US imperialism is continuing
its fight against drugs. The new Colombian government has decided to
respond in this way as well[7]. In France, organizations like ASUD
denounce prohibitionism, the war on drugs, and its racist dimensions.
But while the human cost of this war is being decried and challenged,
even at the UN, neo-fascists in the United States and France have
nevertheless decided to relaunch it...

A process of fascisation
Fifty years of the "war on drugs" have entrenched racism and
security-based authoritarianism in societies, accustoming us to punitive
and repressive laws and the use of violence, control, surveillance, and
incarceration, particularly targeting certain racialized populations and
those associated with "enemies within." Like the war on terrorism, it
justifies the policiarization of the army and the militarization of the
police and fuels the security market.

These two doctrines are thus part of the transmission belts of the
process of fascisation of the state and society[8]. Opposing the "war on
drugs" does not mean being complacent or angelic about drug use, and
even less so with drug trafficking networks, any more than rejecting the
"war on terrorism" means being complacent with religious fundamentalism
and reactionary mass attacks. On the contrary, it is clear that not only
is it ineffective, but rather than being a solution, it is a tool for
the radicalization of states. We must combat it because it is the
product of securitized and racist capitalism and a normal evolution of
the sovereign state, serving to mask the problems stemming from
capitalist misery, while enabling the establishment of a
counterinsurgency system: a form of war on the people, which is why
neo-fascists are reviving it. "The police cannot solve the problem
because they are part of the problem."[9]

Nicolas Pasadena (UCL Montreuil)

Confirm

[1]"Eradicating[trafficking]has become the mother of all battles, since
drugs invigorate certain separatist networks, but also everyday crime."
Interview with Emmanuel Macron, Le Figaro, April 2021.

[2]Drug Enforcement Administration.

[3]The United States will not hesitate to intervene in South American
countries, even if it means putting dictators trained at the US Army
School of America in Panama, run by the United States Department of Defense.

[4]Genero Garcia Luna, the general who launched the war on drugs, was
himself a narco, currently on trial in the United States.

[5]Mathieu Rigouste, "Who Benefits from the 'War on Crime'?"
(Para)-State Management of the Drug Market and Security
Counter-Revolution," preface to Michael Cetewayo Tabor, Capitalism +
Drugs = Genocide, PMN Éditions, 2015.

[6]"The Human Rights Challenge of Mobilizing and Combating the Global
Drug Problem in All Its Aspects," report of the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, August 2023.

[7]Pablo Castaño, "Colombia: Ending the War on Drugs," LVSL, April 3, 2024.

[8]"20 Years of the War on Terror," Alternative libertaire No. 342,
October 2023.

[9]Michael Cetewayo Tabor, Capitalism + Drugs = Genocide, op. cit.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Repression-Mettre-fin-a-50-ans-de-guerre-a-la-drogue
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