Interview Ethan Nadelmann - Expogrow Irún 2015

Transcript of interview with Ethan Nadelmann:

Ethan, you are a founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance but what exactly is your motivation?

It's basically to end the drug war in my own country and around the World.

And by that I essentially mean reducing the role of criminalization
and the criminal justice system in drug policy as much as possible while still protecting public health and safety.

Does prohibition, or the war on drugs, come from ignorance ?

I think it's a combination of ignorance, fear, prejudice and profit.
Ignorance, in that when people think about illegal drugs they are so wildly inaccurate and not in line with the science, and the belief that these drugs are so much more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco
and of course that is not the case.

I say prejudice because so much of this is about fear of ethnic minorities, people of color, foreigners, it's so woven together.

If you ask in my country and many others, why some drugs are criminalized and some not, you realize it has very little to do with the relative risks and dangers of these drugs, and almost everything to do with who uses and who is perceived to use these drugs.

The fear is not just about prejudice but also about every parents fear for his child, and their fear that their children will get into trouble about drugs and the desire to protect them in any way possible. 

And the profit, at least in my country, is about private prison corporations, prison guard unions and all the others who benefit from the war on drugs.

How do you see the current situation in Europe?

I used to look to Europe for leadership on drug policy in the 1980’s and 90’s.

The Dutch with their harm reduction policy and coffee-shop policy, the Swiss with safe injection rooms and heroin maintenance and other harm reduction policies, the Portuguese with decriminalization and public health approach.

They really were an inspiration and I created my organization to educate Americans about the better ways of dealing with drugs that the Europeans could teach us. 

It´s been disappointing in the last 15 years because much of Europe feels like “well, we led in the 80’s and 90’s, now let somebody else do it” and people lost their passion and energy.

There are still good things happening like the cannabis policy in Spain and a little bit in other countries and it's good that harm reduction has become more institutionalized in the political system throughout much of Europe, but I do wish there was more dynamism for reform in Europe.

The marijuana issue has been linked with basic human rights.

Why is so hard to understand for governments and politicians that people should have the right to choose their own medicine?

It's interesting, in almost every speech I make in the United States and other countries I say there is a basic principle here that people should not be punished for what they put into their bodies, absent harm to others.

When we test that line sometimes it gets a big applause, but when we test it in opinion polls in the United States there are barely 10% of Americans who care about this issue from a human rights or civil liberties perspective. 

Most Americans are now supporting legalization because they want to stop wasting money on ineffective policing, because they want the tax revenue or because they want to put the gangsters out of business.

It's not from a human rights perspective. In Latin America and Europe sometimes you see the courts, in Germany, Columbia, Mexico and in other places, make a decision that it's a human right not to be punished for the medicine or substance you consume.

By large I think it's a pivotal argument to make for broader acceptance, but at this point it's not persuasive enough for the majority of people in my country and most others.

It is good having access to cannabis in pharmacies and dispensaries but what about not paying for marijuana and just growing it at home?

We in the United States and in my organization Drug Policy Alliance
very firmly believe that there needs to be a right for people, not just to possess marijuana, but also to have the right to cultivate it for their own use, and if they want to begin to sell it then the state has a right to regulate it, license it, and tax it. 

We have fought for that, all the medical marijuana initiatives that we did included that, and in the legalization initiatives we have tried to do the same. 

Unfortunately what has happened in recent years is that as we have worked to legalize medical marijuana, in states like New Jersey, New York and some others, what we find is that the elected representatives want to prohibit the right of personal cultivation.

And what we found, for example Colorado and Washington were the first 2 states to legalize marijuana, Colorado included the right to grow your own, but Washington State did not because the key people who drafted it were afraid of losing the initiative if they included it. 

In Oregon and Alaska we included it and hopefully all, or most of the initiatives in 2015/16, will include it. 

It's more of a problem that when we change the marijuana laws
through the initiative and referendum process we always do our best to include it, and it's only if public polling suggests that the initiative will loose that it may not be included.

But when you have to fight this battle out with the legislators
it's harder to hold on to that.

We have always thought about telling politicians "hey guys lets make a war on poverty, or a war on unfairness, and not a war on drugs.

Do you think we will see that some day?

For many years even the American drug warriors do not like to use the words ‘drug war’ because they know that most Americans know that the drug war has failed and cannot work.

So they find other language to describe the same drug war policy.
Obviously in marijuana, it's interesting in the United States because
now a majority support legalizing marijuana, and we have states doing it, but we still have 600,000 people arrested a year for marijuana so there is a disconnect.

There are states that are very conservative and there are police that just keep doing it no matter what.

So even if public opinion shifts and the laws change it takes time to change the police culture and the law enforcement culture.

Fortunately with legalization, the police no longer have laws to enforce so you see in Washington and Colorado a dramatic drop in marijuana arrests.

I’d like to congratulate for the work you have done, and thank you for this interview. 

Thank you very much, and thank you for what you are doing.