The D'Alliance: Personal Views on Drug Policy

Watch the UN Drug Czar Get All Worked Up

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, dodged a question about the flaws of prohibition at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans last December. Now he is captured on video doing the same thing all over again at a meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

Dr. Frederick Polak of the Netherlands, attending the meeting as a representative of a non-governmental organization (NGO), poses a simple question, which, as Dr. Polak points out, gets right to the theory behind prohibition: Given that the Netherlands has full availability of marijuana for personal use for adults, how does Costa explain the fact that marijuana use rates in that country are lower than in the surrounding countries?

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union was there to capture the exchange, and you have to see it to believe Costa's bob-and-weave response. Not only does he not answer the question (talking instead about coffee shops), but he gets angry when Dr. Polak presses him for an answer.