The War on Drugs has a lot in common with efforts against nuclear proliferation.
Nuclear technology offers the potential to power the world without contributing to global warming. Radioactive isotopes are widely used in modern modern medicine for diagnostic purposes and some therapies. But highly enriched uranium holds the power to destroy the world.
Similarly, drugs have both positive and negative applications. Take opium for instance. Morphine, an opium derivative, is an indispensable drug in medicine- perhaps the most effective painkiller known to man. But when used improperly, opium can ruin people and societies, especially in the "highly enriched" form of heroin.
The problem is that banning drugs like heroin and cocaine don't make them go away, it just pushes them underground, into the hands of unscrupulous individuals. The world drug trade is a lively business controlled by organized crime. Similarly, the world nuclear trade has its own cartels-- imagine A. Q. Khan as Pablo Escobar and Kim Jong Il as Manuel Noriega. Iran has been able to progress so quickly on its nuclear program because it stood on the shoulders of international criminals.
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Nuclear technology offers the potential to power the world without contributing to global warming. Radioactive isotopes are widely used in modern modern medicine for diagnostic purposes and some therapies. But highly enriched uranium holds the power to destroy the world.
Similarly, drugs have both positive and negative applications. Take opium for instance. Morphine, an opium derivative, is an indispensable drug in medicine- perhaps the most effective painkiller known to man. But when used improperly, opium can ruin people and societies, especially in the "highly enriched" form of heroin.
The problem is that banning drugs like heroin and cocaine don't make them go away, it just pushes them underground, into the hands of unscrupulous individuals. The world drug trade is a lively business controlled by organized crime. Similarly, the world nuclear trade has its own cartels-- imagine A. Q. Khan as Pablo Escobar and Kim Jong Il as Manuel Noriega. Iran has been able to progress so quickly on its nuclear program because it stood on the shoulders of international criminals.
Click "Read More" to Continue ------>
Thus, the main difference here is that unlike illegal drugs, the main impediment to nukes is technical know-how-- it's very difficult to enrich uranium, which is the main reason why nuclear proliferation has been so slow. But to quote the founder of wikipedia, knowledge wants to be free. And in the 21st century, many more states have the capability to apply that knowledge than ever before.
We can't afford to fail at stopping nuclear proliferation like we have failed in the War on Drugs. The only way to fully control drugs like heroin and cocaine is to distribute them in controlled manner-- otherwise they will simply be sold on the black market. Countries are allowed under the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, as long as they disclose it to the international community.
Instead, I believe that a new goal might be to get ride of national enrichment sites. In such a configuration, all enrichment would be an international endeavor, performed through regional IAEA nuclear enrichment sites. It might be a pie-in-the-sky idea, but something has to be done to limit the amount of people who can make important decisions about uranium enrichment (or plutonium). And further internationalizing the issue makes it much easier to track the material and scientists involved.
- Jon
We can't afford to fail at stopping nuclear proliferation like we have failed in the War on Drugs. The only way to fully control drugs like heroin and cocaine is to distribute them in controlled manner-- otherwise they will simply be sold on the black market. Countries are allowed under the NPT to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, as long as they disclose it to the international community.
Instead, I believe that a new goal might be to get ride of national enrichment sites. In such a configuration, all enrichment would be an international endeavor, performed through regional IAEA nuclear enrichment sites. It might be a pie-in-the-sky idea, but something has to be done to limit the amount of people who can make important decisions about uranium enrichment (or plutonium). And further internationalizing the issue makes it much easier to track the material and scientists involved.
- Jon
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