Illegal drugs as weapons of mass destruction: comparing devastation

Military Intervention and Peacekeeping

"Nuclear WMD Are Not Likely in Our Times to Be Used, but Illegal Drugs Comprise WMD When Measured in Devastation."

It is true that typical Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are not likely to be used in our time, but it is also true that the devastation caused by the use of illegal drugs is equal to that caused by WMD.

WMD is defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as any weapon -- nuclear, biological, or chemical -- that causes widespread devastation (Cryptome.org). Under this definiton we could include illegal drugs. They are a chemical and we know that they cause widespread "devastation." Other experts define WMD as capable of causing mass casualties.

And the definition is known to exclude chemical and biological weapons by other scholarly sources (Cameron).

There are many good reasons to have an accurate and comprehensive definiton of WMD in order to be able to define the scale of destruction a "WMD" causes. Questions arise such as what mass destruction consists of. How many mass casualties? Are we talking deaths? Injuries too?

Long-term capability to kill by inducing radiation and causing later death?

For purposes of our paper, I don't believe we need to have a technical definition of WMD since we are simply comparing the "effects" of the results of illegal drugs to those of "WMD."

Therefore, we will use the following definition: WMD consists of any weapon -- nuclear, conventional, chemical, biological, radiological -- that is the cause of widespread devastation and mass casualties. and, surprisingly, our definition falls pretty much in line with U.S. law (18

U.S.C. 2332a and 18 U.S.C. 921)(Schneier).

In this age of the threat of terrorism around every corner, and in the U.S., one of the major worries is a smuggled-in suitcase-size nuclear weapon, or many of them, deployed in major cities, airport terminals, stadiums, etc. And the destruction they might cause.

The U.S. developed the W54, a "suitcase" nuclear weapon capable of one kiloton of explosive power. As a comparison, the bombs dropped on Japan during WWII were about 16-21 kilotons. The W54, it is estimated would be many times more powerful than the truck bomb used in Oklahoma City to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in 1995.

That bomb knocked down the floor supports and caused the building to collapse, killing 170 people. A W54 nuclear device would have burned hundreds, perhaps thousands of people and completely leveled the building, as well as severely damaging buildings around the primary target.

(MOSCOW- 04 December 2008) - More than 30,000 people die from illegal drug abuse each year in Russia -- eight times more than the number of drug-related fatalities in the European Union, the Russian anti-drugs unit said Wednesday. Russia loses 30,000 people each year to drug abuse, the majority of them young people," FSKN director Viktor Ivanov said, quoted by Interfax. Ivanov said there were 78,000 drug addicts in 2007 in Russia, up from 70,000 regular users in 2006. He added that 90% of Russian addicts took Afghan-imported heroin (EU Business).

In the year 2000, 17,000 people died in the United States from illilcit drug use. (Annual Causes of Death in the United States)

Increased crime, domestic violence, accidents, illness, lost job opportunities, and reduced productivity can be linked to illegal drug use. Every year Americans of all ages engage in unhealthy, unproductive behavior as a result of substance abuse (ONDCP).

Illegal drug use is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans annually. In 1997, there were 15,973 drug-induced deaths in America. Drug-induced deaths result directly from drug consumption, primarily overdose. In addition, other causes of death, such as HIV / AIDS, are partially due to drug abuse. Using a methodology that incorporates deaths from other drug-related causes, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) estimates that in 1995 there were 52,624 drug-related deaths. This figure includes 14,218 drug-induced deaths for that year, plus mortalities from drug-related causes. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA's) Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) collects data on drug-related deaths from medical examiners in forty-one major metropolitan areas. DAWN found that drug-related deaths have steadily climbed throughout the 1990s (ONDCP).

Of high school seniors in 2006, 42.3% reported having used marijuana/hashish; 8.5% have used cocaine; and 1.4% have used heroin. These are huge numbers when you consider that there are approximately 16 million high school age students. One percent equals 160,000 students. So, if 8.5% of high schools students have used cocaine, that means the number is 1,360,000 students (Drug Use).

From 2000-2004, a government study showed that 9.4 million (8.2%) full-time workers were illicit drug users.

And let's not forget that mere overdose of drugs is not the end of the devastation caused by illegal drugs. The use of drugs (and alcohol) leads to most crimes in this country. It contributes to homelessness, HIV / AIDS, suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. All of these problems have their own death statistics that pile onto illegal use of drugs (Annual Causes of Death in the United States).

In Australia, it is almost impossible to measure the social costs of alcohol and other drug misuse. Drugs have a major impact on crime, violence, family life and work. Drugs are a major cause of chronic sickness and death. They contribute to accidents and injury, poisoning, cardiovascular disease, many types of cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and many other problems affecting people's lives, their families and communities (Drug related problems).

Drug related deaths in Australia account for almost one in five (20 per cent) deaths among all age groups. In 1998, 22,500 Australians died as a direct or indirect result of harmful drug use and over 175,000 were hospitalized with drug-related conditions (Drug related problems).

The World Health Organization's survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use. For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%) (WebMD).

How much devastation is equivalent to a WMD of some sort impacting the United States, or one of these other countries, compared to the destruction wrought every day in every country in the world? Do we match numbers of dead? Do we look at peripheral damage? Maybe we just look at statistics and let them stun us into believing that the illegal and illicit drug problem in the world today is equivalent to anything we could face with a WMD. Yes, a WMD would be awesome, frightening and "exciting" in its own grim way, but certainly no more awesome than knowingly allowing millions of our fellow citizens of the world to die from drugs.

we now label everything that kills a lot of people a WMD?

What is a "weapon?" According the MSN Encarta online dictionary (2009) (and several others), a weapon is "a device designed to injure or kill: a device designed to inflict injury or death on an opponent; or something used to gain advantage in a situation."

This definition definitely fits a WMD. but, does it fit illegal drugs? Automobiles? Cigarettes? Drugs are not grown as a weapon, or manufactured as a weapon, or sold as a weapon, or used as a weapon.

Heroin is defined as an addictive drug. It is used illegally and "wrongly" and stupidly, and, yes, it can certainly kill. And I suppose if we stretched it, we could say an "opponent" or enemy could use it to inflict injury or death.

The difference is that word "designed." A WMD is a weapon that is designed for the purpose of injuring or killing an enemy. A drug is not "designed" for that purpose. Like it or not, and as much as many of us consider drugs in all those evil and dangerous ways, we can't say it's designed to kill or injure.

There is also an unspoken part of the definition of a WMD. And this one is not a technicality but rather goes right to the heart of whether or not illegal drugs can be defined in the same breath as WMD. The unspoken word is "Armageddon."

Armageddon is the massive (and short) final battle between God and Satan. It is awesome, enormous, totally destructive, and will be a visual wonder of the world. It is, in fact, that even today is used to describe a nuclear end to the world.

In the public's mind, that is what a WMD is. It portends the end of civilization as we know it. it's not that it really is, but that is definitely the perception. or, at a minimum it would be the end of the world for the significant portion of it affected by the small (or large) nuclear WMD, or spray bottle, or radiation poisoning, etc.

There is that awe-inspiring, awful, tremendous, earth-shattering, explosive and annihilating force to it that makes it what it is -- a weapon of massive destruction. Even in the case of anthrax spread via small doses that can kill thousands, there is an evil, massive side to it that makes it what it is.

With illegal drugs, we don't get that sense. For one thing we have lived with drugs for so long. We know they will never go away. We know they will do their awful damage day after day, year after year. We are aware they kill the people stupid enough to use them, who somehow think this is a unique way of committing suicide...or don't think at all.

We don't have to guess when it will happen or how or be shocked by it when it happens. There is no Armageddon effect to it. It will just happen because...it will. It won't be something an enemy suddenly envelops the world in, or shocks humanity with.

No, we will simply go on doing something incredibly dumb -- killing ourselves because we're hooked and have given our lives over to a little bag of powder that we will kill and steal to get money for. There will be no massive devastation -- only individuals accumulating over time as corpses -- slowly, predictably, almost effortlessly as the death toll climbs.

After all, are the after-effects of illegal drugs anything at all like the after-effects of a WMD? I don't think so, for all the reasons stated. Equivalency between the two is impossible to define because there is no equivalency. They are separate; they are both awful; they both kill a lot of people. But equivalent -- no. Neither is equivalent to the other; they just both terrible.