Belgium and particularly the port city of Antwerp are in the grip of drug-related violence. Attacks described as “settlings of accounts among drug traffickers” have become commonplace. Could the legalisation of cocaine help to stop drug-related violence? Crime expert Tom Decorte of Ghent University believes it could.
Earlier in the week an 11-year-old child was killed as a result of one of these attacks. It was a new low point in the country’s saga of drug-related violence that includes some 200 incidents over the past five years.
For Belgium’s politicians combating narcoterrorism remains a top priority. Justice minister Van Quickenborne speaks of improving security in the port of Antwerp, a harbour that serves as a hub for drugs coming into Europe from South America. Bart De Wever, the Mayor of Antwerp, even proposed the deployment of the army. But nobody in authority has mentioned a possible legalisation of cocaine, though academic Tom Decorte believes the debate should now be opened.
“The 100-year-old idea that banning hard drugs would help us gain a hold on the phenomenon clearly doesn’t work. The fact drugs are illegal means drug-trafficking is a cash machine for the criminal organisations. The pull of big money turns this into a perpetual fight that cannot be won”.
Decorte believes legalisation could form the answer: after legalisation the current money-making model will collapse, he believes.
“Legalisation means a set of rules: who can buy, at what age, how must the drugs be packaged, which content is not allowed, who can sell and produce?”
Decorte, who forms part of citizens’ movement SMART, thinks removing cocaine from the penal code need not necessarily lead to a sales model similar to that of alcohol today. “That’s only one option” he says.
Decorte believes it’s perfectly possible for pharmaceutical companies in Belgium to produce and distribute the drug: “An agreement with traditional supply countries isn’t even needed”.
He’s not even worried about neighbouring countries taking a different approach: “Look at cannabis: countries where sale is regulated ensure they remain good neighbours, make sure only nationals can purchase and prevent all forms of export. Creating a closed chain is quite possible”.
The crime expert concedes that thinking about the legalisation scares people at a time when alcohol and smoking are discouraged: “It would be strange that we accept some drugs can be produced by pharmaceuticals and prescribed by a doctor and others can’t”.
But Decorte believes a further clampdown on cocaine trafficking will only lead to more violence because the trade becomes even more profitable: “The most audacious criminals will try to fill the vacuum and their actions will become increasingly violent” he notes.