WATCH: Chasing ghosts: why the war on drugs will never be won by just seizing drugs

A University of the West Indies professor and former CARICOM security adviser shared a message for Caribbean and European policymakers that drew significant attention: continuing to fight the war on drugs the same way is not persistence but an unwinnable strategy, and failure on repeat.

Speaking at the first plenary session of the Caribbean-European Union Parliamentary Assembly at the American University of Antigua (AUA) on Wednesday, Professor Anthony Clayton told lawmakers that if “we don’t have a change in strategy, we will probably be back in this room or a similar room 10, 20 years from now, having the same discussion again.”

The interdiction model, he argued, was built on the failing policy that seizing enough drugs and guns will eventually tip the balance.
Every seizure reported as a victory was essentially meaningless to the people who run the trade, he said.

“The guys who organise the trade expect to lose them. They don’t care if they don’t come back,” Clayton said of the fishermen and low-level couriers who are typically arrested. “The guys who run the trade are always at least three or four steps away from the people that you arrest.”

The solution he proposed is to stop chasing the drugs entirely and go after the financial proceeds of crime with unexplained wealth orders take away the financial reward and power from the trade.