What happens when a diverse group of drug policy experts from throughout North America convene to discuss solutions to the world drug problem? They begin by agreeing that the drug war must end.

Beyond 2008 is a worldwide forum sponsored by the United Nations to solicit expert testimony evaluating the UN's international drug strategy. The north American conference, which just concluded in Vancouver, brought together an impressive coalition of AIDS organizations, public health groups, human rights advocates, treatment specialists, former police officers, substance abuse researchers, academics, government officials, and others.

Perhaps unintentionally, the UN had created an unprecedented opportunity for a broad coalition of interested parties to articulate their consensus that the time for drug policy reform has come.

As long as the U.S-style "war on drugs" continues, criminals will control what drugs are sold, how much they cost, how deadly those drugs are, and how young their customers will be.

That was the message delivered yesterday by Jack Cole, a retired New Jersey police officer who spent 26 years making arrests in connection with "billions of dollars in cocaine and heroin" as well as other drugs. [The Province]

Surprised to find themselves outnumbered and outclassed, the drug warriors in attendance struggled to retain their composure. Some failed:

Cole's message at the conference drew criticism from Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former speechwriter for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, who is now with Project: Sundial (Supporting United Nations Drug Initiatives and Legislation).

Sabet criticized the Vancouver forum for being made up "80 per cent" by "people who all agree with each other."

The observation that the experts are lined up against him is easily the most accurate claim ever made by this former speechwriter for the Drug Czar. It is typical of the authoritarian drug warrior mindset to conclude that this overwhelming consensus undermines the event's credibility rather than his own.

But this was no hempfest. This was a UN forum featuring respected experts with vast experience and impressive credentials. Their motives could not be impugned. Their agenda could not have been more transparent. They are the voices of everything that is true and real in the drug war debate and their consensus is a force that cannot be dismissed with the flippant pothead jokes and statistical shell-games we've come to expect from the likes of Kevin Sabet.

The drug policy reform consensus is a value statement reached through contemplation not naivety, compassion not selfishness, research not rhetoric, and hope not surrender. That our arguments are increasingly visible in any serious drug policy discussion is no coincidence or conspiracy. We'll fill every room, large or small, until peace is restored and this terrible war is banished into the bowels of history where it belongs.

Update: Kevin Sabet disagrees substantially with what I've written. His response is available here.