Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, lost his temper today at an NGO summit in Vienna. The event is intended to evaluate UN drug strategy from diverse perspectives, yet Costa began by insulting a huge number of professionals working to solve the drug problem:

"I attended the meeting of the drug alliance [DPA] in New Orleans last December, 1200 participants, 1000 lunatics, 200 good people to talk to. The other ones obviously on drugs." [Transform Drug Policy Foundation]

So I am a lunatic who was obviously on drugs when Costa maybe sort of saw part of my head from the stage as he spoke. Simply amazing. This is such a perfect depiction of the insulting and infantile tactics routinely employed by drug war supporters when their opposition gains momentum.

Believe me, the claim that attendees at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference 2007 were "obviously on drugs" is just a colossal lie. With this wildly disparaging characterization, Costa is attempting to attribute our values and beliefs to some drug-induced mania, thereby circumventing the need to take our arguments seriously. Yet anyone present at the conference knows precisely how dignified and impressive an event this truly was.

Witnessing this level of childishness from the world's top anti-drug official goes a long way towards explaining how the massive disaster of international drug prohibition is able to continue.