Summit of the Americas may by a turning point in the war on drugs

A soldier stands guard among marijuana plants at an illegal plantation found during a military operation on Friday at the Culiacan mountains, northern Mexico, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012.

/ AP Photo/Marco Ugarte

(CBS News) No place on Earth has seen the bad end of the war on drugs more so than Latin America, where drug gangs flourish and bystanders are murdered by the tens of thousands. A lot of the drug war-related suffering in Latin America is due to its proximity to the United States of America, which by all accounts is the world's biggest illicit drug consumer, all while being among the drug war's biggest proponents.

At the upcoming Summit of the Americas on April 14 and 15, it appears a new crop of Latin American leaders may press the Obama administration for an open and new kind of discussion on the war on drugs.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina reflected the new tone among many in Latin America on the drug war in a recent op-ed for the Guardian: "Knowing that drugs are bad for human beings is not a compelling reason for advocating their prohibition. Actually, the prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that the global drug markets can be eradicated. We would not believe such a statement if it were applied to alcoholism or tobacco addiction, but somehow we assume it's right in the case of drugs. Why?"

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Molina has good company among Latin American leaders in questioning the drug war. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who recently traded barbs with President Obama over the drug war, has called for a national debate on the subject. Former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia signed off on the Global Commission on Drug Policy report that began with the line "The war on drugs is a failure."

Even current Columbian President Juan Manuel Santos - whose country has received countless millions from the U.S. to fight the drug war - has carefully questioned the current approach.

In a Guardian interview, Santos said: "This is a very sensitive political subject and there's a lot of hypocrisy there. Many leaders, in private, they will say something and they tell me something and in public they say, 'But I can't do this probably because my people will really crucify me'."

Santos said he would support debate but stopped short of calling for the drug war's end, and admitted he too was afraid to be among "the vanguard" pressing for a change.

The U.S. government has remained under both Republican and Democratic presidents among the biggest drug war advocates. Vice President Joseph R. Biden said on a recent trip through Mexico and Honduras that the United States will not budge in its opposition to drug legalization. Although Biden said the idea of legalization "warrants discussion," he said the U.S. has a firm policy that legalized drugs would create more problems than they solve.

If the U.S. continues this policy, it may soon find itself alone in the Americas, as even Canada has begun publicly debating the idea of more lax drug rules.

Whatever the outcome, the Summit of the Americas may be the first and best opportunity for Latin American leaders to start an open and honest debate on a drug war that has morphed into a worsening plague for most of their citizens.

[David_Tampa]

The war on drugs is a diversion, a shade, a slight of hand, a vale, to keep the public's attention somewhere else.

One huge side issue however, what to do with millions of drug war employees, and the millions of drug dealers. That's a whole boat load of people being out of work......

[fearnot57]

This is not a war on drugs, but a WAR ON PEOPLE! And it is not drug abuse, but SELF ABUSE! Let's start calling it what it is. Might bring some clarity to the issue.

[arbyh]

The "War on Drugs" as it relates to marijuana is a fool's errand. Legalizing marijuana would solve many current problems and actually create some benefits for the public good. The current way the government deals with this problem only prolongs the problem.
Marijuana never should have been included on the list of dangerous drugs. The La Guardia Committee Report made a clear case on the harmlessness of marijuana and exposed the lies. Everyone knows how propagandized, distorted, and racially motivated the law enforcement efforts were in the America's anti-marijuana campaign. Harry Anslinger was an ambitious, lying, and deceitful man with a bureaucrat's interest in the slander and disinformation of marijuana. Organized interests were against hemp as a resource: Hearst owned logging and wanted to capture the paper industry; cotton growers and synthetic cloth manufactures, such as DuPont, were also to blame for this inclusion while trying to eliminate hemp fiber competition. Today it is big pharma, liquor, tobacco, DEA & Justice Dept & prison for profit companies keeping up the ignorance of this war on cannabis.
Legalizing marijuana would:
-Cause the black market in marijuana to be gone, along with the violence related to it. You can't beat that.
-The marijuana money going south would stop, and remain here to be spent legally in our own economy. That is 60% of a cartel's income. That would be a serious blow to these groups.
-Law enforcement, judicial, and incarceration expenditures of public funds would no longer be needed. Free the people.
-People with medical needs would be able to seek some small comfort there. It has been demonstrated that cannabis oil cures many forms of cancer.
- (IMO) A decrease in drunk driving statistics would occur. People would soon realize that they enjoy marijuana more than the oncoming sickness of drinking, thus the non alcoholic would drink less, and be safer to the public concern overall.
Legalizing marijuana would allow for the acceptance of a large group of productive and responsible American citizens, who only differ from everyone else in one intelligent way: they intuitively prefer thought stimulating marijuana to the dangerous sloppiness and oncoming sickness of drinking.
Liquor lobbyists and the pharmaceutical companies would fight against legalization of marijuana for their self preservation reasons, as would the DEA. The DEA is a major recipient in the forfeiture of assets game, and they love the power they have, and they, along with the prison guards, and Wackenhut, want to remain fully staffed and budgeted.
Marijuana is safer and more enjoyable then liquor. Liquor companies know this, but do not want the public to adapt and adopt a safer smarter way. I'm no expert but, if people self medicated with marijuana wouldn't that reduce the need for Zoloft and a dozen other mood drugs?
The government's issue is: Who will grow it and sell it? How do we manage it? How do we tax it? How can we monopolize it, diminish it's quality, and tax it for as much as we can get away with? Those are greedy selfish interests. As usual the government should leave it alone and stop looking at things in that self serving manner. In most cases government regulation creates more problems than it solves.
Some of this issue is a 10th Amendment issue relating to federal rights verses states rights, and the people's rights. In California marijuana advocates were willing to let the government camel's nose into the tent tempting them with tax revenue. Do you want your government in vice control for greed and profit? Letting the government into the equation is a mistake, because it is in their nature to monopolize at the people's expense.
I propose that American citizens, of legal age, be allowed to "grow their own". If every citizen of age that desired could grow say 12 mature plants for personal use, then all illegal black markets would dry up. The surplus would cause marijuana to not have much monetary value.
One economic plus for my proposal is that good citizens who enjoy marijuana are a smart proud group of sociable people and will invest money into growing supplies. Your average proud grower will invest a few hundred dollars, or more, in the domestic economy to be able to properly grow, and show off, their little crop. This expenditure times 22 million people and you have a major boost in our economy, instead of the current hemorrhage of funds going to illegal drug lords, and the ugliness that comes with that.
In conclusion: the current way the government deals with marijuana only prolongs the problem. If profit is to be made a black market will always exist. It is high time Americans stood up for freedom and demanded these repressive marijuana laws be changed, ending decades of unjust persecution. Give marijuana back to the people and freedom and liberty itself will turn what was an ugly problem into a favorable outcome.

[morris2196]

We in the US can stop drug trafficking.

There are two fundamental conditions that are impeding our efforts to solve the drug problem. One is that the demand for drugs is resistant to change; a drug addict does not think rationally, and consequently is willing to incur substantial risk and hardship in order to acquire drugs. The other condition is that it is impossible to physically prevent the smuggling of drugs into the US to a meaningful extent.

It seems to me that the only solution is to deter people from selling or importing drugs. Deterrence can be established by executing several thousand drug traffickers every month. After only a few months of executions, large numbers of drug traffickers would decide to get out of the business.

This number of executions would be horrifying, but the drug problem is much more horrifying; drug abuse in the US kills far more people than this; in the US, hundreds of people get killed every week in disputes over drugs; thousands of people have been killed in Mexico by drug cartels over the past year.

If you know how to count, you will see my logic.

[sdouiHOWSTHAT]

Spoken like a true Nazi. These people are truly scary.

[honestabe8]

morris: you are a blowhard. your logic belongs in china. also, start executing drug users and find out how fast police start turning up dead.

[tommyboy194]

Some one should write a book on how the drug cartels have their tenatacles in every town in the U.S. And The world...It's amazing how much dope their is on a daily basis.....I think 2/3 of the world is getting loaded....They'll never win the drug war.....Just legalize all the dope and let them kill themselves.....

[GartValenc]

It is all well and good to criticise the US for stubbornly enforcing its failed drugs policies come what may — after all, it is the largest consumer of drugs in the world and by far the most belligerent and fanatic amongst drug warriors. But there is also another enormous elephant in the room: us, drug consuming countries in the developed world.

Where are the voices of support from those countries, mainly European ones, that have "quasi legalised" their demand for, as well as their domestic supply of, drugs?

How come we haven't heard a single word of encouragement, let alone support, from countries such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, amongst many others, which have de jure or de facto depenalised or decriminalised the personal consumption of some drugs? Or from those countries that allow users to grow a number of marijuana plants in their homes and for their own consumption, or tolerate the operation of so called "cannabis social clubs", or authorise the cultivation of marijuana to supply dispensaries where consumption on medical grounds is allowed?

I do not have any doubts that harm reduction programmes, decriminalisation or depenalisation of the demand for drugs are sensible and necessary policies. But, if we were serious about tackling the so-called drug problem, we should be accompanying those policies regarding the demand with equally sensible policies towards the supply of drugs coming from Latin America, or from any other part of the world for that matter.

It is disgraceful, not to say nauseating, to see that while Latin America is trying to promote the discussion, for goodness sake they are just calling for an open and serious discussion, of current and alternative drug policies, we behave in the most cowardly fashion: we remain in silence.

There is no excuse for our mutism, for in the final analysis the onus is on us, drug consuming countries in the developed world. We should be the ones promoting the Legalisation & Regulation of the supply. We should be the ones making all the noises calling for a change in the national and international legislation on drugs. We should be spearheading the movement seeking to legalise the production and distribution of all drugs.

Gart Valenc
twitter: @gartvalenc

[GartValenc]

@ Joshua Norman,

I do believe that your statement, according to which:

"...current Columbian [sic] President Juan Manuel Santos - whose country has received countless millions from the U.S. to fight the drug war..."

needs clarification. Anybody interested in understanding the complexity of the so-called War on Drugs policies should dig deeper into how "US aid", such as the Merida Initiative or Plan Colombia, works.

Calling them "aid" could lead people to think that they are some sort of donation or gift, but they are not. They are, for all intents and purposes, something akin to "giving money to oneself".

Even though they are expressed as X or Y amount of dollars, they are the equivalent in dollars of the goods and services provided by the "donor", in this case the US—usually helicopters, guns, security companies services, and so on and so forth. Estimates vary according to the specific destinations and objectives of any given "assistance programmes", but the percentage remaining in the US could be as high as 90%.

And to add insult to injury, the counterpart, in this case Mexico or Colombia, is usually required to match, although not necessarily dollar to dollar, what it has received from the "donor". For instance, it is estimated that Mexico spends 13 US dollars for every dollar the US "gives" to Mexico to enforce the War on Drugs. And guess what, the lion's share of this expenditure is not spent in goods and services provided by Mexican or Colombian companies, but by companies overseas, mainly US suppliers.

You can draw your own conclusions, but one thing is for sure, it is not a gift to Mexico or Colombia; rather, it is an economic mechanism to prop up industries and services in the US.

One last thing, "Just the Facts" website provides accurate, up to date and detailed information about US "aid". Just click here:

http://justf.org/All_Grants_Country

Gart Valenc
Twitter: @gartvalenc

[fomodo]

"How come we haven't heard a single word of encouragement, let alone support, from countries such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, amongst many others, which have de jure or de facto depenalised or decriminalised the personal consumption of some drugs?"

I would think they are muzzled by the fear of blow-back from the U.S. which has no problem using its economic and military clout to punish it's detractors.

[hanspy]

he said the U.S. has a firm policy that legalized drugs would create more problems than they solve.Quote

Let this statement be proofen.The USA is always telling this to the world but there is totaly no proof for that.In fackt, there is proof that legalisation wil drop drug abuse .It wil also drop the nr of prisoners and criminals.And some ppl dont want that.Those ppl must go to court and face trial for abuse of power and lieing to the public.The War On Drugs is one big lie.Its contraproductieve and is killing thousens of inocent ppl.

[wizardlady]

Yes, legalized drugs (prescription) are creating more problems than they solve. Read the side effects for any drug, and they all cause some with some individuals, and you will be convinced that drugs, whether legal or illegal, can cause more harm than good.

VP Biden, like all the politicians, likes the power and money which supports the failed "DRUG WAR". If made legal, think of all the taxes which could be collected and import fees. We could eliminate 30% of all Judges, Prosecutors, and reduce the jail population by at least 20%........maybe this is an obvious reason why there is strong opposition to legalization. The DEA agents would have to function within our own borders.....duh!

[realtimecoffee]

Finally the light of reason may be dawning. It is surely about time.

[malcolmkyle]

Prohibition engendered black market profits are obscenely huge. Remove this and you remove the ability to bribe or threaten any government official or even whole governments. The argument that legalized regulation won't severely cripple organized crime is truly bizarre. Of course, the bad guys won't just disappear, but if you severely diminish their income, you also severely diminish their power. The proceeds from theft, extortion, pirated goods etc. are a drop in the ocean compared to what can be earned by selling prohibited/unregulated drugs in a black market estimated to be worth 400,000 million dollars. The immense illegal capital, gifted through prohibition, is what gives these criminal cartels and terrorists power. Power that has allowed them to expand into other areas with near total impunity.