Pubdate: Sun, 10 Mar 2013
Source: Mail Tribune, The (Medford, OR)
Copyright: 2013 McClatchy Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.mailtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/642
Note: Only prints LTEs from within it's circulation area, 200 word count limit
Author: Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers

EX-WORLD LEADERS: TIME FOR U.S. TO RETHINK DRUG POLICY

MEXICO CITY - Three former heads of state are urging the United 
States to engage in a serious discussion of drug legalization, saying 
its counternarcotics policies are becoming untenable in the wake of 
voter approval last fall of measures that legalized the recreational 
use of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado.

The three - the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Switzerland 
- - said the inconsistency in U.S. attitudes toward marijuana shows 
that American public opinion is changing, even as the United States 
continues to press Latin American nations for tough enforcement of 
anti-drug trafficking laws. The result is confusion and anger in 
Latin American nations embroiled in drug violence while Americans 
adopt an evermore lax approach toward marijuana.

"There's been a great silence over these initiatives, silence by the 
administration and the Department of Justice, silence within the 
media, silence by the parties," Cesar Gaviria, a former president of 
Colombia, said about the legalization push.

Gaviria, who also led the Organization of American States, the 
hemisphere's oldest regional grouping, from 1994 to 2004, said 
nations such as Mexico look on with bewilderment at the gap between 
U.S. federal law, changing public attitudes and the race by states to 
permit medical marijuana or outright legalization. Currently, 18 
states, including Oregon, and the District of Columbia allow medical 
marijuana, and initiatives are brewing in other states.

"Mexico has the right and the authority to tell the United States to 
evaluate its policies and conduct a debate," Gaviria said. "Over 
there, they are avoiding this debate and any discussion over these issues."

Gaviria spoke Thursday night at the end of a two-day forum in Mexico 
City by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a panel that seeks a 
dramatic reappraisal of drug laws. The group was set up in 2010 and 
includes seven former presidents, among them Fernando Henrique 
Cardoso of Brazil and Ruth Dreifuss of Switzerland.

In a separate interview, Henrique Cardoso said Latin governments see 
major contradictions among U.S. government agencies, with the Drug 
Enforcement Administration pressing an anti-drug agenda that is 
clearly not shared by a wide range of the American public.

"The DEA is more a department for foreign nations than for America," 
he said. "In America, you are liberalizing marijuana. And abroad, you 
are insisting on strict control."

Gaviria, Henrique Cardoso and Dreifuss all dismissed a warning by the 
International Narcotics Control Board earlier this week that the 
United States risks falling afoul of international treaties if it 
permits Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana.

"The international treaties are not being followed," Henrique Cardoso 
said. "What happened in Portugal, in Switzerland or the Netherlands?" 
he asked, referring to European nations that either decriminalized 
drug use or offered prescription narcotics to addicts. "They are not 
in compliance."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom