Pubdate: Sun, 19 May 2013
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Jamie Doward

LATIN NATIONS THROW DOWN GAUNTLET TO US AND EUROPE OVER WAR ON DRUGS

European governments and the Obama administration are this weekend 
studying a "gamechanging" report on global drugs policy that is being 
seen in some quarters as the beginning of the end for blanket prohibition.

Publication of the Organisation of American States (OAS) review, 
commissioned at last year's Cartagena Summit of the Americas attended 
by Barack Obama, reflects growing dissatisfaction among Latin 
American countries with the current global policy on illicit drugs. 
It spells out the effects of the policy on many countries and 
examines what the global drugs trade will look like if the status quo 
continues. It notes how rapidly countries' unilateral drugs policies 
are evolving, while at the same time there is a growing consensus 
over the human costs of the trade. "Growing media attention in many 
countries, including on social media, reflects a world in which there 
is far greater awareness of the violence and suffering associated 
with the drug problem," Jose Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of 
the OAS, says in a foreword to the review.

Insulza describes the report, which examines a number of ways to 
reform the current pro-prohibition position, as the start of "a 
long-awaited discussion", one that experts say puts Europe and North 
America on notice that the current situation will change, with or 
without them. Latin American leaders have complained bitterly that 
western countries, whose citizens consume the drugs, fail to 
appreciate the damage of the trade. In one scenario envisaged in the 
report, a number of South American countries would break with the 
prohibition line and decide that they will no longer deploy law 
enforcement and the army against drug cartels, having concluded that 
the human costs of the "war on drugs" is too high.

The west's responsibility to reshape global drugs policy will be 
emphasised in three weeks when Juan Manuel Santos Calderon, the 
president of Colombia, who initiated the review, arrives in Britain. 
His visit is part of a programme to push for changes in global policy 
that will lead up to a special UN general assembly in 2016 when the 
scenarios of the OAS are expected to have a significant influence.

Experts described the publication of the review as a historic moment. 
"This report represents the most high-level discussion about drug 
policy reform ever undertaken, and shows tremendous leadership from 
Latin America," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open 
Society Foundation's Global Drug Policy Program.

"It was particularly important to hear president Santos invite the 
states of Europe to contribute toward envisioning a better 
international drug policy. These reports inspire a conversation on 
drug policy that has been long overdue."

The report represents the first time any significant multilateral 
agency has outlined serious alternatives to prohibition, including 
legal market regulation or reform of the UN drug conventions.

"While leaders have talked about moving from criminalisation to 
public health in drug policy, punitive, abstinence-only approaches 
have still predominated, even in the health sphere," said Daniel 
Wolfe, director of the Open Society Foundation's International Harm 
Reduction Program. "These scenarios offer a chance for leaders to 
replace indiscriminate detention and rights' abuses with approaches 
that distinguish between users and traffickers, and offer the 
community-based health services that work best."

In a statement, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which campaigns 
for changes in drug laws and is supported by the former presidents of 
several South American states, said that publication of the review 
would break "the taboo that blocked for so long the debate on more 
humane and efficient drug policy". The Commission said that it was 
"time that governments around the world are allowed to responsibly 
experiment with regulation models that are tailored to their 
realities and local need".

The open letter from the Global Commission on Drug Policy, signed by 
George P Shultz, the former US secretary of state; Paul Volcker, the 
former chairman of the US federal reserve, and the former presidents 
of Mexico, Chile and Colombia, is at gu.com/p/3gvyf
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom