Latin American leaders are pushing to make a Cartagena summit a moment that sparks the world to redefine its approach to drugs. Stephen Harper, like U.S. President Barack Obama, has vowed to stand in the way.

Make no mistake, as presidents from Colombia to Mexico flirt with the idea of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs, the notion is a challenge aimed at the nations to the north, the United States and Canada, the big consumer markets for the smuggled drugs. At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Mr. Harper will tell them they've got it all wrong.

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Latin America Leaders Differ on Decriminalization, Cuba

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to a weekend summit in Colombia where his hard line on drugs will put him at odds with some Latin American leaders who are calling for a debate over whether drug use should be decriminalized.

Harper's position on Cuba also could run afoul of a possible consensus by countries in central and South America.

Harper is attending the Summit of the Americas, a conference of leaders from 34 nations that is held every three years. The talks this year will include such issues as trade expansion, and Harper will meet with senior business executives from Canada and elsewhere who are attending the summit to discuss investment in the Western Hemisphere.

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OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to a weekend summit in Colombia where his hard line on drugs will put him at odds with some Latin American leaders who are calling for a debate over whether drug use should be decriminalized.

Harper's position on Cuba also could run afoul of a possible consensus by countries in central and South America.

Harper is attending the Summit of the Americas, a conference of leaders from 34 nations that is held every three years.

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to a weekend summit in Colombia where his hard line on drugs will put him at odds with some Latin American leaders who are calling for a debate over whether drug use should be decriminalized. Harper's position on Cuba also could run afoul of a possible consensus by countries in central and South America.

Harper is attending the Summit of the Americas, a conference of leaders from 34 countries that is held every three years. The talks this year will include such issues as trade expansion, and Harper will meet with senior business executives from Canada and elsewhere who are attending the summit to discuss investment in the Americas.

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Cuba Policy May Also Rile Some

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is flying to a weekend summit in Colombia where his hard line on drugs will put him at odds with some Latin American leaders who are calling for debate over whether drug use should be decriminalized.

Harper's position on Cuba also could run afoul of a possible consensus by countries in central and South America.

Harper is attending the Summit of the Americas, a conference of leaders from 34 nations held every three years.

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Some Leaders at the Summit of the Americas May Urge Decriminalization, a Move That the President Opposes.

CARTAGENA, Colombia - President Obama will highlight trade and business opportunities in Latin America at a regional summit in Colombia this weekend, but other leaders may upstage him by pushing to legalize marijuana and other illicit drugs in a bid to stem rampant trafficking.

Obama, who opposes decriminalization, is expected to face a rocky reception in this Caribbean resort city, which otherwise forms a friendly backdrop for a U.S. president courting Latino voters in an election year. But the American demand for illegal drugs has caused fierce bloodshed, plus political and economic turmoil, across much of the region.

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BOGOTA -- As the hemisphere's leaders gather in Colombia this week for the VI Summit of the Americas, their on-camera discussions will be dominated by perennial convention topics: poverty, cooperation, the need for roads.

But behind closed doors, they are expected to tackle a more contentious issue: the narcotics trade.

The 40-year-old war on drugs has cost billions in treasure and countless lives, but has produced mixed results. Drug abuse rates in the United States have been virtually unchanged over the last decade, as dips in cocaine use have been offset by rising consumption of marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines. The United States has the highest overdose rates in the world - almost four times higher than Europe, according to the United Nation's 2011 World Drug Report.

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At Hemispheric Summit, Obama Will Hear Calls for Broad Changes in Tactics

BOGOTA, Colombia - When President Obama arrives in Colombia for a hemispheric summit this weekend, he will hear Latin American leaders say that the U.S.-orchestrated war on drugs, which criminalizes drug use and employs military tactics to fight gangs, is failing and that broad changes need to be considered.

Latin American leaders say they have not developed an alternative model to the approach favored by successive American administrations since Richard Nixon was in office. But the Colombian government says a range of options - including decriminalizing possession of drugs, legalizing marijuana use and regulating markets - will be debated at the Summit of the Americas in the coastal city of Cartagena.

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CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA - President Barack Obama will highlight trade and business opportunities in Latin America at a regional summit in Colombia this weekend, but other leaders could upstage him by pushing to legalize marijuana and other illicit drugs in a bid to stem rampant trafficking.

Obama, who opposes decriminalization, is expected to face a rocky reception in this Caribbean resort city, which otherwise forms a friendly backdrop for a U.S. president courting Latino voters in an election year. But the American demand for illegal drugs has caused fierce bloodshed, plus political and economic turmoil, across much of the region.

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President Santos Moves To Build On Security Gains Of His Predecessor To Address Root Cause Of Conflict: Land Ownership

BOGOTA - President Juan Manuel Santos has surprised friends and foes alike during his first year in office by distancing himself from his onetime boss, former President Alvaro Uribe, and setting an ambitious agenda to try to repair the damages from a long-running civil war.

With approval ratings at over 75% and a solid majority in congress, Mr. Santos has secured a package of groundbreaking laws, including one to return nearly 16 million acres of land-equal to West Virginia-taken from peasants during the war.

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BOGOTA, Colombia-Mexico's biggest cartels are expanding their operations throughout Central and South America, gaining power as they diversify and consolidate in new regions but also exposing themselves to new challenges, according to top law-enforcement officials.

Cartels like the Sinaloa gang and the Zetas are sending more operatives to South America than ever before, seeking to fill the void left by the demise in recent years of powerful Colombian drug organizations.

"There are more Mexican drug-cartel emissaries in South America than in any other time in the history of Mexican cartels and drug operations," said Jay Bergman, Andean regional director for the Drug Enforcement Administration, in an interview this week.

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BOGOTA-The U.S. and its ideological foe Venezuela are in a bitter fight over the extradition of Walid "The Turk" Makled, an alleged cocaine kingpin currently jailed in Colombia. And Venezuela appears to have the upper hand.

Mr. Makled, arrested late last year on a U.S. warrant in Colombia, is alleged to be one of the world's most important, yet little known, drug lords. He is a "king among kingpins," says Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

At the height of his power, Mr. Makled, a Venezuelan citizen of Syrian descent, smuggled 10 tons of cocaine a month into the U.S. from Venezuela, according to U.S. officials. He controlled Venezuela's most important port and allegedly added to his transport empire by, in effect, stealing an entire airline, according to a lawsuit in Venezuela filed by the airline's former owner.

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How Changes in Technology Are Making It Harder to Nab the Bad Guys

In 2010, the U.S. Coast Guard seized just over 90 tons of cocaine destined for U.S. shores, a haul valued at more than USD $3.5 billion.

However, in the multibillion-a-year U.S. cocaine industry, the Coast Guard's interdiction rate accounts for only 26 per cent of the estimated 350 tons of cocaine arriving in the U.S. each year; the sale of which supports both criminal and terrorist groups in Latin America and abroad.

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BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - The fiery socialist Hugo Chavez of Venezuela used to deride Juan Manuel Santos as the No. 1 "little Yankee." Now, as Colombia's new president, Santos calls Chavez "my new best friend."

It has been an abrupt shift for Colombia, Washington's most stalwart ally in the hemisphere and the recipient of $9 billion in U.S. aid over the past three American administrations. But it has not been the only shift. In his four months in power, Santos has taken a series of stands strikingly at odds with those adopted by his predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, who was closely tied to the United States.

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Colombia accused Venezuela on Thursday of providing sanctuary to some 1,500 communist guerrillas who have set up "summer camps" along the border, where they allegedly rest and feast while planning kidnappings and attacks on Colombia.

Soon after, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic relations with Colombia-the latest flare-up in a long-running feud between both Andean nations.

"We have no choice, out of dignity, but to totally break our relations with our sister Colombia," Mr. Chavez told a press conference while he sipped coffee with visiting aging Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona, a longtime fan of Mr. Chavez.

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Colombian City's Recovery, Recent Slide Backward Offer Lessons for Mexico

MEDELLMN, Colombia - The name alone, Medellmn, once evoked mayhem. Then, after years of drug violence, high-profile kidnappings and criminal groups operating with near impunity, the city transformed itself.

Crime and violence plummeted. The arts and culture thrived. It became known as the Medellmn Miracle. And leaders from drug-plagued cities in Mexico came to see how it was done.

Today, with its gleaming buildings, rolling hills, thriving arts scene and stunning libraries that rise above impoverished neighborhoods, Medellmn remains a beacon of hope for troubled Mexican border cities. But the miracle has been tarnished. With a recent spike in violence and the re-emergence of longstanding problems, Medellmn also stands as a reminder of how entrenched the drug trade can become and how long and complicated is the road to recovery.

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Lawlessness, Drug Crimes Down Sharply

BOGOTA -- It is a pretty typical scene even for a weeknight. Restaurants and bars are teeming with patrons, the beat of traditional Latin music spilling out on the crowded sidewalks. Stores are packed with evening shoppers and a steady stream of international business executives and tourists are checking in to gleaming new hotels.

But it is a remarkably different setting for Colombia's capital than a few years ago, when many people rarely left their homes after dark for fear of bombings, homicides, and kidnappings by drug cartels, criminal gangs, and guerrilla fighters.

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BOGOTA-Colombia's cocaine industry, which once accounted for 6.3% of the nation's economy, has fallen on hard times since the days of Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel.

Cocaine's share of gross domestic product has dropped as Colombia's drug cartels have lost control of key smuggling routes to cartels in Mexico and elsewhere, and as legal industries such as oil and mining have taken off. Illegal drugs now account for less than 1% of GDP, after peaking in 1987, said Ricardo Rocha, an economist at Bogota's Rosario University and expert on the nation's drugs trade. "Smuggling to the U.S. is now via Mexico," Mr. Rocha said. "We were left with the agricultural and agro-industrial parts of the business."

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CALI, Colombia - Of all the animals that come to die under Ana Julia Torres's saman trees, the ocelots are among the most numerous. There are eight of them here, seized from the estate of a murdered cocaine trafficker, who apparently collected them in the belief that any self-respecting drug lord should always have eight ocelots in his dominion.

Ms. Torres's sanctuary houses hundreds of animals rescued largely from drug traffickers and paramilitary warlords, as well as from circuses and animal-smuggling rings, offering a strange window into the excesses and brutalities carried out in this country's endless drug wars.

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'Flying here is the biggest rush,' says a Texas crop-duster who now dodges bullets and trees to kill coca plants in Colombia.

By Chris Kraul, Reporting from Tumaco, Colombia

Spraying 800 pounds of herbicides on coca over treacherous terrain while getting shot at is not everyone's idea of a good time. But for Dave, a 35-year-old crop-duster from Texas turned "top gun" of Tumaco, it's a "kick in the pants."

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