Drug policy with an eye on neighboring countries

The second half of August was marked by a triple murder that shocked Argentina and uncovered a ring that could involve judges and government officials in influence peddling and drug trafficking. This at a time when Argentineans discuss reforming their current drug law, enacted in 1989. It was in this heated climate that the Sixth National Conference on Drug Policy was held in Buenos Aires, on the 25th and 26th of August, at the nation’s Lower House of Congress.

Brazilian Drug Policy

Organized by the Intercambios Asociación Civil, the event brought together international drug policy researchers among them Denis Petuco from the Brazilian Association of Harm Reduction (Aborda) and Regina Bueno, from the Brazilian Network for Harm Reduction and Human Rights (Reduc).

Both organizations co-authored a report on the Brazilian Drug law and its domestic consequences, with the aim of carrying out an evaluation of the issue that is independent and parallel to United Nations analysis. The report covers social movements that adopt harm reduction, structural violence associated to drug policy, health care policy for consumers and drug use and citizenship.

“Even though the new law is progressive because it sets flexible sanctions drug users, there is a contradiction between the text of the law itself and how it is enforced and how policy is designed with respect to health policy and drug suppression in the nation,” said Petuco.

Brazil’s Regina Bueno however, sees the new law as a step forward taken by the State in the direction of a more humane treatment of narcotics users. “The law as it is written includes harm reduction as a concept and there are incentives for applying it,” Bueno said, considering it an important first step.

Ther is no consensus on drug law reform in Argentina

Argentina’s Minister of Justice, Human Rights and Security, Aníbal Fernández, pointed out the intention of the Cristina Fernández administration of implementing greater flexibility to the drug law in Argentina. “Our drug policy is marked by combating the drug trade, by an honest preventative policy and a strong emphasis on working in drug treatment and harm reduction,” said the Minister Fernández, who had already taken up a position against prohibitionism during the 51st Session of the The Commission on Narcotic Drugs, CND, held in Austria this March.

Argentinian congressman Leonardo Gorbacz, a member of the Narcotics Control and Drug Addiction Prevention Commission of the Federal Chamber pointed out the controversial aspect of the official Argentinian policy for illicit drugs: “While Cristina Fernández and the Minister champions the decrimininalization of drugs, Secretary José Ramón Granero declares himself against it, enforces repressive policies and keeps his position.”

In the congressman’s view, the Sedronar is in charge of public health issues that ought to fall under the Ministry of Health, and legal issues without backing by any security authority, which makes it inefficient in both aspects.

For Horacio Cattani, judge and professor of the Buenos Aires University (UBA) Law School, Argentina’s drug laws are inadequate. “We have not left the 1990’s,” said Cattani. In his view the 1989 Drug law reflects as its core laws passed in 1960 and 1970, whose repressive foundations incorporated subsequent international treaties.

Latin America charts its own course

Coletta Youngers, former director of the Drugs, Democracy and Human Rights project of the Washington Office for Latin America (WOLA) criticized the war against drugs of the past two decades. “With the end of the cold war, the war against drugs has become an excuse for the military presence of north-Americans in Latin America,” said Youngers.

 “The drug policy impelled by the United States destabilizes democratic governments, damaging the development of democracy in the long run; eroding civil liberties; militarizing police forces; distorting local penal systems and causes political violence,” said Youngers.

As an example of the failure of the drug suppression policy enforced by the United States in Latin America, Youngers pointed out Plan Colombia, which after investing 6 Billion U$ resulted in a 27% increase in coca cultivation in Colombia between 2006 and 2007 as announced by the United Nations in June.

Youngers also highlighted changes that took place in Latin America as of 2005 when in her view new governments began to implement more efficient and more humane policies with respect to the drug issue. She cited Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Argentina as leading the trend.

Youngers also championed alternative policy that does not link economic aid to the lowering of indices, that bases itself in applying the law through judicial proceedings against trafficking and corruption; in the development of armed forces, police and judicial actions under the perspective of human rights; the reduction of demand, especially in the United States, through preventive programs, reeducation and rehabilitation and in fighting drug use as a health issue.

Apesar do aumento da ação de ONGs que trabalham com redução de danos e expansão desse serviço na região, a presidente da Intercambios e pesquisadora da Faculdade de Ciências Sociais da UBA, Graciela Touzé, afirma ser necessário um maior equilíbrio entre o enfoque na oferta e na demanda e práticas mais sensíveis à cultura local, desenvolvidas em âmbitos regionais.

Despite the increasing participation of NGOs that work with harm reduction and the spread of such services in the region, the president of Intercambios and researcher of the UBA school of Social Science, Graciela Touzé, pointed to the need for balancing out a view that concentrates on supply and demand, and practices more sensitive to local cultures, developed in regionally.

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi

From Comunidad Segura:

Plan Colombia results questioned

Medical marijuana: Prescription with fine print

Has prohibition expired?

Read Further:

51ª Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, United Nations

Intercambios, asociación civil para el estudio y atención de problemas relacionados con las drogas

Associação Brasileira de Redutoras e Redutores de Danos (Aborda)

Rede Brasileira de Redução de Danos e Direitos Humanos (Reduc)

Oficina de Washington para América Latina (Wola)

Três empresários assassinados (Murdered businessmen, in Spanish)