Latin America, ready to lead

Drug policy dominated the core discussions, but there was much more at the heart of the debates at the II Latin American Conference on Drug Policy: an exercise in democracy, self-determination and leadership in the region.

The meeting held in Rio de Janeiro was the only regional event of its type in the globe. Nowhere else, not among Asian countries, nor in Europe, North America, much less in Africa has there been an international meeting called to discuss the results of the war on drugs with the goal of proposing alternative policies. The conference called for drug policy that is more efficient and more respectful of human rights than the war on drugs first imposed by Richard Nixon, president of the United States of America, instated 40 years ago and upheld ever since.

Discussions at the historic Law School building at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro took on greater significance than a series of panels on drug legislation in the region, medical treatment for drug users or the consequences of fighting the drug trade.

caption: Luis Paulo Guanabara director of Psicotropicus, one of the event organizers, plays a traditional flute during the opening ceremony.

As Brazil’s National Justice Secretary Pedro Abramovay (photo) said, a discussion of the current drug policy is a question of democracy. “An informed debate means not to allow oneself to be taken over by fear and prejudice.”

The high ranking member of the Lula government added that Latin America has freed itself from a colonial mentality and that it has proven to itself, through economic development and by adopting social policies that the region can be a model, it can make propositions and it can lead.

Brazil, said Abramovay, has a crucial role. “Our land borders run for 15 thousand kilometers and our sea borders 8 thousand kilometers. It is impossible to think of a policy that ignores our relations with our neighbors; we cannot build a wall to isolate nations. The idea is to build bridges, to cooperate with each other for development, to adopt lasting solutions that respect human rights,” said Abramovay.

South to North

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and one of the most world’s leading activists drug policy reform entreated meeting participants, in their overwhelming majority Brazilians and visitors from Latin American countries, to take the lead.
 “Many believe that things will not change if the United Status does not change first. Let me tell you honestly: do not wait for change to come from the US. Latin America can lead the way.”

Although he recognized that the Obama administration has shown less resistance to drug policy reform, Nadelmann cautioned that one can not expect that prohibition, a policy that has taken hold for 100 years in the United States, will change at the pace the region needs it to.

In other words, policies that directly address the negative effects of the war on drugs, such as organized crime, urban violence, overcrowded prisons, excessively harsh prison sentencing for mules and petty drug sellers, among other issues, will certainly not come from the North. 

Nor will it be easy or politically cost free to propose bold alternatives, as was the case two weeks ago when President Felipe Calderón publicly entertained the possibility of talking to proponents and opponents of cannabis legalization in Mexico.

There are drug policy issues however, that start to make themselves felt in North American society, pressuring for change. Nadelmann (photo) noted that the United States has less than 5% of the world population and 20% of the world’s prison population, and that some states are undergoing a fiscal crisis, impelling American politicians to consider drug policy reform.

It was by working ‘through the cracks’ that regional leadership began to assert itself. In Nadelmann’s view, no other political initiative has had greater impact than the three former Latin American heads of state united in the Latin American Commission for Drugs and Democracy.

“For the first time since the war on drugs began, a unique precedent was opened with the declaration issued by Fernando Enrique Cardoso, Cesar Gavíria and Ernesto Zedillo, when political leaders of such caliber openly raised issues such as cannabis decriminalization, harm reduction for drug users and called for propositions of a more humane drug policy,” said Nadelmann.

UNASUR is one such international governance entity that could serve to advance discussions regionally, according to Argentina’s Attorney Mónica Cuñarro, executive secretary of the National Commission on Public Policy and the Prevention and Control of Illegal Trafficking in Narcotics, Organized Transnational Crime and Corruption. “We must take advantage of the UNASUR to build a consensus on how to progress in drug policy upholding human rights, it’s a forum that should bring us together more than set us apart,” said Cuñarro.

Human Rights and scientific evidence

The fundamental issues that must guide drug policy in the region according to experts at the meeting are: a respect for human rights and a resort to scientific evidence over moral dogma.

“The very same organism that promotes human rights promotes the war against drugs”, said Freddy Pavón Rivera, vice Minister of Justice of Ecuador, alluding to the United Nations and the challenges facing that states that wish to determine their respective drug policies. Ecuador nevertheless set an important precedent two years ago by pardoning 2,000 people accused of working as mules for the narco traffickers, freeing people sentenced to prison for selling small amounts of drugs across the nation.

Pavón added that “drug laws are under special legal regimes in the majority of the countries in the region. That means that such laws are exceptional in nature, which goes against the fundamental rights of those being processed for drug offenses, they are being subjected to sentencing that is disproportionate to the offenses, the prisons are full of mules caught while big traffickers go free”. The vice Minister agreed with Attorney Cuñarro that the drug laws must respect the principles of legality, proportionality, pro homine and due process.

Graciela Touze, president of Intercambios Asociación Civil, the Argentinean organization that organized the conference along with the Brazilian NGO Psicotropicus, believes it is important to establish public security policies that are not repressive. “Our countries know only too well the nefarious consequences of militarizing conflicts, such as the case of Mexico today. And we must, once and for all, create long term policies of State that are not subject to the back-and-fourths of elections.”

Drug policy reform is not limited thus to passing laws that are fairer and sentencing that is more apt, laws that punish the right targets (versus drug users for example) or dispense punishment proportionately to offenses. The issue at hand is to take on collective responsibility, to prioritize educational measures that allow for re-socialization instead of isolating those who break the law.

The authorities present at the meeting reiterated key points. Ecuador’s vice stressed “that an addiction is not cured with a prison sentence”, and Brazil’s Ambramovay pointed out that crime is a social fact and that “penal laws are not enough to deter conduct that breaks the social contract.”

For Colombian Economist Francisco Thoumi, the heart of drug policy reform means harmonizing law, culture and ethics, citing Colombia as case as in point: “The challenge for Colombia is not whether to legalize drugs (just only one of the various factors that contribute to the existence of the drug trade), the challenge at hand is to legalize Colombia itself. Whenever the rule of law clashes with norms followed by social groups, we generate the ideal conditions for developing criminal activity.”

Thoumi added that in Colombia there is a profound moral individualism, in other words, that individuals are not concerned with the effect of their actions over the collectivity because they do not feel a part of it. “Societies with this of problem are profoundly vulnerable to war and criminality.”

Bolivia on the other hand, is working on a plan centering on social cohesion that arises out of the cultural identity associated with the coca bush. The Bolivian government is investing on a National Policy for Fighting Narco trafficking and Restoring the Value of the Coca Bush.

According to Reynaldo Salvatierra, general coordinator of the Program for support of the Social Control of the Coca Bush Production, apart from the money and effort that has been invested in fighting drug trafficking, society as a whole is committed to the defense of the coca leaf and its various legal uses, in keeping with a tradition in the nation that goes back to before the arrival of the Spanish colonization.

“The program has a strong social control component involving the production and the commercialization of the coca bush, so that small growers can sow it and cultivate it as a source of food and medicine, which is what it is,” said Salvatierra who presented a detailed exposition of the value of the coca leaf, it is an important source of protein, fiber, and calcium, comparable to sources such as meat, fruit and milk respectively.

More in line with Colombia, one of the main problems facing Mexico is the lack of unity in public authority split up in the three most important political parties of the country, none of them holding a majority in congress, nor regionally, each facing the challenge of dealing with traffickers in their own way.

That is how Luis Astorga puts it, a sociologist and member of the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coordinator of the UNESCO chair. In Astorga’s view, even if far from ideal, a solution involve political parties committing to a pact, pointing out that the lack of a significant response civil society lays the responsibility on politicians to determine what can and cannot be done.

The fact that there are different parties governing municipalities and sates means a political pact must establish the central points of security policy in the Mexican state, one that is not split along political party lines, since the economic and military strength of the drug traffickers has become a significant risk for the security of the state itself,” said Astorga who stressed that unity is crucial for Mexico to maintain its independence in both in terms of security and its economy with respect to he United States.

“A weak Mexican state translates into yet another opportunity for the United Status to ask for more concessions. One must not forget that this is the most active border of the planet and for that reason it is one of the most porous borders leading to the biggest consumer market of illegal drugs in the world,” said Astorga.

Photos: Walter Mezquita y Márcia Farías

Translated by Lis Horta Moriconi

Read Further:

Intercambios

Psicotropicus

The Conference Website