Thread: Approach to Drugs in Latin America, changing?

Maybe some headway can be made. The US DEA has always used "drugs" as a way to enter foreign countries. The "drug war" has definitely been a failure, in many respects.

Cardoso, Gaviria, Zedillo Urge Obama to Decriminalize Marijuana

By Joshua Goodman
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia said the U.S.-led war on drugs has failed and urged President Barack Obama to consider new policies, including decriminalizing marijuana, and to treat drug use as a public health problem.

The recommendations by former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, along with Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, were made in a report today by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
Among the group’s proposals ahead of a special United Nations ministerial meeting in Vienna to evaluate global drug policy is a call to decriminalize the possession of cannabis for personal use.

“We need to break the taboo that’s blocking an honest debate,” Cardoso said at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro to present the report. “Numerous scientific studies show that the damage caused by marijuana is similar to that of alcohol or tobacco.”

Gaviria, who as president of Colombia from 1990-1994 worked with U.S. anti-narcotics agents to hunt down and kill cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, said he hoped Obama invests in harm reduction and prevention efforts that would relieve Latin America of the burden of fighting drug traffickers.

Recognize the Failure

“It makes no sense to continue a policy on moral grounds without getting the desired results,” said Gaviria, citing an October report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showing drug reduction goals in Colombia have not been met. “Obama, being a pragmatist, should recognize these failures.”

Link & Entire: Bloomberg.com: Latin America

The supply doesn't change unless the market does. That's where the War on Drugs Nazis should concentrate.

Now thats a fact, do you know how many tons of hay coming from the south are stopped and confiscated every year at the border check points along the Mexico/US border, and that is not counting the tons of the shit in backpacks carried in by illegal making their way in by foot.
It would profit the countrys south of the border greatly if the law was changed and the grass coming in could be a cash crop like the produce, tomatoes by the zillion tons a year and in 1996 Mexican Avocados were also added to the list of legal produce to cross the border, it didn't drop the prices of the fruit in San Diego, but did raise it to where the ordinary Mexican family could not afford Guacamole on the table anymore.

The drugs {per se} are not the real problem. The invented ideal of such substances being illegal is the culprit.

Originally Posted by Muadib

Tax & regulate it... Mexico could use a cash crop to bolster their GDP... Another possible benefit is reduction in violence by the narcos...

Don't you count the hundreds of tons of the stuff grown in mexico as a cash crop??

Damn they do and it their main export after tomatoes from Baja and lettuce from Nogales.

^ Yeah, but all the proceeds go to the narco trafficantes, not into the Mexican economy... If legalized it could be grown, harvested, packaged and shipped legally... I would not expect the narcos to take it lightly though...

Originally Posted by Muadib

^ Yeah, but all the proceeds go to the narco trafficantes, not into the Mexican economy... If legalized it could be grown, harvested, packaged and shipped legally... I would not expect the narcos to take it lightly though...

Even if legalized, it still would be 'controlled' to a point, to benefit the establishment. Just like alcohol.

Originally Posted by Muadib

^ Yeah, but all the proceeds go to the narco trafficantes, not into the Mexican economy...

Those are the Policia Judicial Estada or federal [PJE or PJF] and they do control all actions by drug dealers, infact they did protect a major drug daling woman when I lived in Vale De oro in Ensenada and finally the Army came and hauled her as off, you can get no satisfaction from any police there, almost like here and the only thing you can do is go to a genral of the Army and they will most likely do something,
the police in mexico are the same as here with no pride or honor but you will find it in members of the army.
When I was robbed whle camping/fishing below an Ejido that I had bought property in and got nothing from police I did go the the Army and a general told me tha he was not supposed to do anything down there, but he would set up some road block check points along there and he even told me who the robbers were and one was a PJF, he did set up his roadblocks and he did kill 3 of the 4 men that had robbed me and others while camping in that arroyo.