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OAS chief urges new approach to failed ‘war on drugs’
LARRY LUXNER
9/13/2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the Organization of American States due to hold a special general assembly in Guatemala on illicit drugs in less than a week, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza insisted there now exists “regional consensus” regarding drug use and trafficking throughout the hemisphere.
In a wide-ranging speech Tuesday at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, Insulza said the 35 OAS member nations no longer see the drug problem as a public safety matter but rather as a public health issue. Authorities also want alternatives to jailing drug addicts, he said.
The main theme of the Sept. 19 gathering in Guatemala is “For a Hemispheric Drug Policy in the 21st Century.” Its conclusions will be presented at the 2016 General Assembly of the United Nations.
Insulza, citing an OAS report presented in May 2013 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, said the decades-old “war on drugs” was simply not working.
“There are more and more addicts, more people in jail, and still we haven’t solved the problem,” he said. “The war on drugs has been successful in the sense that half of the cocaine produced in 2011 was confiscated, and we have 3.6 million people in jail in the Americas, almost 40 percent of them for drug-related offenses. But business is better than ever. We don’t see how to stop it.”
This largely explains why lawmakers at all levels of government across the Americas now talk less about absolute prohibition and “zero tolerance” – and more about decriminalization or legalization of marijuana possession, and sharply reduced penalties for those involved in the production and sale of pot and other illicit drugs.
That’s a huge switch from 10 years ago, when few mainstream political leaders in Latin America discusses these ideas openly. These days, proponents of decriminalization include not only the president of Uruguay, José Mujica, but also the former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
continued here http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/09/13/oas-chief-urges-new-approach-to-failed-war-on-drugs
LARRY LUXNER
9/13/2014
WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the Organization of American States due to hold a special general assembly in Guatemala on illicit drugs in less than a week, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza insisted there now exists “regional consensus” regarding drug use and trafficking throughout the hemisphere.
In a wide-ranging speech Tuesday at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, Insulza said the 35 OAS member nations no longer see the drug problem as a public safety matter but rather as a public health issue. Authorities also want alternatives to jailing drug addicts, he said.
The main theme of the Sept. 19 gathering in Guatemala is “For a Hemispheric Drug Policy in the 21st Century.” Its conclusions will be presented at the 2016 General Assembly of the United Nations.
Insulza, citing an OAS report presented in May 2013 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, said the decades-old “war on drugs” was simply not working.
“There are more and more addicts, more people in jail, and still we haven’t solved the problem,” he said. “The war on drugs has been successful in the sense that half of the cocaine produced in 2011 was confiscated, and we have 3.6 million people in jail in the Americas, almost 40 percent of them for drug-related offenses. But business is better than ever. We don’t see how to stop it.”
This largely explains why lawmakers at all levels of government across the Americas now talk less about absolute prohibition and “zero tolerance” – and more about decriminalization or legalization of marijuana possession, and sharply reduced penalties for those involved in the production and sale of pot and other illicit drugs.
That’s a huge switch from 10 years ago, when few mainstream political leaders in Latin America discusses these ideas openly. These days, proponents of decriminalization include not only the president of Uruguay, José Mujica, but also the former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
continued here http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/09/13/oas-chief-urges-new-approach-to-failed-war-on-drugs
