Ecuador Breaks the Ice on Drug Legalization in Landmark Bill

neversickanymore

neversickanymore

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Ecuador Breaks the Ice on Drug Legalization in Landmark Bill
REBECA MORLA APRIL 14, 2015

asamblea-ecuador-300x200.jpg

The first debate on a landmark drug regularization bill was held in the National Assembly on Thursday. (Asamblea Nacional)
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A new bill in Ecuador seeks to change the public-policy paradigm on drug use in the country. On Thursday, April 9, legislators held a historic first debate of the Organic Law on Comprehensive Drug Prevention in the National Assembly.+

The first debate of the Law on Comprehensive Drug Prevention was held on Thursday in the Ecuadorian National Assembly. (Asamblea Nacional)
The first debate on a landmark drug regularization bill was held in the National Assembly on Thursday. (Asamblea Nacional)
The project, promoted by the ruling party PAIS Alliance, was introduced to the chamber by Carlos Velasco, head of the Commission of the Right to Health.+

The bill aims for “comprehensive drug prevention, by establishing a legal and institutional framework to address drug use, and the regulation of the substances that are subject to control.”+

It stipulates over 100 substances that would be “controlled,” including alcoholic beverages and cigarettes, illegal drugs, and other industrial substances such as solvents which are also used as drugs.+

In perhaps the most landmark provisions, however, the 26-article document proposes the creation of a Technical Secretariat of Drugs, under the control of the president, to “regulate and control the activities related to the import, export, cultivation, production, marketing, distribution, transportation, and use,” of the aforementioned substances.+

Those interested in handling or using the substances provided by the bill would have to register with the agency, although domestic cultivation or manufacture would only be allowed for purposes of “research, experimentation, or training.”+

The penalties for non-compliance with the provisions of the document vary between fines or forfeiture of the substances. However, the bill as it stands would be a major change to the existing Law of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, which punishes both cultivation and sale with between 12 and 16 years in prison.

continued http://panampost.com/rebeca-morla/2...he-ice-on-drug-legalization-in-landmark-bill/

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WOW8o<3
 
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^ Love that picture =D

Oh I'm so happy to be reading about this. And I swear on my life that it's not because I wanna get high, or anything like that (I'll do that regardless if I wish to).

No, I'm happy because this is another small victory against this horrendous injustice towards a minority group of mostly non-violent, otherwise law abiding individuals who have been persecuted and prosecuted en masse for no good reason; for the exploitation of their vulnerabilities. If anything, they are the victims in all this - not their prohibitionist counterparts who steal their property, tear families and communities apart, and cause far more deaths than the drugs themselves ever would have.

Who would have thought 10 years ago that we'd be where we are today with respect to the progress we have made towards the ultimate goal of ending this era of tyrannical double standards? I know I wouldn't have.

I said it before, and I'll say it again - I strongly believe that 2016 will be a landmark for those of us residing in western nations; those of us who wish to see this war on (certain) drugs come to an end.

The day the DEA no longer exists is the day I'll donate some cash for the very first time to my local police department.
 
Ecuador May Become The Next Country To Decriminalize Drug Use
The Huffington Post | By Carly Schwartz


Ecuador is in the process of considering a groundbreaking piece of legislation that would decriminalize the use of illegal drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, according to GlobalPost.

"Treating the drug phenomenon in a repressive way, as was done in the 1980s and 1990s when prison was the only destination for the drug consumer, is absurd," Carlos Velasco, who chairs the Ecuadorean congress’ Commission of the Right to Health and who authored the bill, wrote on his Facebook page earlier this month.

Rather than punishing illicit drug users with jail time, the measure would create a system to provide treatment and rehabilitation services for addicts. Velasco added on Facebook that educating Ecuador's citizens about the harmful effects of drug abuse is also key.

Should the bill pass, Ecuador would be the second Latin American country to take a dramatic step toward reform in a region of the world that's been devastated by the war on drugs for the past several decades. Uruguay, which legalized marijuana in 2013, is in the process of implementing a government-run system of growing, distributing and regulating the plant.

Ecuador's move comes as a growing body of research suggests that treatment is a more effective response to substance abuse than punishment. Since Portugal implemented its landmark decriminalization program in 2001, for example, teenage drug use, drug-induced deaths and rates of HIV/AIDS have declined, while the number of people receiving treatment for addiction has increased.

Calls to decriminalize drugs elsewhere in the world are growing louder as well. Last month, British businessman Richard Branson and U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg penned an op-ed in The Guardian urging Great Britain to follow Portugal's lead, calling the war on drugs an "abject failure."

"As an investment, the war on drugs has failed to deliver any returns," Branson and Clegg wrote, citing a growing criminal market, rising incarceration rates of "people whose only crime is the possession of a substance to which they are addicted" and no meaningful reduction in drug use across Britain's population. "If it were a business, it would have been shut down a long time ago. This is not what success looks like."

While Velasco's bill in Ecuador has drawn widespread support, it also has its detractors, who argue that looser restrictions on illegal substances will merely encourage drug use, according to GlobalPost.

The measure will be up for debate among Ecuadorian lawmakers later this month.

Meanwhile, support for meaningful drug reform in the United States continues to inch upward. A CBS poll released Monday revealed that 53 percent of Americans are in favor of full-scale marijuana legalization

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/ecuador-drug-laws_n_7103618.html
 
neversickanymore said:
I dont know.. might have to pick up some vacation property there. Really looks pretty sick.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ecu...25#tbm=isch&q=ecuador+scenery&revid=480607691

Some of the year enjoying freedom and then some of the time in the "land of the free"
Click to expand...

I would not trust President-soon-to-be-Dictator Correa on this or anything else. He is the master of 180° turns. Not to mention that he likes to off any journalist that dares report anything about the government that he doesn't like. That registry he is proposing? I would not want my name on it as long as he is in office.
 
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