Legalization Debate Takes Off in Latin America

Something incredible is happening right now in Latin America.

After decades of being brutalized by the U.S. government's failed prohibitionist drug policies, Latin American leaders, including not just distinguished former presidents but also current presidents, are saying "enough is enough." They're demanding that the range of policy options be expanded to include alternatives that help reduce the crime, violence and corruption in their own countries - and insisting that decriminalization and legal regulation of currently illicit drug markets be considered.

Guatemala's new president, Otto Perez Molina, is providing important leadership. As a political conservative and former general, he has credibility that others lack. When he started speaking out publicly last month about the need to consider new drug policy options including legalization, many observers thought it was just a ploy to secure greater economic and military aid from the United States. But he's demonstrated a commitment and engagement over the past month that have persuaded fellow presidents that he's serious about this. Within Guatemala, his initiative has been praised by diverse voices including prominent business leaders, Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian and the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Francisco Dall'Anese.

President Perez Molina sent his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, on a tour of neighboring countries two weeks ago to seek the support of other Central American presidents for opening up a new discussion on drug policy alternatives for the region. Most said they were willing to join the discussion. (It probably helped that U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was also touring the region that week, and alienating regional leaders with unsubstantiated claims that the drug war was working). Now the presidents have agreed to come to Guatemala on March 24 for a wide-ranging debate on the subject.

Meanwhile, Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, who had been eager to open the debate but reportedly frustrated by the failure of other regional leaders to join him, appears to have been galvanized by the Guatemalan president's initiative. He met yesterday with former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ricardo Lagos (Chile) and Felipe González (Spain) to talk about the best way to raise this issue at the Summit of the Americas meeting in Cartagena in April. He also said that he would attend the presidents' meeting in Guatemala on March 24.

Mexican President Calderon also seems increasingly willing to engage. Having waged a multi-year battle with criminal organizations whose principal source of revenue is the illicit drug traffic to the United States, no one has greater moral authority to call for alternatives to failed prohibitionist policies. And no one knows better that one cannot win a war against what is essentially a dynamic global commodities market, especially when one's country abuts the largest consumer market in the world. He put his toes in the water last year when he started saying that the United States should consider "market alternatives" if it were unable to reduce its demand for illegal drugs. And he followed up by joining with regional leaders in late 2011 in the "Tuxtla Declaration," which stated that if the demand for illegal drugs could not be reduced, "authorities in the consuming countries ought then to explore possible alternatives to eliminate the exorbitant profits of the criminals, including regulatory or market oriented options to this end. Thus, the transit of substances that continue provoking high levels of crime and violence in Latin American and Caribbean nations will be avoided."

Calls for drug policy reform are proliferating rapidly in Mexico. Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, pulls no punches in saying that legalization is the best approach. Fox's predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, joined with former Brazilian president Cardoso and former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria in organizing first a Latin American and then a Global Commission on Drug Policy, both of which called for major reform of drug policies, including legal regulation of marijuana, and also for "breaking the taboo" on considering all drug policy options, including legal regulation.

Now business leaders in Monterrey and Mexico City, wary of the growing power of criminal organizations, are joining the debate with sophistication, resources and support for legalization in one form or another. And, from the left, Javier Sicilia, the influential poet turned social justice movement leader, is saying much the same. 

It's thus no surprise that Mexican foreign secretary Patricia Espinosa announced at a meeting of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly in late February that her government now supported a debate on legalization. And just a little less surprising that yesterday President Calderon said that he too would attend the presidents' gathering in Guatemala on March 24.

All this presents a dilemma for the U.S. government. When Vice President Biden visited the region last week, he made clear that the Obama administration firmly opposes legalization - but also acknowledged, as President Obama had in early 2011, that the topic was a legitimate subject for discussion. That modest concession was important, not least in sending a clear message to other federal officials, including the drug czar, senior diplomats and Pentagon officials, that outright rejection of any discussion was no longer required. It manifested yesterday when the State Department's (Acting) Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Mike Hammer, stated that "We are, of course, willing to discuss the issue to express our opinion as far as why we do not see it as the best way in which to address the problem." "It is, he continued, "a serious subject and we are not in any way opposed to discussing it. Our position, though, is very clear." Latin American media quickly picked up on the slight change of tone from Washington.

This all represents a dramatic turn of events in the regional, and potentially, global debate about drug policy. In Latin America, current presidents are now taking the baton from ex-presidents in calling for a new drug policy debate with all options on the table. Respected intellectuals like Carlos Fuentes and Enrique Krauze in Mexico, Sergio Ramirez in Nicaragua and Mario Vargas Llosa in Peru are speaking out. So are distinguished former cabinet ministers as well as leaders in business, media and the arts.

The immediate political challenge will be to sustain this momentum in the face of vigorous behind-the-scenes efforts by the U.S. government to suppress the debate, notwithstanding public statements that they're open to it. The more substantive challenge will be to flesh out proposals for alternative strategies. Presidents Santos, Otto Perez Molina and others know full well that no nation can unilaterally legalize drugs, that any significant changes in direction must be pursued multilaterally, and that major reform of the failed global drug prohibition regime of the 20th century will take years and likely decades. Governments as well as non-governmental organizations in the region are just beginning to look seriously at alternative drug policy options, enlisting scholars and other policy experts.

Fortunately the drug war consensus within the United States is also dissolving. George Shultz, the former Secretary of State (and Treasury) and Paul Volcker are among the members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose bold recommendations last June stirred debate worldwide. Former President Jimmy Carter has endorsed the Global Commission's recommendations and former President Bill Clinton has repeatedly expressed regrets for the drug war excesses he condoned when he was in the White House. African-American leaders who previously supported the drug war are coming to the conclusion that it did nothing to lessen drug addiction on their communities but much to incarcerate an extraordinary number of young men and women.

Public support for legalizing marijuana is rising rapidly -- from 36 percent in favor in 2006 to 50 percent in 2011, according to Gallup's polling. And this past week, the conservative Evangelical Christian leader, Pat Robertson, surprised lots of people by saying marijuana should be legally regulated like alcohol, and by endorsing ballot initiatives in Colorado and Washington State that would do just that if they prevail this November.

The biggest obstacle right now is the head-in-the-sand resistance within the Obama administration and Congress to any real discussion of alternative drug policy options. Censorship and self-censorship in this area within the federal government is endemic, driven by fears that any internal policy memos, or even oral discussions, that conclude with politically inconvenient recommendations, are not just unwelcome but dangerous to one's standing and career. One result is that U.S. government officials will be increasingly handicapped in the international drug policy discussions at Cartagena and elsewhere, armed only with defenses of failed U.S. policies but bereft of any in-depth analysis of the options that other governments are putting on the table. 

The worst prohibition, it must be said, is a prohibition on thinking -- and that, sadly, is what the U.S. government is guilty of today.

10 March, 2012

Ethan Nadelmann,

Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance

HUFF POST WORLD