Tuxtla Summit Merida, Yucatan Dec. 2012. Photo credit: Mexican Presidnet's website
A remarkable and almost unreported event took place at the beginning of December last year at the somewhat obscure, 13th summit of the Tuxtla Mechanism for Dialogue. (See here For more on the Mechanism.)
It was reported in El Universal on 6 Dec 'Frenar consumo de droga o regularlo, exigen paises a EU' and in the Washington Post on 19 Dec 'Latin American leaders assail US drug 'market'', but has had no international pick up beyond.
A dozen Latin American countries issued a joint statement on organised crime and drug trafficking (here is the original Spanish text on the Mexican Government website). Point 7 is translated here:
“What would be desirable, would be a significant reduction in the demand for illegal drugs. Nevertheless, if that is not possible, as recent experience demonstrates, the authorities of the consuming countries ought then to explore the 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.”
What is remarkable is that the call to reduce demand (that no one would take issue with in principle) comes with the caveat that there is little evidence that this is possible, thereby leaving the call to explore alternatives - including 'regulatory or market oriented options'. This is in effect, an unambiguous call to legalise and regulate drugs. This is a fairly standard construction of the issue (similar to that adopted by Calderon recently) to avoid using the loaded term of 'legalisation' (something Colombian President Santos has been less hesitant about).
The statement is a clear acknowledgement of the often unspoken understanding that the war on drugs is fuelling much of the violence and chaos in Latin America. This then is a very clear call on consumer countries to take the lead in ending the war and replacing it with a legal system of regulation and control.
The summit was attended by the Presidents of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom; Honduras, Porfirio Lobo; Mexico, Felipe Calderon; Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega; Panama, Ricardo Martinelli; the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez; and the First Vice President of Costa Rica, Alfio Piva Messer. Also present were the Foreign Ministers of Belize, Wilfred Elrington; Colombia, Maria Angela Holguin; and El Salvador, Hugo Martinez. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera was also present as a special guest.
Following President Santos’s lead, twelve countries have now effcetively called for an end to the war on drugs. The significance of this is great, but the silence following it has been deafening. Perhaps because there was no pro-active media promotion of the statement, it has not been reported anywhere nearly as widely as last years ground breaking Global Commission report. That report - suypported by a global media campaign - was however, made up almost entirely of former presidents. The Tuxtla group are all incumbents.
This is a game changer. It is difficult to see how for example, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs can go through its standard motions with this Declaration on the table - it a direct challenge to the restrictions placed on signatory states experimenting with alternatives to prohibtion. The same is likely to be the case for any other transnational events based on entrenched prohibtionist orthodoxy. The issue ought now to be high on the agenda of any and all summits involving Latin American countries – G20, Summit of the Americas and so on.
Whilst this is a step change in the level of challenge to the prohibitionist orthodoxy, there are problems with it too. It is a construction of the issue fully intended to take the heat off producer and transit countries and place the blame for their problems squarely at the door of the US and other major consumer countries. This is entirely understandable given the historical and geopolitical context of contemporary prohibition. However, it raises two important issues:
Firstly, Are the Latin Americans seriously going to wait until the US leads them to a brave new world of peace? And secondly, the fact is that ALL countries (including the Latin Americans) are signatories to the Conventions upon which the drug war is founded. Whilst the geopolitical pressure for non-super powers to sign up and adhere to the Conventions is huge, it is nonetheless a fact that they are complicit in maintaining the legal infrastructure of the war on drugs and pursue the war with a ferocity unseen in other parts of the world. Their position would be more credible if they were to make moves nationally, regionally, and at the UN, to de-securitise drugs and develop and implement policies that adhere to human rights and public health norms.
That said, this is still a watershed moment in calling time on the war on drugs and those countries that are taking the lead deserve great credit for going on the record publicly (albeit quietly). We would encourage readers of this blog to contact their elected representatives to inform them of this development and to take the time to praise those leaders who were there, for making this statement.
5 comments:
For decades I have been arguing the laws against drugs alienate and criminalise a large section of society, particularly the young.
Perversely, they increase profits to drug dealers, which makes the whole business much more attractive to hardcore professional criminals.
The war against drugs has had exactly the opposite effect than that intended.
More of my thoughts on this can be read in 'The Myth Peddlars - How the war against drugs has failed' here:
http://bryanhemming.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/the-myth-peddlars-how-the-war-on-drugs-has-failed/
I fully agree with your analysis, Derek. However, as somebody who worked for many years in several Latin American countries, I am painfully aware of how ubiquitous and suffocating the influence of the US in Latin America as a whole is.
It is too involved and complex an issue to be discussed here. But as I have been advocating in my blog since I started it, one thing is for certain: without the acquiescence of the US, the chances of Latin America succeeding in rejecting the prohibitionist regime will be severely diminished unless drug consuming countries in Europe offer them their support.
That is why I find it rather cynical the way we, consuming countries, have completely ignored what has been happening on the other side of the drug market, the supply (production and distribution) of drugs. For we have decided that despite the havoc our demand for drugs under the current prohibitionist regime is creating in drug producing countries, what matters is what happens at home, and at home alone.
As it happens, a number of countries such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, among many others, have in a way “quasi legalised” the demand for drugs. They have de jure or de facto depenalised or decriminalised the personal consumption of some drugs.
In the case of marijuana, some countries have also “quasi legalised” the supply too by allowing users to grow a number of marijuana plants in their homes and for their own consumption, by tolerating the operation of so called “cannabis social clubs”, or by authorising the cultivation of marijuana to supply dispensaries where consumption on medical grounds is allowed.
In the US, for instance, the consumption of marijuana for medical reasons is allowed in 16 states and the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, the value of marijuana produced in the US to supply the domestic demand is estimated to be over $35 billion, making it the nation’s largest cash crop, larger than the combined value of wheat and corn.
One should be forgiven for thinking that countries that have “quasi legalised” the consumption or the domestic production of drugs would be leading the movement in favour of changes in the current drugs policies regarding the supply by major producing and distributing countries, too. Well, one could not be more wrong, I am afraid.
Rather than using our enormous political and economic clout to reform the international conventions that sustain Prohibition, we keep supporting, promoting and enforcing the illegality of the supply of drugs. And by blaming it on the existing laws, we have been able to walk away from our responsibility for the atrocious consequences it has had on producing countries.
I do not have any doubts that harm reduction programmes, decriminalisation or depenalisation of the demand for drugs are sensible and necessary policies. But if we were serious about tackling the so-called drug problem, we should be accompanying those same policies with equally sensible policies towards the supply of drugs.
Moreover, I will go as far as to say that the onus is on us, drug consuming countries in the developed world. We should be the ones promoting the Legalisation & Regulation of the supply. We should be the ones making all the noises calling for a change in the national and international legislation on drugs. We should be spearheading the movement seeking to legalise the production and distribution of all drugs.
Gart Valenc
twitter: @gartvalenc
Sorry, I meant Danny, not Derek.
Gart, thanks for your considered comments, as ever.
Whilst I agree with your moral thrust - that it is rich consumer countries who must lead the reform movement, I don't think it works like that in practice.
For numerous reasons, prohibition will be challenged because it causes crises. The crisis in Latin America is deep and wide. The crisis in Europe and the US is shallow and narrow. Therefore it is bound to fall ot the Latin states to make the move and take the lead.
And it isn't fair. It is the less developed countires that will carry the burden of the drug war and who will feel the crises the most.
We have to start from where we are, and that is Latin America forced to take the lead. Let's support them as much as we can to build support elsewhere, in the full knowledge that no country outside of their region is champing at the bit to help.
illegal drugs should be stop but the question is how. even if many of us wants to get rid of it to stop some violent actions brought by it, still we can not control this from spreading across the world.
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