Pubdate: Fri, 28 Aug 2009
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/O3vnWIvC
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Cobly Cosh, National Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Argentina

GOING THEIR OWN WAY

While the U. S. Turns a Blind Eye, Its 'Partner' States Are Quietly 
Decriminalizing Illicit Drugs

Say, are we still having that debate over whether the United States 
constitutes an empire? I remember the idea seeming controversial a 
few years back. In 2009, the whole idea of disagreeing with it seems 
quaint. But maybe things will look different in a few more years. 
Empires do not rise and fall monotonically; they expand and contract, 
relax and relent. In an extraordinary turn of events, Caesar has 
temporarily turned a blind eye to the policing of morals in the 
provinces, allowing startling drug reforms in two major "partner" states.

Late last week, the Mexican government, trying explicitly not to call 
too much attention to what it was doing, decriminalized the 
possession of very small amounts of illicit drugs. Not just 
marijuana, which is subject to a possession limit of five grams, but 
the whole kaboodle: cocaine, methamphetamine, LSD, even heroin. In 
general the U. S. media treated this as a counter-intuitive move made 
in the midst of a full-scale war between drug cartels and the Mexican 
state. But it is precisely the bloodiness of that war that has Mexico 
moving away from ideological prohibitionism.

The idea is to cut into demand by treating addicts as potential 
treatment clients rather than criminals, to fight corruption among 
the police by taking away one of their major tools for shaking down 
the poor and marginalized, and to concentrate resources on organized 
crime. This is, of course, a form of centralized social planning just 
as much as total prohibition is. Even a borderline-anarchist 
libertarian (like me) might well question whether it will accomplish 
the criteria of social peace and harm reduction by which it will be 
judged; Cato Institute fellow and Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, 
for one, worries that decriminalization will get the blame if 
intensified supply-side enforcement leads to more violence.

But the Portuguese model on which the Mexican reform is based, which 
saw the adoption of Europe's most liberal drug laws in 2001, has been 
successful in all the ways that most of us would consider important, 
particularly in reducing the spread of HIV and exposure to drugs 
amongst teenagers. One feels that what's needed above all else right 
now, when it comes to drugs, is a little openness and sincerity. The 
single worst effect of criminalizing drug possession is to make it 
harder for everyone to talk about drugs. It has created a world 
(although things have changed a lot in the last 20 years) where most 
everyone has taken a bong hit at one time or another, but no one 
wants to admit it, whether it's to their kids or to co-workers or in 
the newspaper.

And that, in turn, has made it harder to make the core argument that 
it is none of the state's business what you put in your body. (Doing 
so inevitably comes off as sounding like a coded apology for past 
indiscretions.) But in some places it is being made anyway. On 
Tuesday the Supreme Court of Argentina reversed the conviction of a 
19-year-old caught with two grams of pot and decriminalized the 
possession of drugs for personal consumption. The Kirchner government 
anticipated the ruling and says it is content to abide by it; 
meanwhile, other Latin states, including Brazil, are talking about 
following suit. Crucial to the logic of the court's decision was an 
article in the Argentine constitution that states, "The private 
actions of men which in no way offend public order or morality, nor 
injure a third party, are only reserved to God and are exempted from 
the authority of judges."

It's a sentiment one might have expected to hear coming from the U. 
S. A., at one time. President Obama has been a disappointment to the 
harm-reduction crowd when it comes to domestic drug reform, but the 
rapid pace of change in the Latin world shows that the State 
Department is no longer imposing its will there. Whether it's because 
Washington has more urgent priorities like saving the American 
economy from reverting to the Stone Age, or just because the Bush 
administration's cadre of drug warriors is gone, American satellites 
seem to find themselves free to go their own way, perhaps only for a 
brief moment.

Canadians who have argued that the adoption of a harm-reduction 
approach here would jeopardize our trade relationship with the United 
States can therefore pipe down for the foreseeable future. 
Unfortunately, we greet the occasion with a law-and-order he-man 
Conservative government in place -- one which, whatever its virtues 
when it comes to crimes that have victims, is full of people like 
Peter van Loan, Rob Nicholson and Tony Clement, and plenty of others 
who are about as likely to give birth to a muskox on the steps of 
Parliament as they are to support rational drug policy. From that 
standpoint, our timing sorta stinks. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake