Pubdate: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 Source: Dallas Morning News (TX) Copyright: 2012 The Dallas Morning News, Inc. Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/lettertoed.cgi Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117 ADDICTED TO A WAR Latin American Leaders Prod U.S. on Drug Policy The recent Summit of the Americas, if remembered at all, will go down as the place where Secret Service agents and U.S. soldiers overindulged in legal alcohol and legal prostitution. Not an inconsequential scandal, obviously, but it's unfortunate that off-the-field distractions overshadowed what could have been far more substantive issues. One was the perceptible shift among Latin American leaders to persuade President Barack Obama to rethink, at the very least, his nation's increasingly failed war on drugs. Obama's answer wasn't exactly no way, but he said legalization wasn't the answer. Admittedly, catching a Democratic U.S. president as he ramps up what promises to be a tough reelection fight probably isn't the best time to ask him to rework something so potentially transformative. Still, by the time the U.S. gets around to reconsidering a "war" that has cost upward of $1 trillion over more than four decades, it will be leading from behind. If America seems increasingly isolated in its own hemisphere, count this as one reason. For decades, Americans have been willing buyers in an illegal drug market where the willing sellers have brought ruin and violence to U.S. neighbors in Latin America. Mexico fights for survival against entrenched, murderous drug cartels. Colombia has a long, similarly bloody history. Guatemala and Costa Rica want change. Increasingly, Latin American leaders campaigning on public safety platforms express fatigue with counternarcotics efforts. Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala, Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica came to office with military and public security expertise. Their hope for a better way, of course, depends on support from El Norte. Mexico's Felipe Calderon, who risked much of his presidency on eradicating drug violence, spoke in September to the U.N. General Assembly. If consumer nations like the U.S. cannot reduce demand, he said, they should "look for other ways, including market alternatives, that prevent narco-traffickers from continuing to be the origin of violence and death." America's prohibition strategy, honed over the decades, has yielded massive spending, massive incarceration and rising drug use. In one broad sample released last year around the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's fateful call, drug use had reached 24 percent of high school seniors. A unanimous U.S. Conference of Mayors resolution last year declared the war on drugs a failed policy and the "principal driver of mass incarceration in America." The mayors called for an independent commission to perform a comprehensive review of the justice system and recommend wide-ranging reforms. What these leaders of U.S. cities want is what more and more national leaders want: a new approach that is "less expensive, more humane and more effective.to deal with drugs and crime." At some point - we hope before every last dollar is spent-America must heed such calls. Evaluating the war on drugs "I think it is very clear that the war that has been staged against drug trafficking in the past 40 years has not had the fruits that we expected. I think that's the case in the areas where it's produced, in the areas where it's transported . and in the areas where it's consumed, which is mostly in the United States." - - Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina "It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs. . [Cartels] are like caged animals, attacking one another." - Michele Leonhart, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration "Legalization is not the answer. . I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places." - - U.S. President Barack Obama - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom