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