Pubdate: Sat, 18 May 2013
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Randal C. Archibold

AMERICAS COALITION SUGGESTS MARIJUANA LAWS BE RELAXED

MEXICO CITY - A comprehensive report on drug policy in the Americas 
released Friday by a consortium of nations suggests that the 
legalization of marijuana, but not other illicit drugs, be considered 
among a range of ideas to reassess how the drug war is carried out.

The report, released by the Organization of American States walked a 
careful line in not recommending any single approach to the drug 
problem and encouraging "flexibility."

Prompted by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia at the Summit of 
the Americas last year to answer growing dissatisfaction and calls 
for new strategies in the drug war, the report's 400 pages mainly 
summarize and distill previous research and debate on the subject.

But the fact that it gave weight to exploring legalizing or 
de-penalizing marijuana was seized on by advocates of more liberal 
drug use laws as a landmark and a potential catalyst for less 
restrictive laws in a number of countries.

"This takes the debate to a whole other level," said Ethan Nadelmann, 
executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates more 
liberal drug use laws. "It effectively breaks the taboo on 
considering alternatives to the current prohibitionist approach."

The report said "the drug problem requires a flexible approach," and 
"it would be worthwhile to assess existing signals and trends that 
lean toward the decriminalization or legalization of the production, 
sale and use of marijuana.

"Sooner or later decisions in this area will need to be taken," it 
said. "On the other hand, our report finds no significant support, in 
any country, for the decriminalization or legalization of the 
trafficking of other illicit drugs."

Some analysts interpreted the inclusion of decriminalization as a 
thumb in the eye to the United States, the country with the heaviest 
drug consumption and one that has spent several billion dollars on 
drug interdiction in the Americas, only to find that marijuana and 
cocaine continue to flow heavily and that violence has surged in 
Mexico and Central America as the drugs move north.

The report comes two weeks before an O.A.S. meeting in Guatemala, 
whose president has been open to legalizing marijuana and where the 
central topic is drug policy in the hemisphere. Uruguay's president 
has put forward a plan for the government to legalize and regulate 
the sale of marijuana.

"The region's leaders expressed their frustration with the limits and 
exorbitant costs of current policies and their hunger for a fuller, 
more creative debate," said John Walsh, a drug policy analyst at the 
Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

But the United States has so far rejected legalization as a solution 
to drug violence.

A State Department spokesman, William Ostick, said the report would 
be carefully reviewed and discussed with fellow O.A.S. members in Guatemala.

"We look forward to sharing our latest research and experiences on 
drug prevention and treatment, and to strengthening operational law 
enforcement cooperation with our partners around the globe in support 
of our common and shared responsibility for the world drug problem," 
he said. "We know other leaders will similarly bring their own data, 
and anticipate a productive and useful dialogue."

Kevin Sabet, director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University 
of Florida, said advocates of drug liberalization were overplaying 
the significance of the report, which he said contained a lot the 
Obama administration would agree with.

He said a discussion of legalization was only natural, particularly 
since two American states, Washington and Colorado, have moved in 
that direction.

But the report, he said, also suggested that countries in the 
hemisphere needed to redouble their efforts to fight the impunity of 
drug gangs, something often overlooked or played down in the debate 
on the war on drugs. The report notes that drug organizations have 
atomized into a range of gangs carrying out kidnapping, extortion and 
other crimes.

"Institutions in the drug-producing nations are going to have to 
change the way they do business," Mr. Sabet said. "You cannot only 
rely on reducing demand and ignore deep-seated institutional problems."

Mr. Santos, in accepting the report in Bogota, said more study was 
needed. "Let it be clear that no one here is defending any position, 
neither legalization, nor regulation, nor war at any cost," he said. 
"What we have to do is use serious and well-considered studies like 
the one the O.A.S. has presented us with today to seek better solutions."

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 18, 2013

A headline on an earlier version of this article misstated the scope 
of the O.A.S. report's recommendations. It suggested discussing the 
legalization of marijuana; it did not suggest that marijuana be legalized.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom