Latin American nations ending drug prohibition on the basis that the War on Drugs does more harm than good.

Date:   10/12/2009 10:03:23 PM ( 15 y ago)

Latin American nations are starting the process of ending drug prohibition. Several of those nations have allready made changes to their laws so that personal possession [of small amounts] is no longer a crime.

Here is a list of those nations so far, as of Oct. 10th 2009:
Mexico – Mexico has passed a law eliminating criminal penalties for possessing small amount of Marijuana (5 grams is maximum allowed), Cocaine (half of a gram), Heroin (50 milligrams), LSD (o15 milligrams), Methamphetamine (40 milligrams). You can have this amount of each drug at the same time in your possession.

Brazil – They are moving towards eliminating jail time for people possessing small amounts of drugs for personal use, and moving towards a "health based model" for drug use.

Argentina – Their Supreme Court said it is illegal to criminally prosecute anyone for small-scale use of marijuana.

Ecuador - They are looking at legalizing small amount for personally possessed drugs like Argentina.

Peru – They allow the sale of Coca Leaf. This is what cocaine is made from. You can buy the leaf itself in bulk, and tea and ice cream made with coca leaf in it.

Venezuela – Coca leaf is for sale openly here as well.

Bolivia -Coca leaf is legal and openly for sale here.

Honduras - President Manuel Zelaya says drug consumption should be legalized to stop violence related to trafficking
 [but no actual legal changes have been made yet]

Venezuela - no legal changes yet, but President Chavez has ended the "cooperative agreement" with the DEA




 The reasons given include:
  "USA meddling in the sovereign democratic affairs of Latin American nations under the guise of the War on Drugs"

  Wanting to move towards a "health based model" where drug use is concerned - i.e. Brazil, Honduras.

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has stated that the USA's War on Drugs has actually supported drug trafficking and was used to "conduct intelligence operations against the [Venezuelan] government." 
 

Next Steps:
  " Drug ministers from 32 Latin American and Caribbean nations are meeting in Tegucigalpa with United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime until October 17."

And What of our nations?

  And so what is coming for us in Canada, the USA, and Britian? Will we continue to persecute drug users? American prisons are full of drug offenders, so much so that dangerous, and actually violent, prisonsers are let out early or don't even go to prison. Fully 80% of American prisoners are there on drug charges, and yet they have not harmed anyone, at least not anyone who didn't make a choice to take the drugs that may have harmed some people, but even then it is not the drugs themselves but prohibition that does the most harm. Homeless people are often drug addicts, and once again that 80% figure pops up - 80% of addicted homeless people have medical health issues that mainstream medicine has not treated, or due to a lack of health insurance the addicts did not get treatment, and very commonly the addicts do not WANT the kind of treatment that mainstream medicine offers [just pills, more pills, here have another pill - "take OUR drugs, not those illegal drugs"].

 It has been said that the War on Drugs is really just a "War on CERTAIN drugs" - such as plant based drugs that cannot be patented. It is true that the pharmaceutical corporations enjoy the benefits of drug prohibition. Plant based drugs would be a cheaper way of dealing with a lot of health problems - oh, wait, many people ARE using them... and then they go to JAIL. This is an outrage where this is the case.

 Meanwhile, the Latin American nations are accusing the USA of "meddling in our internal affairs under the guise of the War on Drugs". It has been 20 years or more since the Iran-Contra Affair, so maybe many of us do not remember it. In the 1980s, the USA was moving weapons into Iran, and moving illegal drugs into the USA; it was an intelligence operation, but some players also made some good money off it. The USA has a bit of history of protecting drug trafficing into the USA in exchange for intelligence - that went on in Vietnam from the 1950s to 1970s - those coffins full of heroin, remember? - all under the eye of the CIA. [that movie "American Gangster"  was based on reality, by the way]

 And so the US War on Drugs is a phony front for peddling drugs and doing foreign policy dirtywork, and meanwhile the victims are people with health problems who have nowhere else to turn, and often get sent to jail because of it all.

 So lets hope that Canada, Britian, and the USA will follow South and Central America's lead and end this madness of drug prohibition.

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