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Latin American Program in the News: What is Different in the Drug Policy Debate in the Americas?

Juan Carlos Garzón

Juan Carlos Garzón authored a piece in Project Syndicate commenting on the Organization of American States’ General Assembly meeting which focused on the problem of drugs in the Americas. This article was also published in Offnews.

After four decades of the monologue of the “war on drugs,” the Americas open the door for debate, breaking the taboo to discuss new approaches to dealing with this problem. This does not mean that there is a consensus regarding the alternatives and even less that the legalization or decriminalization are just around the corner. This means that governments around the continent are willing to have an open debate to either defend their approach closing the door to explore new ways of dealing with the drug problem or to explore more effective ways to deal with drugs in the next decades.

The past week, foreign ministers of all of the member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) had their annual meeting in Guatemala – the Forty-Third General Assembly – that focused on the problem of drugs. This summit of the Americas concluded with the declaration “For a comprehensive policy against the world drug problem in the Americas”, in which governments of the region accept to continue the debate, defining a process of consultation through different national and international instances.

Although this document does not contain any changes to the current drug policy, it does incorporate a “new” language to understand the problem and allows the debate to continue, entrusting the Permanent Council to call for a Special Session of the General Assembly – a high-level meeting - to be held no later than 2014. Is this enough?

It is an error to think that significant changes in drug policy can come overnight. It was not realistic to expect that as a result of the OAS General Assembly, issues such as legalization or decriminalization would appear into the agenda. From this perspective, the value of the declaration is not the rupture of the current paradigm, but the opportunity to open a discussion based on scientific knowledge and evidence, not only on a technical level, but also on a political level. Five years ago, this kind of space was unimaginable.

In fact it was not an easy process to reach agreement to continue the debate. Prior to the General Assembly, in Washington D.C., there was an intense discussion between the countries to define the contents of this declaration, specially the proposal of Guatemala to have an extraordinary Assembly on drugs in 2014 to debate the current regional strategy.

Initially, a group of countries were reluctant to the possibility of upgrading the debate from the internal bodies inside the OAS to a high level dialogue between the foreign ministers – and even among presidents. This is the reason why the declaration came open to Guatemala; paragraph 20th – that refers to the extraordinary Assembly - was from the beginning the main point of discord. Bureaucratic inertia and the resistance of hard-liner countries that feel comfortable with the current policy and reject fundamental changes were the main obstacles challenging advancements in the debate.

In the middle of the discussion of the declaration, the Secretary General of the OAS delivered to the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, the “Report of the Drug Problem in the Americas”, commissioned by Latin American countries during the last year’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, 2012. For the first time since the “War on drugs” started, a multilateral institution critically analyzed the drug policy and considered new approaches like decriminalization – especially of marijuana. The OAS study proposes four possible scenarios for future drug policy. Fortunately, as former Latin American Leaders stated in an open letter, “…none of the scenarios call for the status quo”. Without making recommendation, the OAS report reinforced the idea proposed by Guatemala weeks before regarding the necessity to continue the debate to think on a more effective strategy.

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For the full article published by Project Syndicate, clickhere.  

About the Author

Juan Carlos Garzón

Juan Carlos Garzón

Former Visiting Scholar;
Security and Conflict Resolution Expert; Former Consultant, United Nations Development Program and Organization of American States
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Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more