War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle

Mexico's president Felipe Caldéron is the latest Latin leader to call for a debate on drugs legalisation. And in the US, liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the 'war on drugs' there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight

Rory Carroll and Paul Harris
The Observer, Sunday August 8 2010

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The atrocity last month in Torreón, an industrial city in the northern state of Coahuila, came amid headlines shocking even by the standards of Mexico's drug war. A sophisticated car bomb of a type never before seen in the country; a popular gubernatorial candidate gunned down in the highest-level political murder; and then last week the release of official figures putting the number of drug war-related murders at 28,000.

It was against this backdrop of bloody crisis that President Felipe Calderón said something which could, maybe, begin to change everything. He called for a debate on the legalisation of drugs. "It is a fundamental debate," he said. "You have to analyse carefully the pros and cons and key arguments on both sides."

A statement of the obvious, but coming from Calderón it was remarkable. This is the president who declared war on drug cartels in late 2006, deployed the army, militarised the city of Juárez and promised victory even as the savagery overtook Iraq's. Calderón stressed that he personally still opposed legalisation, but his willingness to debate the idea was, for some, a resounding crack in the international drug policy edifice.

"This is a big step forward in putting an end to the war," said Norm Stamper, a former Seattle chief of police and now spokesman for the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (Leap).

Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs on 17 June 1971, a hard-line prohibition policy continued by successive US presidents. Four decades later there is growing momentum in the US and Latin America to abandon the fight and legalise drugs, or at least marijuana. There have been false dawns before but many activists say the latest rays of sunlight are real.

Long article well worth reading in full (especially the part about "US states seem to be joining the revolt"): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/08/drugs-legalise-mexico-california

I believe 'centrist corporatist' Democrats are conservative

Reject Obama’s Nomination of Michele Leonhart For DEA Director

President Barack Obama recently nominated Michelle Leonhart to direct the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. NORML is asking you to contact your Senator today and urge him or her to reject this nomination.

As interim DEA director, Ms. Leonhart orchestrated federal raids on individuals and facilities who were compliant with the medical marijuana laws of their states — a policy that is in direct conflict with the wishes of the present administration. Further, Ms. Leonhart has inexplicably called the rising death toll of civilians attributable to the U.S./Mexican drug war “a signpost of the success” of current drug prohibition strategies. Finally, she has repeatedly acted to block clinical research into the medical properties of marijuana — actions that would appear to run contrary to this administration’s pledge to allow science, rather than rhetoric and ideology, guide public policy.

Ms. Leonhart’s actions and ambitions are incompatible with common sense marijuana law reform. Please urge Congress to reject this nomination. For your convenience, a prewritten letter will be e-mailed to your member of the U.S. Senate when you enter your contact information below.

http://stash.norml.org/reject-obamas-nomination-of-michele-leonhart-for-dea-director

while they continue to 'talk' about it, people's lives are being destroyed by a bad, bad policy.

Calderon's escalation, instead of somehow "fighting drugs" ( a truly moronic phrase in its own right), has brought the legitimacy and sovereignty of the government he leads into question. Leadership does not get any worse than that.

having led to the same large-scale criminal enterprises. Legalizing alcohol was the only thing that worked there.

Only way I see the 'war' on drugs ending.

Must not be near as prifitable as it once was.

nt

*cough* higher profit margin when you not only control the country but pay off all the suppliers at the source or they k now they'll get a drone-fired missile fired up their arse late one night, the only reason Pablo Escovar got wacked is he wouldn't play ball with the Company, anyway that's my theory and I think you're right about the heroin *cough*

Thanks for the thread, Turborama.

My son didn't steal, embezzle, commit fraud, domestic violence, hurt anyone...but he did choose to 'self-medicate' after his father committed suicide.

I am fighting this war on drugs, which is a war on people (especially poor or minority people) with all I've got. This is our second year to have a LEAP http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php speaker at our county fair.

We live 100 miles north of 'ground zero' of the war on drugs, Juarez Mexico. The US policy of drug prohibition is responsible for a large part of the murders going on there, imho.