U.S., Mexican governments reject report calling for drug legalization

The governments of the United States and Mexico promptly rejected this week the conclusions of a high-profile international report calling for the "legal regulation" of some drugs.

In separate statements, the governments signaled that they would not back away from current strategies in the war on drugs, which in Mexico has resulted in more than 38,000 deaths in 4 1/2 years and is backed by more than $1 billion in U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative.

As The Times reported Thursday from Mexico City and Washington, the Global Commission on Drug Policy is urging governments to decriminalize drug consumption and experiment with legalization and regulation of some narcotics, especially marijuana. The report calls the 4-decade-old war on drugs a failure.

"We can no longer ignore the extent to which drug-related violence, crime and corruption in Latin America are the results of failed drug war policies," former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said in a prepared statement tied to the report's release. "Now is the time to break the taboo on discussion of all drug policy options, including alternatives to drug prohibition."

Here's the commission's website, where visitors can download the full report in English or Spanish. The commission includes a former president of Brazil, a former president of Mexico, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several business leaders.

On Thursday, as the drug-policy report was being released in New York, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy issued a statement arguing against its recommendations.

"The Obama administration's efforts to reduce drug use are not born out of a culture war or drug war mentality, but out of the recognition that drug use strains our economy, health, and public safety," the statement said.

In Mexico, President Felipe Calderon's government has consistently stated that it does not support the legalization of drugs but remains open to debate. The position was reaffirmed this week by the president's top national-security spokesman, Alejandro Piore (link in Spanish).

Piore said the Mexican government "categorically rejects the impression that in Mexico, by definition, a stronger application of the law on the part of the authorities shall result in an increase in violence on the part of the narco-traffickers."

Legalization, his statement also said, "does not do away with organized crime, nor with its rivalries and violence."

Read the full L.A. Times story on the commission's report here.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Masked Zapatistas, holding signs that read "No More Blood," march in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, on May 8. Credit: EFE

Comments

[Jose]

The LA Times is hellbent on keeping the murderous rampage going by reporting anything that supports their war on drugs.

[Dale G.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB0nyDuR3yg

Interesting video with Vicente Fox. He, of course, is an advocate for legalization.

[Lex]

Prohibition is communism

[Ed D]

More government lies.

Prohibition is fraud.

Prohibition most certainly was born out of a culture war and drug war mentality. Corporate greed and corruption. Bigotry and racism. Lies and hate.

Prohibition strains our economy, health, and public safety. Along with civil rights, freedom, corruption and democracy itself.

"stronger application of the law (more government violence) on the part of the authorities shall result in an increase in violence on the part of the narco-traffickers." Yes, it always has and always will.

Remember, Nixon waged war against Americans who wanted peace. Now it is Obama's turn. Guess what... He is spending more and waging war on peaceful American's more harshly than any other president in history. His claim that he will bring about change was fraudulent.

Time to run all prohibitionists out of office. Both in Mexico and the United States. Support of prohibition is proof they are either corrupt or incompetent.

Corrupt is usually the case.

Speak out, march, protest, write letters, comment, talk to friends, neighbors, co workers, call into radio shows, boycott companies who support prohibition, write books, articles, anything and everything you can think of to spread the word about the tragedy of prohibition.

End prohibition now!

[ActivistCat]

Tell your Congressional Representatives -
It is time to "Change the Schedule of Cannabis, Cannabis Laws, and Drug Czar Laws"
Read and Sign the petition at

http://www.change.org/petitions/change-the-schedule-of-cannabis-cannabis-laws-and-drug-czar-laws

After you sign the petition, email your friendlies, share on facebook, or twitter from the petition page. If you have a website grab the widget so your vistitors can sign it without leaving your website.

Though the petition is a babystep to ending the war on drugs, with each step the baby gets further down the road. Since the start (May11th) of the petition, 3 new Bills were introduced in the House. While the DPA worked with the Legislators to draw up the Bills, this petition gave them the timing to introduce the Bills. Help get them passed by signing the petition. Each signature sends an email to the Congressional Representatives of the signer. Let Congress know it is time to end the war!

[Mr. Kite]

My father came here from England LEGALLY after WW 2 , the whole process took alittle time but he waited, he was a skilled Machinist and had something to offer this country. He knew what he wanted and he did it, he also became a CITIZEN. But their are some who don't feel they have to obey our LAWS or PROCESS. They seem to have a sense of entitlement and apparently so does the ACLU and California. Here in Los Angeles if you are a legal resident and you get pulled over and have no license or insurance the city of LA will impound your car for a month (They say"to teach you a lesson") BUT if your ILLEGAL the police will give you a grace period to to find someone WITH a license to come and get the car so they don't have to impound it. Right now TODAY the LA TIMES headline reads "Supreme Court ruling on California immigrant tuition rates could affect other states' policies". Forget the fact CALIFORNIA IS BROKE and our governor is trying to raise taxes, again...

[John Two Pesos Randolph]

What do you expect them to say?

Mexico will go broke and US banks will lose out on all that profit that they make laundering the cartels' drug money.

And if drugs were legalized military weapons dealers and US gun manufactures will lose out because Mexico won't need all of those tools of the trade.

There is no money to be made fighting wars that can be won.

I just hope that the March in Ciudad Juarez on June 10th really show that the good people of Mexico are "hasta la madre".

http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2011/04/imagine-two-countries-saying-estamos.html

[Marcus]

The world says: the "War on Drugs" is an epic failure...

The American Drug Czar -Gil Kerlikowske says: No it isn't and I since I am THE American Drug Czar I know more than you international panel of experts...

So the Catch 22 is.... NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE IN AMERICA.

And American in 50 years will have the extreme of very rich and very poor and no middle class.

[Stupid American]

Not surprising we won't do anything... we love the failure in what is called the "War on Drugs" when it is actually a police-state power to keep the citizens who chose to part-take in using drugs in prisons and "creating" jobs through invisible ways.

F**k our government.

[mongo]

Governments, corporate businesses and criminal gangs like the prohibition of drugs because it generates mountains of profits. Legalization with alternative addiction programs, such as are available for drunks, would mean the loss of hundreds of billions in revenues from the drug wars.

[Dmitri]

Prohibition for ANY goods or services never works and never has. Just a fact no one can deny. Whenever prohibitions have been ended the black markets for those goods and services have been stifled if not shut down. Another fact no one can deny unless you're one of these lunatic drug warriors.

So we will continue putting more people in prison, building more prisons than schools, talk about so-called leaders with their heads in the sand!!??

[Tim]

@joefrombako
"Do you really want a male college student giving your daughter legalized ketamine?"

Why the seller's sex would make a difference I don't know, but yes. I would much rather a male college student give my daughter legal ketamine. This would imply that my daughter went to the store and was of a legal age to buy it. Unlike now, where she does not need to be a certain age to buy it.

[Rstybeach]

The most ridiculous circumstance of the War on Cannabis revolves around industrial hemp. In this recession - adding an incredibly useful textile to multiple markets would only bolster the economy and create jobs. Competition is healthy in the market and hemp would compete in multiple textile markets.

It's bad enough they criminalize cannabis to combat addiction, but it's absolutely asinine to criminalize something so positive under capitalistic tenants.

[Rstybeach]

Legalization, his statement also said, "does not do away with organized crime, nor with its rivalries and violence."

Yes that's right. All those black-market alcohol and tobacco rings are absolutely trashing the corporate beer and cigarette companies. And the violence they perpetuate affects millions of Americans every day.

What a ridiculous statement to make. The rhetoric never changes. Hence the problem will persist. Absolute insanity!

[nothermerican]

annelinfante,

That was the goal of prohibition, but there is overwhelming proof that you just cannot expect that of people. I agree that Cannabis is not harmless, but it is safer than the bulk of all legal pharmaceuticals out on the market today. The report that was formed is there to inspire change and to step away from a failing system of Prohibition.

[saynotohypocrisy]

annelinfante, would you really be happier if the war on marijuana users made marijuana impossible to find or grow? Don't you think alcohol use and alcohol related catastrophes would go up? You do understand that alcohol is a drug, right?

How many people does alcohol kill and how many does cannabis kill? Which one is verboten? And here's a question an 8 year old, maybe even a 5 year old, should be able to answer, what's wrong with this picture? An eight year old can understand it's an immoral unfair discriminatory law, as well as a stupid law that leads to people getting killed thru increased alcohol use and black market related violence, a 5 year old might only be able to understand the stupidity part of it, that people do way,way more very bad things when they use alcohol than when they use marijuana, so a law that makes people use only alcohol is really stupid. "Why is the law so stupid, Mommy"? and sometimes "Would my daddy and my brother still be alive if that drunk had been allowed to use that other stuff?" Or "Would I still have my legs, Mommy if..."?

[malcolm kyle]

If you are a Prohibitionist then you owe us answers to the following questions:

#1. Why do you rejoice at the fact that we have all been stripped of our 4th amendment rights and are now totally subordinate to a corporatized, despotic government with a heavily armed and corrupt, militarized police force whose often deadly intrusions into our homes and lives are condoned by an equally corrupt and spineless judiciary?

#2. Why do you wish to continue to spend $50 billion a year to prosecute and cage your fellow citizens for choosing drugs which are not more dangerous than those of which you yourself use and approve of such as alcohol and tobacco?

#3. Do you honestly expect the rest of us to look on passively while you waste another trillion dollars on this garbage policy?

#4. Why are your waging war on your own family, friends and neighbors?

#5. Why are you so complacent with the fact that our once 'free & proud' nation now has the largest percentage of it's citizenry incarcerated than any other on the entire planet?

#6. Why are you helping to fuel a budget crisis to the point of closing hospitals, schools and libraries?

#7. Why do you rejoice at wasting precious resources on prohibition related undercover work while rapists and murderers walk free, while additionally, many cases involving murder and rape do not even get taken to trial because law enforcement priorities are subverted by your beloved failed and dangerous policy?

#8. Why are you such a supporter of the 'prison industrial complex' to the extent of endangering our own children?

#9. Will you graciously applaud, when due to your own incipient and authoritarian approach, even your own child is caged and raped?

* It is estimated that there are over 300,000 instances of prison rape a year.
* 196,000 are estimated to happen to men in prison.
* 123,000 are estimated to happen to men in county jail.
* 40,000 are estimated to be committed against boys in either adult prisons or while in juvenile facilities or lock ups.
* 5000 women are estimated to be raped in prison.

#10. And will you also applaud when your own child, due to an unnecessary and counter productive felony conviction, can no longer find employment?

[Dpwallacejr]

annelinfante, you're living in a fantasy world. Wishing for a thing does not make it so. After just under 100 years of failure, what makes you think that we have the power to change human nature? We may as well blame the distance of the Earth from the sun for global warming/cooling/climate change/whatever we're calling it this week and get to work installing planetary thrusters so that we can move the Earth closer to or farther from the sun depending on the temperature.

Reality is that supply always rises to meet demand, and it's just fantasy land "reasoning" to blame people who won't do what you want. Your being in denial of the reality of demand has produced the monsters that are enriched and empowered by the black market. Don't you think it's time that we quit supporting a public policy that is a proven failure in the past, and guaranteed failure in the future? Just how many more decades of utter failure must our society endure before you and those who agree with you will finally admit that you've failed, and failed miserably? A century of utter failure isn't enough for you?
-------------------------------------
Jorge2, you're a sucker if you've fallen for the "huge increase" in THC that the Know Nothing prohibitionists peddle as part of their hysterical rhetoric. We most certainly had primo cannabis back in the 1970s. Every time people talk about the "terrorists" I recall when we called the the "freedom fighters" and the absolutely fantastic black hash that they exported to the US.

The nonsense about cannabis being significantly more potent today than in the 1970s is quite simply propaganda, designed to scam people who enjoyed cannabis in the 1970s and realized that there was no particular danger from doing so, so that they could be convinced that some kind of magic transformation has occurred, that requires the idiocy of prohibition to mitigate.
-------------------------------------
joefrombako, re-legalization is a continuum, not a choice between summary execution for anyone suspected of being involved with drugs or allowing the sales reps from the heroin factory to set up promotional displays in the lobbies of elementary schools. As far as your absurd question about someone giving my daughter ketamine, why in the world do you think that prohibition has stopped that from happening? Should I feel better because she was fed illegal ketamine rather than legal ketamine? If date rape is your basis for absolute prohibition we need to get to work on drinking alcohol prohibition because drinking alcohol is by far the most utilized date rape drug available.

Prohibition is an utter failure regardless of the hysterical rhetoric that you trot out. I'd much rather teach my daughter how to avoid lowlifes that would date rape her than to expect the government to prevent it so that I can feel absolved from the responsibility of having to have that very uncomfortable conversation. If you do your job as a dad it goes a lot further to the end that you desire, and make no mistake, it's your job prohibition or no.
-------------------------------------
Senault, if the powers that be had total control Marie Antoinette would have been buried in one piece and Germany would be run by Adolph Hitler's hand picked successor. If you want to curl up in a ball and give up that's your choice. But why waste your time telling people that are working to better our society that they just might as well give up? How the heck do you think that helps?

Go get a bottle of booze and drink yourself into a stupor. That's the best thing you can do to better our society.

[Duncan20903]

This is your brain: {{{}}}

This is your brain on prohibition: {null}

Any questions?

[RwH]

"...drug use strains our economy, health, and public safety," the statement said." So outlaw alcohol, which is also a drug and does the same thing. Death, alcoholism, and public safety (people driving drunk and all the other ills of drunkenness). In other words, their argument is a red herring.

[John Cameron]

One of the sad results of prohibition is that it drives out the weaker and milder forms of drugs and increases the availability and use of stronger and more dangerous drugs. In the US, alcohol prohibition dramatically reduced beer drinking but vastly increased the use of spirits as criminal gangs made hard liquor widely available. Today, criminals also prefer to do business in the more compact and potent substances than in the milder, bulkier drugs which are harder to smuggle and less remunerative. In comparison to the all-out American prohibition in the 1920s, both the UK and Australia were much more successful with fairly stringent alcohol regulation. This had the additional benefit of providing substantial increases in government revenues whereas America spent vast sums in a vain attempt to enforce its prohibition laws.

[Senault]

The US govt makes too much money off drugs i.e. judges, jails, lawyers, policeman etc. none the less talk about being lobbied by large cartels or drug dealers. They are the war on drugs just like the war to "free iraq" too much money to give up.

Also annelinfante ur an idiot humans will not using drugs just like they wont stop following organized religion, its just an easier means for our brains to deal with everyday life.

[joefrombako]

As an historian, it's impossible to ignore the unintended consequences brought about by the Volstead Act. Prohibition made small-time thugs of the era fabulously wealthy, bred contempt for the law, and made criminals out of ordinary citizens. Would our society be better off with legalization of all drugs? Probably not. Do you really want a male college student giving your daughter legalized ketamine? Conversely, it's a complete waste of time to spend our limited dollars on pot enforcement. The misguided war on pot has expanded the police state and facilitated the destruction of the Sierra's by Mexican drug cartels eager to cash in on the billion dollar trade.

[Mr. Kite]

The de-criminalization or legalization of marijuana in California should be a no brainier. But we don't need to get that from Mexico . It's the "Coca plants" and the "Opium Poppys" we don't seem to be able grow. But IF we did.....Hmmmmm, I KNOW! Lets flood the Mexican market with our OWN drugs and put the 'Cartels' business..... (calm down I'm just kidding)

[Jorge2]

Cannabis is not harmless--less harmful but not harmless. The stuff they are slinging these days will scramble your brains, with THC levels rising like the Mississippi. A lot of the stuff is downright psychedelic, but still it should be legal for over 21 adults.

[annelinfante]

Could it be that the wrong "war" was being fought? The real "war" is with the drug consumers. If there were no consumers, then there would be no demand. The real issue here is a world filled with people who are dependent on drugs for survival, to numb their pain, if you will. Simple law of supply and demand. Change the demand, and you'll change the supply.

[Warren]

Of course Mexico would reject the end of the failed War on Drugs. The drugs bring in more revenue for Mexico than it's oil industry.

[Rob]

"Piore said the Mexican government 'categorically rejects the impression that in Mexico, by definition, a stronger application of the law on the part of the authorities shall result in an increase in violence on the part of the narco-traffickers.'"

I would disagree. Before the splintering of the cartels (because Mexico killed/jailed the founding leaders by applying the law), there seemed to be a lot less violence and a lot less narco groups. If Mexico had not strongly applied the law, I would think the status quo would be a lot less violent.

"Legalization, his statement also said, "does not do away with organized crime, nor with its rivalries and violence."

No, it doesn't do away with organized crime, but it keeps them from getting stronger by denying them a significant source of income. Remember, the cartels have to spend a lot of money to keep their foot soldiers happy and to bribe the low level government employees where they operate. Even if the cartels resort to other crimes, they will not be able to replace the lost income from supplying drugs to Americans.

[saynotohypocrisy]

"The Obama administration's efforts to reduce drug use are not born out of a culture war or drug war mentality, but out of the recognition that drug use strains our economy, health, and public safety."

What a pile. This comment OBVIOUSLY applies FAR more to alcohol than cannabis! No red blooded American will accept such wanton discrimination. Not in a million years.

It's the cost of prohibition that's seriously damaging our economy and public finances.

[Brandt]

The War on Drugs failed Billions of dollars ago! This money could have been used for outreach programs to clean up the bad end of drug abuse by providing free HIV testing, free rehab, and clean needles. Harmless drugs like marijuana could be legalized to help boost our damaged economy. Cannabis can provide hemp for countless natural recourses and the tax revenue from sales alone would pull every state in our country out of the red! Vote Teapot, PASS IT, and legalize it. Voice you opinion with the movement and check out my pro-cannabis art at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/01/vote-teapot-2011.html