Monday, October 6, 2008

The 'Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy'

By Patrick Corcoran

A rather striking image graced a recent cover of the Mexican newsmagazine Poder – a credit card, a pile of cocaine and four lines of the powder, all above the headline “Time to legalize?”

The magazine framed the question around the formation of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy. The group, composed of 18 of the region’s governmental and journalistic luminaries, first came together in April of this year, in Rio de Janeiro. It will meet formally three times, leading up to the presentation of its final report in Monterrey, Mexico in February 2009.

The Commission will examine how the war on drugs erodes the confidence of Latin Americans in their democratic institutions, and offer recommendations to combat said erosion. The Poder article, which includes the opinions of a handful of pro-legalization intellectuals and activists, focuses on the Commission’s potential to reshape the prevailing view of drug policy in the Western Hemisphere. “The Washington consensus about the antidrug policies is based on two pillars: the present policies aren’t working, but they can’t be changed,” says commission member Moises Naím, the ex- foreign minister of Venezuela and present editor of Foreign Policy.

For Poder, this means a closer look at legalization or decriminalization of drugs, which is about where consensus on the matter disintegrates. As Naím’s quote indicates, there is little debate about the failure of the drug war. The black market for drugs has turned parts of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil into dystopian nightmares more apropos of a Mad Max movie than a middle-income nation in the 21st century. The billions of dollars Americans spend on drug enforcement each year have done nothing to eliminate or even drastically lower drug use in that nation. At the same time, the war on drugs has led to the US having the highest proportion of criminals in the world, and has consigned entire communities to perpetual blight.

The content of the preceding paragraph may be difficult to refute, but it has been common knowledge for years, and America’s drug prohibition seems as unshakeable as ever. Opponents of prohibition can’t win the argument by merely pointing to the failure of America’s war on drugs. Books like Saying Yes and After Prohibition make powerful arguments about the immorality, futility, and insanity of the war on drugs, but they are less successful in imagining a palatable alternative. Thorny questions linger: Would the United States treat heroin and crystal meth as it presently does whiskey? If legalization only applies to marijuana, how would that safeguard the democratic institutions of Colombia and Mexico? What steps would the US government take to address neighborhoods with high rates of addiction? There are no easy answers to these questions, but so far not enough people in favor of decriminalization have taken a stab at answering them. The Commission should fill this void, articulating a vision of a drug-legalized world that isn’t the red-light district of Amsterdam.

The group’s prestige could be instrumental in moving the argument for legalization or decriminalization forward. The three chairs – former presidents César Gavaria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil – are all distinguished leaders with a reputation for practicality. The latter won the presidency based on his success creating a successful status quo after decades of failure – not with drug policy but with Brazilian monetary policy. (Cardoso is the father of the Brazilian real.)The remainder includes a cross-section of brainy writers like Mario Vargas Llosa and Enrique Krauze, and respected statesmen like Naím. Hopefully, the conspicuous absence of loons will make whatever the consensus is more acceptable to conservative policymakers.

At the same time, I wonder why Americans weren’t included on the commission? (It also wouldn’t have hurt to have included someone associated with law enforcement.)

There are probably few if any prominent American political figures that would be willing to serve on a pro-legalization committee, but the US prohibition is primarily what feeds Latin America’s drug gangs. Such organizations won’t disappear because Latin America legalizes drugs, but they just might if the US reconsiders its policies. 

A beautifully articulated, logically flawless Commission report that backs legalization will surely receive a harsh welcome in Washington, but the harshness would be leavened somewhat if the authors list included some familiar names. The 18 members of the Commission are certainly qualified for the task at hand, but, like it or not, American opinions on the matter are the indispensable ones. A consensus on drug policy that doesn’t include Americans isn’t worth much.

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Patrick Corcoran is a writer who resides in Torreón, Coahuila.  He blogs at Gancho.