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Drug Control Policy: What the United States Can Learn from Latin America
Coletta YoungersLASA Forum
Spring 2011
Since the 1912 signing of the Hague Opium Convention—the agreement that formally established narcotics control within international law—the United States has established itself as the dominant actor in determining drug control policies around the world. A chief architect of the international drug control regime, Washington has done its best to ensure that all subsequent international conventions obligate countries to adapt their domestic legislation to criminalize virtually all acts related to the illicit market in controlled substances, with the important exception of drug consumption. The predominant focus on prohibition and criminalization has been exported to Latin America, where the vast majority of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States originates.
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Fear and loathing surrounds decriminalisation
Exploring the "failing" drug war, from the Netherlands to Mexico and California to Connecticut
Al Jazeera
Saturday, June 18, 2011
"The war on drugs has failed," said a recent report compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which comprised a former UN secretary-general, former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, a former US Secretary of State and a host of public intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians.
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Bolivia Steps Up Campaign at U.N. to Legalise Coca Leaf
Haider RizviIPS
Saturday, April 30, 2011Is coca a dangerous drug that should be tightly regulated, or an essential part of Andean indigenous people's cultural and medicinal heritage? Or perhaps both? In the coming months, diplomats at the U.N. body will face the thorny issue of how to address the production and use of coca plants in the Andes region of South America.
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Bolivia fights objections to coca-leaf chewing
The Associated Press
Friday, January 28, 2011Bolivia will ask the United Nations to organize a conference on coca leaf-chewing if the U.S., Britain and Sweden don't withdraw their objections to the country's efforts to drop the ban on the age-old practice in an international treaty, Bolivia's U.N. ambassador said Friday.
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Latin American statesmen question drugs war strategy
Men who fought against the drugs trade while in government are calling for change
Tom HenniganThe Irish Times
Thursday, January 27, 2011Three former Latin American presidents have declared the US-led “war on drugs” a failure and called for new strategies focusing on treatment to replace a repressive approach they say is discredited. The former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil made their call at the launch of the Global Commission on Drugs Policies in Geneva this week. The three statesmen hope the new body will develop proposals that will move the global drugs debate away from prohibition and towards treating the issue as a public health problem.
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US objects to Bolivia bid for licit coca-chewing
Frank Bajak from BogotaThe Associated Press
Tuesday, January 18, 2011The United States will file a formal objection Wednesday to Bolivia's proposal to end the ban on coca leaf-chewing specified by a half-century-old U.N. treaty, according to a senior U.S. government official. "We hope that a number of other countries will file as well," the official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He spoke on condition he not be further identified, citing the topic's political sensitivity.
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U.S. Renews Anachronistic Campaign to Stamp Out Coca Leaf Chewing
Coletta YoungersForeign Policy in Focus
Friday, January 14, 2011
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Just one month after President Obama announced that the U.S. would finally sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, U.S. officials are already violating the spirit – and the letter – of the agreement. U.S. officials are playing a lead role in maintaining an out-dated provision in the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs which attempts to abolish the centuries-old indigenous practice of chewing coca leaves. The 1961 Convention also mistakenly classified coca as a narcotic, along with cocaine. -
America Latina, il carcere scoppia per le leggi sulla droga
Giorgio Bignami presenta il rapporto TNI/WOLA sulla legislazione sulle sostanze e le prigioni in America Latina
Fuoriluogo (Italia)
Lunedi, 13 dicembre, 2010Sembra proprio che non debbano esserci limiti ai disastri della guerra alle droghe, sulla quale ingrassa il narcotraffico con tutte le sue conseguenze: i mille morti al mese nel solo Messico; le carcerazioni massicce in molti paesi per reati minori o per trasgressioni che neanche dovrebbe essere previste dalle norme penali; il crescente traffico di armi sempre più potenti vendute dagli USA ai narcotrafficanti, soprattutto quelli dell'America latina (al confronto la micidiale artiglieria esibita nel film dei fratelli Coen, "Non è un paese per vecchi", è già diventata un gingillo come il nostro vecchio modello '91); il dilagare in tutte le città del mondo della acquisizione da parte delle organizzazioni criminali di ogni tipo di imprese e di esercizi a scopi di riciclaggio (in molti bar e ristoranti a Roma ormai non si contano più gli scontrini emessi a vuoto per "lavare" denaro sporco); e chi più ne ha più ne metta.
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Latin America drug laws 'worsen prison overcrowding'
BBC News (UK)
Thursday, December 9, 2010Drug laws in eight Latin American countries have exacerbated their prison overcrowding problems and failed to curb trafficking, a study says.
The Transnational Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America say most of those convicted are not high or medium-level drug traffickers.
Imprisoning minor offenders is "useless", as they are easily replaced by the bosses at the top, they warn.
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Drug Policy Disconnect
Coletta YoungersForeign Policy in Focus
May 6, 2010The rhetoric has changed. According to new U.S. "drug czar" Gil Kerlikowske, who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Obama administration doesn't use the term "drug war" because the government shouldn't be waging war against its own citizens.
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