by Guillermo Háskel
Herald staff

The tough approach adopted by Latin America and the US over the past two decades to combat drug trafficking and consumption has failed miserably and a new,  more humanitarian view focused on decriminalizing possession for personal consumption and helping addicts while concentrating efforts in fighting large traffickers must be adopted.
These are some of the main conclusions drawn by international experts who attended a forum on Thursday and Friday at the Lower House.
Anti-drug fight in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, which together account for all the cocaine produced in the world, not only failed to reduce production over the past decade, but the number of refugees grew to two million people, and there were more jailed peasants and fumigation that degraded the environment, they said.
The forum was organized by the Argentine Intercambios NGO and sponsored by the United Nations, the Pan-American Health Organization, the Anti-Drug Latin American Initiative on Drugs and Democracy, the Open Society Foundation Institute, and the Dutch and British embassies.
Host Argentina is fostering the decriminalization of drug possession for personal use and Argentine officials said that the government of President Cristina Kirchner is anxiously awaiting a Supreme Court ruling before sending an anti-drug bill to Congress.
A Brazilian deputy from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers Party told the Herald that Congress and the Brazilian government are considering similar changes.
Remarkably, no top Mexican government or Congress representatives attended the forum.
Argentina’s Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández told the gathering: “We are awaiting a crucial Supreme Court decision that rule unconstitutional the punishment for drug possession for personal consumption.
“I would be lying if I said we aren’t almost impatiently’ awaiting a ruling on such case,” he added addressing Justice Raúl Zaffaroni, who also attended the forum.
The Cabinet Chief said, however, that the ruling will in no way mean free drug for everybody. “In the best scenario, it will only rule the unconstitutionality of punishing personal consumption.
“We have to leave aside euphemisms and apply harm-reduction policies, differentiate illegal substances according to the harm they cause and concentrate in health care,” Fernández said at inaugurating the forum.
He added that the government aims to strengthen addicts care and focus on fighting large dealers.
Federal Prosecutor Mónica Cuñarro, head of an anti-drug committee created by the President, said that the committee made a lot of progress in the drawing of the anti-drug bill and that it will adequate it to the Supreme Court ruling on the Villacampa case.
“With the current criminal punishment-focused legislation prevailing in our countries we should concentrate in building more prisons. We have no resources to solve everything by building jails,” Cuñarro said.
Andrés Villacampa, the subject of the expected ruling, was 19 when he was arrested in the street in possession of two grams of marijuana. He was sentenced to one month-and-a-half  in prison, but he was not actually jailed, considering that he had no drug record. He was ordered to undergo psychological treatment.
Cuñarro highlighted the “progress being made” in Latin American countries that are considering adopting a more humanitarian approach.
Zaffaroni, well known for his support of decriminalization policies, was booed at the forum by some youths that said that his stance will favor drug trafficking if users feel they do not risk being prosecuted. Zaffaroni accused the youths of being extreme-right militants. They were eventually expelled from the conference.
“For 30 years now I’ve been saying that article 19 of the Constitution (dealing with privacy) must be abided by and that this issue is covered by the article,” he said.
Reacting to Zaffaroni’s comments, Justice Carlos Fayt called for caution, saying that the Supreme Court should carefully assess whether ruling punishment unconstitutional could not lead to more traffic. “We must not waste the little that the criminal system can do on this issue,” Fayt, who did not attend the forum, told reporters. He added that efforts should concentrate in rooting out the most harmful substances such as paco, a cheap drug that mostly affects the poorest layers of society.
Intercambios NGO head Graciela Touzé, for her part, warned about the consequences of punitive policies in Latin America.
“There is a disproportionate isolation and incarceration of drug users and ‘mules,’ compared  to the persecution and impoverishment of peasant populations forced to give up their cultures without being offered substantial alternatives,” she said, adding that the tough policies approach to combat drugs was leading to social violence and the abuse of human rights.
“Mules” is the word used to describe small-amount traffickers who mostly carry the drug in their own bodies.
Brazil’s Workers’ Party Deputy Paulo Teixeira told the Herald that talks are being held between Congress and the government of President Lula on legal changes.
Teixeira said that an investigation in Brazil showed that first offenders account for 70 percent of the crimes committed, that 50 percent of the drug-related cases involve light drugs, that only 14 percent of the crimes involve the use of weapons and that 60 percent of the arrested have no links to organized crime, all which, he said, means that “this is not the profile of large traffickers.”
Among the legal changes he is proposing is eliminating drug possession for personal consumption from the penal code, distinguishing between light and heavy drugs, extending harm-reduction programmes, installing centres for the safe use of drugs, and creating a special legal status for marijuana that take into consideration its possible therapeutic uses.
An Ecuadorean official said that Ecuador is debating an anti-drug bill to replace the current one, which dates back to 1992, and which “violates the principle that all people are on an equal legal footing.” In line with that thought, the government of President Rafael Correa in late 2008 pardoned 1,500 “mules” who had been sentenced to jail.
Peruvian expert Hugo Cabieses said that in 1992 the drug-related hectares grown in Peru, Bolivia and Colombia had only declined marginally by 2004. “This means that under the excuse of fighting drugs, they are militarizing our borders. Far from strengthening democratic spaces, these plans reduce them.”
Cabieses added that among the consequences of anti-drug fight is the fact that there are now 35 groups, gangs and mini-cartels as compared to five large groups in the past, that production has diversified (coca, poppy, marijuana and synthetic drugs) and that also markets have diversified (the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.)
Argentine expert Juan Tokatlián said that considering the close links between guerrilla warfare and drug traffic in Colombia, to combat drug trafficking in Latin America it is crucial “to solve Colombia’s armed conflict first, not vice-versa.”
Regarding anti-drug policies, Tokatlián said, the prohibition approach is just ideological, leads nowhere and must be replaced by specific regulations according to the seriousness of the damages. Also, he said, to fight drugs, governments must ensure first that human rights and the environment will be respected.
Brazil announced yesterday that it has requested that the possibility that US troops use Colombian bases to fight drugs, be discussed at the UNASUR South-American Nations Union to start tomorrow in Quito.
The presence of US troops in a South American nation “for all the good arguments that Colombia may provide, is always a cause for concern,” Brazilian presidential spokesman Marcelo Baumbach said. Explanations by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe were well received but additional talks will be necessary, he said.