Saturday, March 12, 2016

Former Latin American leaders urge world to end war on drugs 'disaster'

Three former presidents of Latin American nations have urged the world to end the “unmitigated disaster” of the war on drugs, and denounced the United Nations for secrecy and shortsightedness ahead of the first special assembly on drugs in 18 years.

“Outdated drug policies around the world have resulted in soaring drug-related violence, overstretched criminal justice systems, runaway corruption and mangled democratic institutions,” wrote Fernando Henrique Cardoso, César Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo, respectively the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

The former presidents said that experts, statistics and a review of their “own failures on this front while in office” led them to “an unavoidable conclusion: the ‘war on drugs’ is an unmitigated disaster”.

While in office in the 1990s, the three leaders fought the drug trade by the usual, often violent, methods. Cardoso tried to eradicate marijuana production in Brazil, Zedillo began war against Mexican cartels that exploded in the second half of the decade, and Gaviria fought Pablo Escobar’s cocaine empire. Full story...

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