OAS calls for serious discussion on legalizing marijuana

PanARMENIAN.Net - An Organization of American States study released Friday, May 17, is calling for a serious discussion on legalizing marijuana, The Associated Press reports.

Drug policy reform advocates called the report historic, even though it made no specific proposals and said there was "no significant support" among the OAS' 35 member states for legalizing cocaine, the drug that most directly affects South America.

"This is the first time any multilateral organization anywhere has done something like this," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The $2.2 million study was commissioned in response to calls by some Latin American leaders at last year's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, for a rethinking of the war on drugs. Reform advocates call the more than $20 billion that Washington has spent on counterdrug efforts in Latin America over the past decade a damaging waste of taxpayer money.

"Sooner or later decisions in this area will need to be taken," says the study, which was presented by outgoing OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza in Bogota.

The study examines four different scenarios for confronting the illicit drug trade, which has fueled violent crime and corruption, especially in drug production and transit countries, including destabilizing governments.

The most controversial scenario would involve countries unilaterally abandoning the fight against drug production and trafficking in their territory in order to reduce violence.

The report's authors conclude, however, "that there is no absolute link between the drug problem and the insecurity experienced by many citizens in the Americas."

The 400-page study emphasizes drug abuse as primarily a public health issue and suggests drug abusers should not be criminally prosecuted but rather treated as ill.

"Decriminalization of drug use needs to be considered as a core element in any public health strategy," it says.

That echoes the approach of the U.S. government. But it diverges from Washington's longstanding opposition to legalizing marijuana despite the fact that voters in two states — Colorado and Washington — have done that.

Uruguay's president, Jose Mujica, is pushing marijuana legalization and wants to put the government in charge of sales.