CHAVEZ BEGINS NEW TERM WITH ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CHALLENGES

Repression Not the Best Solution in the War on Drugs

In a recent series of articles, the editors of the Economist call for the legalization of drugs. The trade in illicit narcotics "may be immoral or irresponsible," the magazine concludes, "but it should no longer be illegal."

Citing philosophical justifications for this argument, the editors maintain that states should respect personal freedoms even if it means that people choose to do themselves harm. And from an economic point of view, they say, it is impossible to prohibit markets for substances for which there is a high and persistent demand. Above all, the magazine argues, existing US anti-drug policies have clearly failed.

According to a study by the Council on Foreign Relations, US attempts to combat illegal drugs in Latin America "have done little more than redraw the map for production and trafficking." And newspapers such as the Miami Herald report that the US-financed campaign against drug trafficking in Colombia has made coca prices rise elsewhere. In Peru, many growers are planting new coca crops, reversing the success achieved by efforts to curb cultivation in that country in the last decade.

Some observers point to the costs associated with the repression employed as part of anti-drug strategies. George Soros, for example, argues that "the war on drugs is causing more harm to our society than drug abuse itself." The Colombian news magazine Semana calls Colombia the most dramatic case in point. Citing the government's own estimates, the magazine claims that the fight against drugs costs the Colombian state around $4 billion a year.

Some proponents point out that legalizing drugs would mean accepting the public health aspects of the problem in consumer countries. They cite the example of some European countries, which have decriminalized the possession of small quantities of illicit substances and established specialized clinics for treatment and rehabilitation.

The Economist quotes William Ratliff, a researcher at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, as arguing that "decriminalization in the United States could reduce drug profits in Latin America by 85%. And doing so would reduce opportunities for and incidences of corruption in government, the earnings of cartels and, in Colombia, of the guerrillas."

Many voices have joined in on the side of legalization. Former British government official Mo Mowlan has proposed that marijuana be legalized, regulated and taxed, and the Andean Parliament has called for "opening the door, once and for all, to the debate on legalizing drugs."

Whatever the observers, journalists, intellectuals and politicians propose, the only clear conclusion is that reached by Juan Gabriel Tokatlián, an expert on the issue: Legalization will occur only when the leading centers of consumption and money laundering decide to put an end to prohibitionism.