drug prohibition |

Instructions for the promotion of the petition in support of Guatemalan president’s call for drug legalization

Thank you all for signing this petition. I now need your help in spreading the word. Here are some suggestions:

Send an email to at least 5 of your friends to promote the petition, asking them to sign it (see underneath a sample email, or write your own).
If you do broadcast email campaigns, you should send at least 3 emails, 2 days apart.
Post a link to the petition on your own wall. Post if 3 to 4 times per week.
Post a link to the petition on the wall of your friends
Post a link to the petition on the wall of the groups you follow that are concerned with drug policy
If you use twitter, tweet the petition.
Send letters to the editors or comments either online, or to your local press.
If you belong to a group, try to get your group to endorse this movement

Re-tweet my own tweets, ask your friends to re-tweet. Re-tweeting is a great way to generate a buzz. My Twitter account: @JDhywood.

Post on the Facebook pages of President Molina and his vice-president Roxana Baldetti, as well as all the regional leaders, from Panama to Mexico. Send them emails when possible. Be courteous and respectful please!

Contact AVAAZ

Many people have commented that this petition is made for AVAAZ and I couldn’t agree more. With AVAAZ behind us, we would rapidly reach 100,000s signers. AVAAZ has more mobilizing power than anybody else in the world, and considering their past history of support for drug policy reform, they ought to support the Perez Molina petition. This is the message I would like you all to send to AVAAZ.

You can contact AVAAZ in different ways:

Through their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Avaaz?sk=wall#!/Avaaz?sk=wall

Through Twitter: @Avaaz

By filling out the online form: http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact/

Please refer to the petition by its link: http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

You could send a Tweet such as: The Perez Molina petition in support of Guatemalan legalization proposal is made for AVAAZ! Please help! http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president @Avaaz

Links and resources to promote the petition:

Summit of the Americas: http://www.summit-americas.org/sixthsummit.htm

There is a virtual community http://svc.summit-americas.org/ with discussion groups and forums.

How to contact Latin American presidents:

President Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala: www.presidencia.gob.gt Twitter: @ottoperezmolina. Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/ottoperezpp

Vicepresidenta, Roxana Baldetti despacho@vicepresidencia.gob.gt, Twitter: @roxanabaldetti . Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/roxanabaldettipp

http://www.vicepresidencia.gob.gt Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/roxanabaldettipp

President Felipe Calderon of Mexico: felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx

@FelipeCalderon Sígueme

@GobFed

@PresidenciaMX

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/presidentefelipecalderonhinojosa

By mail:

PALACIO NACIONAL

Edificio 10, Planta baja,
Col. Centro, Deleg. Cuauhtémoc.
C.P. 06067. México, Distrito Federal.

President Juan-Manuel Santos of Colombia:

http://syscopre.presidencia.gov.co/publico/frmCiudadano.aspx

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Presidencia-de-la-Rep%C3%BAblica-de-Colombia/186850511364615?sk=app_4949752878

@JuanManSantos

http://www.facebook.com/JMSantos.Presidente?sk=wall

How to contact the medias – best is a letter to the editor:

Send the petition or a letter of your own to your local newspapers and publications. Here are 2 sites with lots of media contacts: http://www.abyznewslinks.com/ and http://www.prensaescrita.com

Support Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

LEAP has been fighting in the trenches for the past 10 years. They deserve our support! https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5663/donate_page/member-program

Diffuse, promote, share, be an activist!Act now!

Here is a sample message you can use for your email campaigns or your social network posts:

I need your help to promote the petition “Support Guatemalan president’s call for drug legalization” http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

The petition has already reached 6,300 signers, but we need far more than that. There will be on March 24th a meeting in Guatemala of 7 regional presidents (Panamá, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, & Belize) to discuss the Perez Molina initiative. I am trying to collect as many signatures as possible to deliver at the meeting. Three weeks later, 34 countries will attend the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, and drug legalization will be high on the agenda. This will be the first time ever that legalization is debated at a major international Summit! It is an opportunity that we cannot afford to waste.

This is an unprecedented event and all activists should take advantage of this opportunity to generate massive mobilization of support for significant and meaningful debate on drug policy reform, especially as obstruction can be expected from the US. There is a window of opportunity here, where a truthful debate might finally take place (despite US efforts at nipping it in the bud), and we have the opportunity to influence this debate. We cannot stay on the sideline and we have to get involved.

Can you help?

Many thanks!

Drug legalization debate gaining momentum in Central America

Honduras President invite Colombia and Mexico to the March 24 SICA meeting in Guatemala

On March 9, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa, acting as the SICA president and at the request of its members, invited Colombia and Mexico to join the next meeting of the Central American Integration System (SICA) in Guatemala on March 24. Both presidents Santos and Calderon accepted the invitation. The meeting will focus on the recent proposal by Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina to legalize drugs.

Lobo Sosa notably declared: “President Calderón, President Santos, and the leaders of the Central American isthmus have agreed that the manner in which we are [dealing with drug trafficking] is not the solution because we continue to lose human lives.”

Although the debate has been brewing for a while, the first expression of regional discontent came on December 6^th, 2011, with the publication of a declaration calling for the exploration of “regulatory or market oriented options”, signed by 10 heads of states of the Central-American and Caribbean region members of the Tuxtla System for Dialogue.

The current debate was launched by Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina, a former general elected on a law and order platform. Perez Molina surprised everyone a few days after taking office in January 14^th, 2012 when he declared the war on drugs a failure and asked for an open debate to explore alternatives, including legalization. Following discussions with Colombian President Santos, President Perez Molina further declared on February 11th his intention to present his proposal for drug legalization at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. He sent his Vice-President Roxana Baldetti on a tour to promote his proposal to regional leader on February 29th.

The move was greeted by a quick rebuke from the US government, who dispatched Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to the region on February 28^th, one day ahead of Roxana Baldetti’s own tour. Napolitano was followed by US vice-president Joe Biden, who visited Mexico to reiterate US commitment to the War on Drugs, before heading to the March 6 meeting of the Central American Integration System (SICA) hosted by president Porfirio Lobo Sosa in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Considering President Lobo Sosa initial opposition to legalization, this latest move represents an interesting development. In his declaration, President Lobo Sosa affirmed “This very important proposal is something that we need to assess and manage in a positive way so that, if the discussion is successful, we can offer to the world a better solution, if we are able to find it, to the terrible problem of narco-trafficking.”

This latest development reaffirms the determination of Latin American countries to the legalization debate and seems to indicate a willingness to accelerate the process in preparation for the Summit of the Americas on April 14-15. While the March 6 SICA meeting, undoubtedly hold off by Biden presence at the meeting, didn’t produce much more than an intent to open the debate, we can expect concrete proposals at the March 24^th meeting. President Perez Molina announced that workgroups are actively preparing the details of his proposal.

There are good reasons to suspect that Colombian president Santos has been involved with the Perez Molina initiative from the very start, as alluded to by Perez Molina himself. The fact that President Santos is now coming out more openly is significant. Colombia is considered the best US ally in the War on Drugs, and is often touted as a success story and a model by the US anti-drug apparatus. The Colombian themselves have a more measured appreciation. While there has been undeniable progress since the peak of narco-violence in the 1990s, Santos himself acknowledges that the problem is contained at best. Colombia is still the main cocaine producer in the world and while the mega-cartels of the past may have been destroyed, it has opened the gates to the Mexican cartels and has resulted in an explosion of mini-cartels. The loss of its Colombian ally would be a major blow to the US anti-drug strategy, a blow that could prove fatal if Mexico was to join the legalization camp.

It is too early to say where the Perez Molina initiative will lead to, and what its true objectives may be. It may be a ploy to increase pressure on the US government to allocate more resources to the region, as has been argued. On the other hand, if any lesson can be drawn from the Colombian and Mexican experience, it is quite obvious that their war-like strategy came at a very high human cost for these countries. Central American countries have borne the brunt of narco-violence for the past three decades and as this violence keeps increasing, they seem to be genuinely ready to call it quits and to be looking for more realistic and workable alternatives. These already impoverished countries do not have the resources to deploy a US style prohibitionist system, and it would be folly for them to even attempt to. They are plagued by systemic corruption, youth unemployment, poor education and gang violence. Their gang problem itself is largely the result of the US policy of deportation of illegal immigrants with criminal records to their native countries. As the US prison system is a notorious training ground for criminals, where inmates are far more dangerous when they get out than they were when they got in, the US has been sending droves of hardened criminals south of their border, with catastrophic consequences for the receiving countries. This, added to the constant flow of weapons flooding the region because of the US impotence at regulating its own gun industry, is adding to the profound discontent in the region, which is tired to take the blame and pay the price for an issue that they rightly perceive as being imposed onto them.

In any case, it would be well advised for all the drug policy reform activists the world over to come resolutely in support of the Perez Molina initiative and to contribute as much as possible to the debate going on in Latin America.

I have argued for quite some time, most notably in my recently published “World War-D”, that Latin America is the only part of the world where drug policy reform can emerge. We might be witnessing this emergence and might be on the verge of a major paradigm shift in drug policy.

This, folks, is history in the making. Be part of it! To that effect, I invite you to sign and promote the Perez Molina petition: http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

Jeffrey Dhywood is an investigative writer, author of “World War D – The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to controlled re-legalization” http://www.world-war-d.com/. Follow on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/worldward or Twitter: @JDhywood

Jeffrey Dhywood
Investigative Writer
www.world-war-d.com

Drug legalization on the agenda at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas, in Cartagena, Colombia

The so-called War on Drugs has been going on for over 40 years, but despite the colossal resources that have been thrown at this failed social experiment, the world’s appetite for illicit substances keeps heading stubbornly upwards and drug–trafficking is as flourishing as ever, sowing mayhem and chaos all over the planet. To whoever is willing to analyze the issue without ideological or moralist goggles, it is painfully obvious that this doomed war is even less winnable than the war in Afghanistan (or the war in Iraq for that matter), and has been going on four times longer, at a far higher cost. The list of retired world leaders speaking out against drug prohibition and calling for a paradigm shift on drug policy is growing by the day, and includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and a long string of ex-presidents, ex-drug czars and top drug-warriors, most notably from Latin America. The flow of retired high-level officials coming out of the War on Drugs closet is turning into a stampede.

Unfortunately, it was so far considered political suicide for lawmakers of all nationalities, kept in tight line under the hawkish watch of US Prohibitionist-in-chief, to acknowledge the abysmal failure of the War on Drugs while they were in office. Colombian President Santos was a notable exception, tiptoeing over a careful legalization line even before he was elected, and keeping his stance once in office. Mexican president Calderon started his mandate with a fierce determination to tackle the problem once and for all, but nearing the end of his 6 years term, and after a semi-official body count toppling 50,000, doubt seems to be creeping in. His determination was first shaken by the Monterrey massacre in August 2011, while the fast-and-furious debacle rightly infuriated him. The first expression of regional discontent came on December 6^th, 2011, with the publication of a declaration calling for the exploration of “regulatory or market oriented options”, signed by 10 heads of states of the Central-American and Caribbean region members of the Tuxtla System for Dialogue.

But the big surprise came from Guatemala where, a few days after taking office in January 14^th, 2012, President Perez Molina, a former general elected on a law and order platform, started talking about legalization as a way out of the War on Drugs conundrum. Following discussions with Colombian President Santos, President Perez Molina further declared on February 11th his intention to present a proposal for drug legalization in Central America at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas. Guatemalan Vice-President Roxana Baldetti started a tour to discuss the proposal with regional leaders and garner support for it, starting with Panama, Costa Rica and Salvador on February 29th.

Unsurprisingly, the move was greeted by a quick rebuke from the US government, who dispatched Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to the region on February 28^th, one day ahead of Roxana Baldetti’s own tour. Napolitano gained support for the continuation of the war on drugs from the Presidents of Costa Rica, Salvador and Panama, three of Baldetti’s prime targets. Suspecting arm-twisting would of course be disingenuous. Earlier in that tour, Napolitano declared that the Mexican war on drugs was not a failure, despite its 50,000 body count, though she came short of calling it a success. How do you spell denial? But then, if the war on Iraq is the new benchmark, the most dismal failure can be touted as success.

It is remarkable that Baldetti still managed to get the support of Costa Rica and, more ambiguously, El Salvador. On Sunday March 3^rd came the announcement that the US administration is now sending VP Biden himself, a staunch supporter of the war on drugs, to tour the region.

President Perez Molina’s initiative is unprecedented and marks the first time since the launching of the War on Drugs by Richard Nixon in 1971 that a foreign head of state actively challenges the US-led policies of drug prohibition and try to build a coalition against it. A former top-brass Guatemalan military, President Perez Molina has impeccable credentials to launch such a move. Guatemala is on the major transit route from Colombia to the US and drug violence has exploded there over the past few years, turning this already impoverished and unstable country into one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

It remains to be seen whether President Perez Molina will be able to withstand the US pressure. A lot will depend on the attitude of Colombia and Mexico, the most influential countries in the region. Should these countries decide to seriously explore alternatives to the War on Drugs and move resolutely towards more pragmatic and realistic policies, the balance of power would be drastically altered and other countries could be persuaded to align behind them, but nothing can happen without Colombia and Mexico onboard.

There are reasons to believe that the recent development represent a lasting shift in Latin American approach to the intractable drug trafficking problem that has caused tremendous damage to the region over the past 3 decades. There is growing realization that the current prohibitionist approach is powerless to tackle the issue, as any apparent success on one front just displaces the problem. Methamphetamines displace cocaine. Guatemala replaces Mexico. A splinter of mini-cartels take over mega-cartels after their demise, in endless vicious circles. Violence is contained, at best, as seems to be currently the case in Colombia.

Latin American deeply resents that the US has long blamed producing and transiting countries while being unwilling and unable to curb demand at home. Adding fuel to the resentment is the constant flow of US weaponry and the extremely lax US gun laws that US lawmakers are too terrified to challenge. Latin Americans also realize that they are bearing the brunt of the human cost of a war that has been largely imposed on them, and were they somewhat feel as innocent bystanders, especially in transiting countries.

More worrisome, the region is facing a drug problem of its own as drug-related services and transactions are often paid in kind, a move started by the cartels in the late 80s. The substances used as payment end up fueling an explosion of the local demand. As a result, the turf wars between gangs and cartels are increasingly fought over local territories rather than transit routes. The most vulnerable, children, youths and women are cannon fodder on the front line, used as lookouts, couriers, mules or even hired guns.

At the same time, Latin American countries are increasingly eager to assert their independence from their often over-bearing Northern neighbor. The current power vacuum in the US, where the government is practically held hostage by a fanatical political fringe, reinforces this desire for independence and creates favorable conditions. The intransigence displayed by the Obama administration and Janet Napolitano might end up backfiring. The time is gone when the US could dictate its fiat to the region. Its strategy of string-attached aid, which often amounts to intimidation and bribery, eerily mirrors the “plomo o plata” strategy of the drug cartels.

I have argued for quite some time, most notably in the recently released “World War-D” that drug policy reform will start in Latin America, and be lead by Colombia and Mexico. We might be witnessing history in the making, but there might be ways to force the hands of history.

Recent history has shown the power of public opinion. We all need to show our support to President Perez Molina and his potential Latin American allies. Colombia and Mexico must rise to the occasion. We also need to put pressure on the Obama administration to ensure that it doesn’t stall Perez Molina’s proposal, and that it allows a truthful debate at the April 14-15 Summit of the Americas and beyond.

This is why I created a petition to US President Obama, Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina, and Vice-President Roxana Baldetti, Mexico President Calderon, Colombia President Santos and presidents of Panama, Costa Rica, Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. The petition can be found at: http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president

LEAP endorses petition in support of Perez Molina initiative – help needed for AVAAZ

Update on the Perez Molina Initiative and petition, 3/1/2012

Welcome to the new signers and thank you again to those who received the previous updates. I hope they are useful and informative. Most of all, I hope they keep you motivated and eager to do more to promote this initiative. Make no mistake folks, this is one of the most significant developments in drug policy reform in a long time, and we cannot afford to waste this opportunity.

Underneath, I will give you some hints on actions you can take to help spread the word. You can find more tips and links at: http://www.world-war-d.com/2012/02/28/petition-in-support-of-guatemalan-presidents-call-for-drug-legalization/. Feel free to be as creative as you want and come up with your own strategy. Let me know what worked for you, to share with others.

LEAP endorsed today the petition in support of the Perez Molina initiative. People can now sign directly from LEAP website http://www.leap.cc/. It will be broadcasted to their 50,000 + members over the next few days, so we should expect some amazing bumps in the numbers.

The petition is also posted on the ENCOD website (European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies) http://www.encod.de/info/SUPPORT-GUATEMALA-S-PRESIDENT-S.html. Thank you to whoever posted it there.

I encourage everybody to contact any groups or forums that may promote the petition.

I contacted AVAAZ and could use your help to get their attention. You can go to http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact/ and fill up the form. The more request they get to support the petition, the more likely they are to take it over. There is the option to create a new petition on http://www.avaaz.org/en/contact/, but that wouldn’t give us just the AVAAZ platform, not the AVAAZ logistical support. It might be best to be consistent when we contact them. Underneath are the title and copy of my message:

Support the Guatemalan President Perez Molina Initiative for drug legalization

You may be aware of the recent developments on the drug policy reform front in Latin America, starting with the Tuxtla declaration on December 6th, and the recent proposal put forward by Guatemalan president Perez Molina, to raise the issue of legalization at the sixth Summit of the Americas on April 14-15, 2012. For the first time ever, legalization will be debated at a major international Summit, with the leaders of the 34 countries of the Americas in attendance! This is an unprecedented event. All activists should take advantage of this opportunity to generate massive mobilization of support for significant and meaningful debate on drug policy reform, especially as obstruction can be expected from the US.

In support of this action, was initiated on Monday February 27, 2012, a petition in support of Guatemalan president’s call for drug legalization http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president. Considering your history of support for drug policy reform, I kindly request your help for its promotion. Having the logistical support of AVAAZ would give this action the exposure it deserves. This can and should be one of the largest AVAAZ campaign ever, similar in scope to the action you had last year on drug policy reform.

Please feel free to contact me for any clarification you may need. Thank you for your consideration.

You may also contact AVAAZ founder Ricken Patel on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/rickenpatel77

Update on the Perez Molina Initiative

Despite the hurried dispatch, one day ahead of Roxana Baldetti’s own tour, of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on a tour of the region on February 28^th to drum up support for the War on Drugs, Guatemala managed to get the support of Costa Rica so far. http://telenoticias7.com/detalle.php?id=122813

The UK government quickly aligned behind the US position, but the powerful British Inter-parliamentary group on drug policy reform was just as quick to warmly embrace the Perez Molina initiative. http://www.guatemala.gob.gt/index.php/2011-06-30-23-44-4/agenda/item/74-parlamento-brit%C3%A1nico-apoya-%E2%80%9Ciniciativa-p%C3%A9rez-molina%E2%80%9D

Colombia and Mexico are still on the sidelines and haven’t reacted yet to the Guatemalan proposal. A lot will depend on the attitude of these two most influential countries in the region. Should these countries decide to seriously explore alternatives to the War on Drugs and move resolutely towards more pragmatic and realistic policies, the balance of power would be drastically altered and other countries could be persuaded to align behind them, but nothing can happen without Colombia and Mexico onboard.

Therefore, if you live in Colombia or Mexico, or if you have friends and contact there, please sign and diffuse the petition. Reach out as much as you can in Latin America. Perez Molina talked about a regional meeting to discuss his proposal on March 6 and 7. Between now and then, we must drum up as much support as we can.

Finally, I have been sending press releases and 2 have been published so far. Feel free to send as many press-releases as you want. You can also write opinion pieces or letters to the editor. Feel free to use the material found on my blog (www.world-war-d.com) or write your own. If you could help me translate some of this material in Spanish, that would be great. You can reach me at jd@world-war-d.com

http://colombiareports.com/opinion/157-guests/22546-drug-legalization-must-on-the-summit-of-the-americas-agenda.html

http://www.guatemala-times.com/news/guatemala/2966-support-guatemalan-drug-legalization-initiative-at-oea-meeting.html

Feedback from signers

I got a lot of wonderful feedback and I apologize for not being able to reply to everybody.

LEAP co-founder and chair, Jack Cole wrote: “I am the co-founder and Board chair of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). I am also a retired detective lieutenant—26 years with the New Jersey State Police and 14 in their Narcotic Bureau, mostly undercover. I bear witness to the abject failure of the U.S. war on drugs and to the horrors produced by this self-perpetuating, constantly expanding policy disaster. You have the backing of LEAP’s 50,000 police, judges, prosecutors and supporters in 86 countries.”

Neill Franklin: “As the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), our organization of over 50,000 supporters worldwide, support this petition.”

Jude Hider, from the UK, summed up the sentiment of many: “Dear President Otto Perez Molina & Vice-President Roxana Baldetti thank you very much for this courageous action.”

News from the drug policy reform front

The drug policy reform movement is gathering steam in Latin America and US activists are not even paying attention, even though it is happening at their doorstep!

I have said for a while that drug policy reform, or more precisely, legalization and control of the currently illicit drugs can only happen globally, or at least, it needs to involve enough of the key players of the illegal drug trade: producing countries, transiting countries and consuming countries. I have also said that Latin America is the only part of the world where can emerge a coalition of countries willing to legalize. Well, it looks like the process already started and is gaining momentum.

The latest event, which hasn’t received any press coverage in the US, might be one of the most significant in the long run. The International Forum “Drugs: A Balance to a Century of Their Prohibition” opened on Tuesday February 14^th at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, inaugurated by no less than Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala, the wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Now I let you digest this for a while. Just imagine such a forum inaugurated by the US first Lady at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

The forum is attended by various members of the Mexican government, including Secretary of the Interior Alejandro Poiré. The rooster of speakers includes many major tenors of the drug policy reform movement, including former presidents Cesar Gaviria from Colombia and Fernando Henrique Cardoso from Brazil, as well as former UK drug czar Mike Trace. The leaders of the major drug policy reform organizations in the world are there too, from LEAP founder Jack Cole, to Judge Jim Gray, Ethan Nadelmann, or Steve Rolles from UK-based Transform Drug Policy Foundation (TDPF). Speakers come all the way from Australia, Switzerland, Netherland, and include of course many Mexican experts.

The live stream of the forum, as well as recorded sessions, are available on ArgosTV.

Wednesday saw a passionate intervention by former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, that you can listen on these links: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20468121 and http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20469180. To hear a former president of one of the countries that has been the most affected by the war on drugs talk with such passion about the hopelessness of prohibitionism was heartening. Even politician can have epiphanies! Why do they wait to retire though, to truly speak up their mind? This, by the way, is the whole idea behind my own Calderon-Santos initiative: trying to convince the two key Latin American leaders to fully come out of the war-on-drugs closet and lead a coalition of the willing to legalize.

Steve Rolles gave a no-nonsense preview of a post-prohibition world, that bears a lot of similarities to my own roadmap at the conclusion of World War-D. If you want to find out how the rest of the world is looking at the war on drugs, I strongly encourage you to browse through the videos of the event.

The drug policy reform movement seems to be reaching a turning point with heads of states ready to jump onboard. This is indeed an important development. Up to now, only retired heads of states were vocal against the war on drugs. The coalition that I was calling for can now emerge. We all can accelerate the movement by expressing our support. The time has come for an international public opinion campaign to get behind those joining the reformist camp.

Some background on recent developments in drug policy reform

I have reported on this blog some of the major developments and will just recap here and refer you to previous posts.

The first clear indication of the emergence of a regional coalition for drug legalization came on December 6^th, 2011, during a meeting of Latin Americans and Caribbean leaders in what is known as the Tuxtla System for Dialogue. http://www.world-war-d.com/2012/02/04/will-global-drug-policy-reform-start-in-latin-america/

Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina started talking about drug policy reform 4 days after taking office on January 14^th, 2012. He went much further on February 11^th, announcing that he will propose drug legalization in Central America at the next meeting of regional leaders. The US promptly fired back that it would be a terrible idea, but Perez Molina stuck to his guns and briefly gained to his cause Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes on Monday the 13^th. President Funes backpedalled shortly after getting back to Salvador, but it would of course be twisted to allege the effect of US pressure.

http://www.world-war-d.com/2012/02/12/guatemalan-president-perez-molina-to-propose-drugs-legalization-in-central-america-at-next-meeting-of-regional-leaders/

10 goals for controlled re-legalization

As the drug policy reform movement gains traction around the world, it is critical that it reaches beyond its activist core and constructively address the legitimate concerns of the general public, as without its support, we are doomed to failure. The burden of proof is clearly on the drug-reformists side, as they need to overcome 100 years of official propaganda, moral panicking, fear mongering and brain washing. It is critical to be well informed, realistic and pragmatic, with clear objectives. This is one of the purposes of “World War-D”.

Therefore, I propose the following hierarchy of goals for controlled re-legalization:

To greatly reduce, dismantle and if possible eliminate the illegal drug market. To reduce the presence and influence of organized crime. To reduce drug-related crime. The dismantling and elimination of the illegal drug market requires the dismantling of the prohibition system that created it in the first place.
To reduce harm to existing users through safe and controlled legal access. To reduce the number of abusers/addicts; to reduce drug related deaths; to improve the health of remaining users/addicts; to improve their social integration.
To reduce or eliminate the financial burden placed on taxpayers by the consequences of drug use and drug prohibition. To achieve taxpayer neutrality.
To reduce initiation, especially among minors. Long-term improvements are predicated on substantially curbing initiation.
To control and greatly minimize access to minors; eliminating access to minors altogether might be a laudable goal, but it is about as realistic as absolute sexual abstinence to reduce teen pregnancy.
To reduce harm caused by problematic users to their proximate environment and to society at large.
To prevent as much as possible moderate, responsible users from becoming problem users.
To place reasonable access restrictions to the most damaging substances for new users and casual users.
To acknowledge the legitimacy of the non-medical use of psychoactive substances and the potential danger of their abuse.
To respect the civil liberties and lifestyle choices of informed, consenting adults as long as these choices do not intentionally endanger others. To end discrimination against users of psychoactive substances.

I believe these are realistic and attainable goals provided that the right policies are put in place. Unlike the fairly rigid prohibitionist model, there should be a lot of flexibility in the application of drug reform to allow for experimentation and adaptation to local realities. It should be obvious by now that those who wish to use psychoactive substances will go to great lengths to satisfy their desire, and it is far more advantageous for society to satisfy their need than to let the black market take care of it. The guiding concern shouldn’t be whether it is moral or immoral to provide psychoactive substances to those consenting adults who which to use them, but what is the least harmful way to do it.

Call for a global convention on psychoactive drugs

Call for a global convention on psychoactive drugs – a coalition of the willing to re-legalize and control

The entire war on drugs and drug prohibition are a US fabrication. Drug prohibition was imposed to the rest of the world when it was forcibly attached to the 1919 Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI.

Decriminalization wouldn’t do much to solve the biggest issues created by prohibitionism in the big world: the violence, corruption and destabilization brought about by narco-trafficking, which is itself the unavoidable consequence of prohibition. While the US is not likely to re-legalize any time soon, Latin American countries are becoming increasingly restive as the time of blind obedience to US diktats is fading into memory. I, for one, am pushing for a coalition of the willing, led by Presidents Calderon and Santos, and regrouping Latin-American, European and Asian countries, to initiate controlled legalization of production and trade of all psychoactive substances. The principal objective of such a convention should be to remove the production and commerce of currently illicit drugs from the control of organized crime, and to bring it back under the control of legitimate international and national organizations. The secondary objective should be to reduce harm throughout the entire supply chain, from the producers to the users.

I do not think that such a coalition is as far-fetched as most American would like to believe. The American century is over; it ended under G.W. Bush. The world is now a vastly different place.

A growing number of retired heads of state and high-level officials are denouncing the failure of the War on Drugs and calling for a paradigm shift in drug policy. But we need heads of states and high-level officials to take a stand while in office and actually initiate profound and real drug policy reform while they are still in office.

No other heads of state on the world scene can lead and unite a coalition of the willing with the credibility and the stature of a potential Calderon-Santos alliance. Both presidents have repeatedly expressed their support for alternatives to the current highly disruptive policies.

But neither President Calderon nor President Santos are likely to make a move without strong popular support behind them.

Thus, I invite all of you to support and diffuse the Calderon-Santos Initiative, calling for Presidents Calderon of Mexico and President Santos of Colombia to take the lead of a global coalition for legalization and control of currently illicit drugs. Check http://calderon-santos.org/, as well as the attached files. Sign the open letter to Presidents Calderon and Santos, spread the word.