By Luis Yerovi Jr.

The Right Idea for Latin America is to Legalize Drugs

A recent high-level conference held in Bogota meant to analyze the country's struggle to end illegal drug cultivation among Colombian farmers ended with a few surprising conclusions. The results were more surprising still since they emanated from studies put forth by the government.

In accord with experts who studied the possibilities of substituting coca leaf, poppy seed and marijuana cultivation, the conference concluded that current efforts, comprising mostly of US led fumigation of suspected fields, to eradicate illegal crops and eliminate drug trafficking are insufficient to solve the problem. What is needed, once and for all, the conference concluded, is to legalize the consumption of mind altering drugs.

There are many ways to paraphrase this: decriminalize, liberalize, legalize drugs. What we are really talking about, though, is turning the drug war around 180 degrees, taking away the prohibition inflated profit margin of illegal drug trafficking on which the drug cartels amass their illicit fortunes which they use to pay for their terror and for the greasing of appropriate hands, and putting the sale and distribution of drugs in the hands of governmentally licensed organizations.

By doing this, the major effort will no longer be directed at the notoriously nocent fumigation of agricultural fields or in buying arms from the military industrial complex to combat the narco-guerillas, but instead be directed at educating the population at large about the risks of drug use and treating addicts as patients not as criminals.

The economic crisis of the countryside drove our campesinos (mostly, indigenous farmers) to cultivate psychotropic plants, the only products that actually had a sustainable return for the investment, and which also were the only ones which did not encounter competitive subsidies in the USA and Europe.

When the government fumigates what it actually does is drive the campesinos into the waiting arms of the leftist guerillas, the paramilitary and the narco-traffickers, their partners in the business of illegal drugs. Government sponsored fumigation also turns the State and the urban public into blind enemies of the rural majority's precarious plight as sustenance farmers.

Instead of this obtuse insistence on fumigation, with its harmful social and ecological effects, it may be a better idea to place emphasis on drastic aerial interdiction. But this plan has been suspended for over a year and a half by an angry and reactionary US Congress ever since a plane carrying an American missionary and his family was mistaken for a drug carrying aircraft and shot down by accident. Suffice to say that the deaths of dozens of Colombian pilots incurred while performing their fumigating duties or the hundreds of campesino families directly poisoned or their livelihood ruined by the toxic American pesticides that rain incessantly over them do not cause a similar US reaction.

In Bolivia, where coca leaf production had decreased (at the cost of expansion of coca cultivation in Colombia), not only has there been evidence registered of another important increase in production of the leaf, but with it has arrived new national and international political difficulties: the inhabitants of the region of Chapare, a notorious coca leaf producing province, are bordering on open rebellion against the Bolivian authorities.

On another front, the Peruvian government decided recently to unilaterally suspend all programs for the eradication of coca leaf production and the substituting of alternate agricultural produce considering them a total failure.

It is not difficult then to share with the preoccupation of the members of this conference, that they, as concerned citizens and as responsible public figures, do not waiver in their recommendation to legalize drug use as the only viable solution to a situation that is becoming increasingly unsustainable.

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This discussion demonstrates that support for the Drug War in Latin America is waning. Legalization, as an alternative to the Drug War, is being embraced amongst a broad range of people--from the upper classes who are tired of living in an endless state of siege, to scholars who have repeatedly argued that the only solution to the drug problem is legalization and to the indigenous peoples who now see the drug war as another way for Yanqui imperialism to keep them oppressed and impoverished.

Washington will not, of course, submit easily to the end of this war, despite the lack of a foundation in reason for its continuance. For example: Washington currently adopts a contradictory ideological stand, in that it continues to outlaw drug commerce, irrespective of its logical supply and demand scenarios in a free society. This prohibition is against the "free markets" mantra of Wall Street and against the Constitutional right to the individuals "pursuit of happiness." (This latter point brings up a more philosophical one: In a free society who determines individual happiness?).

Further, Washington relies on unfounded scientific arguments of the danger of marijuana and other illegal substances, ignoring the studies which show benefits of at least marijuana in medicine and pays little regard to the danger of legal drugs. It is, arguably, equally harmful to use drugs such as alcohol and tobacco--both of which are not only legal but encouraged by a subtle but powerful media-- than to use marijuana.

Finally, the moral reasoning used to oppose drug use is derived from fundamentalist, predominately Christian, religious thought. As a result of this bias, it is easy for Washington's Bible touting politicians to demonize Bolivian coca leaf farmers. The farmers, however, are just following their people's ancient traditions. Coca, according to indigenous tradition, was given to the Bolivians by their gods to help them battle fatigue, depression and to help cure their wounds. Outlawing coca leaf farming, just because the Bible does not mention it, is imperialistic and wrong.

More important to the continuation of Washington's policy is that there is a whole vast industry dependent on the Drug War--the law enforcement/prison complex-- that will lobby hard to prevent the ending of this profitable scheme.

(Another industry that profits indirectly from the Drug War is the tourism industry of states such as Florida. The industry benefits from the lack of development of its counterpart in Latin America. The lack of development is due, in large part, to the insecurity of places like Colombia. The insecurity is a result of or exacerbated by the Drug War. After all, who wants to vacation in a war zone? As a result, the beaches, hotels and banks of southern Florida are filled with Latinos and their money because they are too scared to vacation or invest in their own country. By the way, cocaine is also plentiful in Florida).

The drug cartels themselves would oppose legalization. After all, from one day to the next, their source of mass wealth ends. They would not take this change of fortune lying down.

Unfortunately, the cartels have nothing to fear. Washington's obtuse reliance on their failed drug policy, coupled with easily corruptible and weak-kneed Latin American officials, will ensure the continuance of the Drug War.

The only hope for Latin America to enable it to survive the onslaught of America's Drug War, is the courage of bold policy makers who can see through the smoke of this failed policy and say "Basta!" (Enough!). Evo Morales, the Bolivian peasant, may be America's new Simon Bolivar if he can unite and liberate the Andean nations from the imperialist Drug War.