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As you meet to develop a hemispheric drug strategy, it is time to admit that after two
decades the U.S. war on drugs -- both in Latin America and in the United States -- is a
failure. Despite a 17-fold increase in U.S. drug war spending since 1980, record seizures,
arrests, and incarcerations at home, and destruction abroad of hundreds of drug labs and
coca and poppy crops, today in the U.S., illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more
easily available than two decades ago.
Under the banner of fighting drugs, U.S. military aid to Colombia has skyrocketed:
today Colombia is by far the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere --
and the third largest in the world after Israel and Egypt. Yet, over the last decade,
total drug production in Colombia has risen 260 percent. The escalation of a militarized
drug war in Colombia and elsewhere in the Americas threatens regional stability,
undermines efforts towards demilitarization and democracy, and has put U.S. arms and
money into the hands of corrupt officials and military, police and intelligence units
involved in human rights abuses.
Before escalating the war on drugs even further, an honest evaluation of the strategy is
needed. Drug problems have not been solved because the approach taken -- prohibition
enforced by a militarized drug war -- is fundamentally flawed:
U.S. drug policy disproportionately targets peasant farmers and fails to address the
poverty and inequality, widespread throughout the Americas, which are at the root of drug
cultivation.
The U.N. estimates that at least 75% of international drug shipments would need to be
intercepted to substantially reduce the profitability of drug trafficking. Yet interdiction
efforts intercept only 10-15% of the heroin and 30% of the cocaine, according to the most
optimistic estimates.
Continued demand in the U.S. ensures that even if drug cultivation, processing and
shipment are controlled in one area, they emerge in another.
U.S. prisons are overflowing with more than 400,000 drug offenders. The vast majority
of those behind bars are low-level dealers; for example, only 5 percent of those jailed for
crack are high-level dealers.
Current drug strategy can never work given the magnitude of profits from illicit
drugs -- according to the U.S. government, $57 billion annually in the U.S. alone.
According to the United Nations, drug trafficking is a $400 billion per year industry,
equaling 8% of the world's trade.
Has the policy of doing more of the same produced a better result? Clearly the answer
is no.
The problem is not insufficient funds, firepower or prisons. Rather, a totally new
approach is needed. To be effective, U.S. drug control strategy must shift from
militarized eradication and interdiction in Latin America and a law-enforcement dominated
approach at home. As you meet to discuss the future direction of drug control, we urge
you to consider the following points:
When it comes to reducing cocaine consumption, drug treatment is 7 times more cost
effective than domestic law enforcement, 10 times more effective than interdiction and 23
times more effective than eradication, according to a RAND Corporation study.
Expanding the U.S. drug war to other countries will merely further expand the failure
of drug control throughout the hemisphere while escalating killings and environmental
destruction.
Emphasis should be placed on public health, economic development, protecting
human rights and pragmatic approaches to reducing drug-related problems.
A long-term solution to the drug market needs to be developed by engaging in a
dialogue with the countries and non-governmental organizations in this hemisphere that
examines all options to the drug war.
Signed:
Antonio Aranibar, Former Foreign Minister of Bolivia
Oscar Arias, Former President of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Harry Belafonte, Entertainer and Activist
Belisario Betancur, Former President of Colombia
Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary, National Council of Churches
Jorge Castaneda, Professor of Politics, New York University
Violeta Chamorro, Former President of Nicaragua
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentine Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Shirley Fingerhood, Former Justice of the New York State Supreme Court
James P. Gray, Judge of the Superior Court, Orange County, California
Dr. Howard Hiatt, Former Dean, Harvard School of Public Health
Cruz Reynoso, Former Justice of the California State Supreme Court
Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer and Politician
Robert E. White, President, Center for International Policy (former Ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay)
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