AT WAR ON WAR ON DRUGS

As the Western Hemisphere's leaders begin their Summit of the
Americas today in Trinidad and Tobago, the issue that dare not speak
its name should be front and centre, as it was at the World Economic
Forum here this week, but won't be.

The issue is the United States' foolish and expensive War on Drugs,
which has not worked and threatens to ruin Mexico, Bolivia and
Ecuador as it has ruined Colombia.

The issue was articulated this week at the Forum confab when a former
Colombian president made an impassioned appeal for leaders in Latin
America to condemn the War on Drugs because it threatens the
stability of many countries in the hemisphere.

I believe that Canada should join that chorus as the country becomes
increasingly a battleground between drug traffickers for both
Canadian and trans-shipment "markets." Estimates are that Canada's
crop of high-grade marijuana rivals forestry as an export to the
United States and is worth US$6-billion a year.

Canada is negatively affected by Americans' vast appetite for drugs,
but several countries in Latin America have been devastated by it.

"Drug usage is unstoppable and the cartels have coyotes [people
smugglers] putting hundreds of thousands of illegals on the streets
selling drugs," said Cesar Gaviria, president of Colombia between
1990 and 1994. "The U. S. consumption has stayed level despite huge
costs and the jailing of millions of people."

Colombia was the first casualty in the drug wars. Its economy
collapsed, unemployment reached 20%, 200 municipalities in the rural
areas were "destroyed" and four million residents fled, along with jobs.

U. S. military help to Colombia for the past several years has
stopped mass kidnappings, political and police assassinations and
helped curb "paramilitaries," but the growing of cocaine, opium and
marijuana is unabated, Gaviria said.

His passionate plea focused on the fact that drug usage is a health
issue, not a police matter. Americans must recant, abandon their
drug-prohibition policies and adopt Europeanstyle health care to deal
with the problem, he said. Because they have not, Mexico has the drug
interdiction problem that has resulted in 10,000 drug-related murders
in 2008. Mexico is engaged in a huge military battle with narcotics
traffickers who have taken over the gigantic business from Colombia's
cartels. Drugs that used to go from Colombia to the United States now
flow via the Caribbean and Mexico and Canada.

In the past year, about 4,000 police chiefs, judges, mayors and
politicians have been assassinated in Mexico as the country is
gripped in an all-out war against the drug gangsters. This is the
type of "war" that ruined Colombia's economy, democracy and society.
After years of trouble, the country is slowly rebuilding.

Likewise, the United States is badly damaged by this unneeded "war,"
Gaviria said.

"The U. S. has half a million people in jail for drug trafficking,"
said Gaviria. "Another 100,000 people who are in jail are there for
offences related to drugs. "

The United States is spending US$40-billion a year on this plus its
drug-interdiction system and courts -- all to "keep drug consumption
where it has been for years," he said.

Fortunately, Barack Obama, the U. S. President, understands that past
efforts have simply not worked. In 2004, at Northwestern University,
before he was nominated, he told an audience that the War on Drugs
was an "utter failure."