LATIN AMERICA WEIGHS LESS PUNITIVE PATH TO CURB DRUG USE

BRASILIA -- The Supreme Court of Argentina opened a path this week to
decriminalizing the private consumption of illicit drugs, becoming the
latest Latin American country to reject punitive policies toward drug
use.

The unanimous decision by the Argentine court on Tuesday, which
declared unconstitutional the arrest of five youths for possession of
a few marijuana cigarettes in 2006, came just days after Mexico's
Congress voted to end the practice of prosecuting people found to be
carrying small amounts of illicit drugs, including marijuana.

Brazil, which has some of the stiffest sentences in the region for
drug traffickers, essentially decriminalized drug consumption in 2006
when it eliminated prison sentences for users in favor of treatment
and community service.

The new laws and court decisions in the region reflect an urgent
desire to reject decades of American prescriptions for distinctly
Latin American challenges. Countries in the region are seeking to
counteract prison overcrowding, a rise in organized crime and rampant
drug violence affecting all levels of society, but in particular the
poor and the young.

In February, a commission led by three former Latin American
presidents issued a scathing report that condemned Washington's "war
on drugs" as a failure and urged the region to adopt drug policies
found in some European countries that focus more on treatment than
punishment.

"The global consensus on drug policy is cracking, and an increasing
number of countries are agreeing that over-reliance on criminal
justice as the 'solution' to the drug problem is not helpful at best,
and is often harmful," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the
Open Society Institute's Global Drug Policy Program, based in Warsaw,
who advocates for treatment for users rather than prison time.

In Europe, the Netherlands and Switzerland have led the way in
decriminalizing possession, and several other countries have followed
suit.

The Argentine court decision is consistent with similar decisions by
courts in Germany more than a decade ago and in Colombia in the late
1990s.

Latin America is a source of much of the cocaine and marijuana that is
distributed throughout North America and Europe. Latin American
leaders are struggling with the need to crack down on violent drug
traffickers while also trying to stem consumption. Punishing users in
Latin America has led to overcrowded prisons and has done little, if
anything, to curb overall consumption.

In Mexico, meanwhile, the laws against drug use contributed to another
problem by fueling corruption among the police. The change in the law
takes the discretion of whether to jail drug users away from police
officers, who frequently collected bribes by threatening people with
arrest.

The need to resolve the inherent contradictions led to the formation
of the commission on drug use and democracy that issued its report in
February. The commission, a 17-member group of journalists, academics
and others, including three former presidents -- Cesar Gaviria of
Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of
Brazil -- condemned the American-led "war on drugs" of the past three
decades as a "failed war." It urged countries to reject the "U.S.
prohibitionist policies."

The commission found that drug consumption continued to rise in Latin
America while it was stabilizing in North America and Europe. The
policy in parts of the European Union of treating drug use as a health
problem and focusing on treatment, the report said, "has proved more
humane and efficient," although it said more needed to be done to curb
demand in the main drug-consuming countries.

Ms. Malinowska-Sempruch said she believed that it was no coincidence
that the Mexican legislature voted for a measure last week that was
similar to one passed less than two years ago, but was rejected by the
president at the time, Vicente Fox, under pressure from the United
States. She said she believed that Latin American countries had been
carefully watching the Obama administration and took some early
support for the concept of a needle exchange for drug addicts as "a
much needed signal for those of us throughout the world who think that
drug use is a public health matter."

"The administration has left more space for people in Latin America to
do what has been under discussion there for some time now," she said.

Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a
New York-based group working to end the war on drugs, said the
"prohibitionist approach" to drug control had "wreaked havoc
throughout the region, generating crime, violence and corruption on a
scale that far exceeds what the United States experienced during
alcohol prohibition in the 1920s."

The Argentine court decision will pave the way for the government of
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to submit a law to
Argentina's Congress that is expected to be similar to the law
Mexico's legislature voted on last week. Mrs. Kirchner has said she
favors a less punitive approach to drug use.

In Tuesday's ruling, the Supreme Court in Argentina declared
unanimously that the 2006 arrests for marijuana were unconstitutional
under the concept of "personal autonomy" protected by the
Constitution.

Critics of the decision, including the Roman Catholic Church, said
that the decision stretched the "autonomy" concept too far and that it
could worsen a public health problem and overstretch the country's
health infrastructure, which struggled badly recently in its response
to swine flu.

Argentina has a serious drug problem, but not especially with the use
of marijuana. The country has one of the highest per-capita rates of
cocaine use in the world and a growing problem with synthetic drugs
like Ecstasy. Some parts of the country have also been afflicted by
the rapid rise of "paco," a cheap and highly addictive drug that
combines small amounts of cocaine residue with toxic chemicals.