America Should Decriminalize Drugs

by Constantino Diaz-Duran

That's what César Gaviria, the former president of Colombia, tells the Daily Beast in an exclusive interview following Obama's visit to Latin America.

"Demand for these drugs in the U.S. is what is helping to keep these cartels in business," said President Obama in Mexico City last week, speaking against a backdrop of spiraling drug-fueled violence there. The statement echoed one recently made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and further signaled a change in U.S. attitude toward the drug war. Previously, acknowledging America’s role in creating demand for drugs was politically taboo.

But despite the change in tone, how to squelch this demand remains a point of thorny contention. So far, the Obama administration hasn’t called for any drastic changes to America’s drug policy. In fact, even as he noted the problem of American demand, Obama sought $80 million for Mexico for the purchase of Black Hawk helicopters to fight the cartels.

These sorts of enforcements efforts are important, but when it comes to diluting the demand for drugs, the U.S. is missing the point, says the former President of Colombia, César Gaviria, in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast. A central player in the 1990s drug wars, Gaviria was the leader of a country that supplied the bulk of the planet’s cocaine. Now, he believes the best way to break the world’s thirst for drugs is to decriminalize them – not just the “soft” ones, but all of them.

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April 21, 2009

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