Latin America rejects old U.S. approach in drugs war

[Derechos]

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - As an increasingly violent and costly drugs war clogs up prisons with small-time users, some Latin American countries are abandoning hardline U.S. policies on consumption to intensify the fight against major traffickers.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60S4MD20100129

[Judi Lynn]

1. Something has to be done, and soon. The way which has failed for decades needs to be shelved.

Thanks for this article, looking forward to hearing more about the progress the Latin American countries will be making.

[Peace Patriot]

2. This is Rotters, so beware.

As with all corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies, they ALWAYS have ulterior motives in what they choose to report and in the spin they give it, most especially on Latin American topics and events (--or, I have noticed it more on Latin American topics and events, because I know more about these situations).

For instance, Rotters writes:

"Brazil and Mexico, the two largest economies in Latin America, are taking the lead in a new approach to individual drug consumers."

Not true. Bolivia (the closest ally of Hugo Chavez/Venezuela)--whose first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was a poor coca leaf farmer, and is head of the coca leaf farmers' union--took the lead on this issue, and actually sanctified the coca leaf in the new Bolivian Constitution. It was poor peasant farmers--objecting to U.S. "war on drugs" toxic pesticide spraying and use of the DEA for spying and for funding rightwing groups, and protesting it at the risk of their lives--who sparked this anti-U.S. 'war on drugs' movement and have carried it the furthest. Rotters would like us to believe that it is big countries, big leaders, big "movers and shakers," who create change. THIS change started at the bottom of their "ladder"--by the least "powerful" people in the world, and the most courageous: extremely poor peasants in a "non-entity" of a country now run by the "little indians" (the majority in Bolivia).

This "non-entity" of a country is now poised to become a new economic powerhouse of the region, due to good socialist management of its gas, oil and lithium resources, and its social justice policies. The president of this transformational government, Evo Morales, was kidnapped and beaten up by the U.S.-funded drug police, early in his organization of the coca leaf farmers' union. Later, during his campaign for president, he often wore of beautiful wreath of coca leaves around his neck--sacred plant of the Andes. And, interestingly, since he ejected the DEA from Bolivia, interdiction of big, crime ring-connected caches of the poison, cocaine, has never been better. (Cocaine is an addictive poison that has to be extracted from cocoa leaves. Coca leaves themselves, used for teas or chewing, is like caffeine, only much more nutritious.)

The corporate agenda here is subtle--omitting the struggle of the courageous "little indians" against the coercive and violent power of U.S. war profiteers. The corporates want Bolivia's lithium, in particular, and they are up against a man of steel, who is asserting Bolivia's sovereign power to use its resources for the benefit of Bolivians, in resource deals with multinationals. Is that why there is no mention here, that the coca leaf--and the right to grow it and use it--is now protected by the Bolivian Constitution--after decades of struggle against the U.S. "war on drugs" (not to mention USAID/CIA funding of the rightwing forces who opposed the new Constitution and who tried to overthrow the Morales government in September 2008)?

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And get this:

"The trend in Latin America is not uniform, however. Conservative leaders continue to support harsh punishment for drug users in top cocaine producers Colombia and Peru, where heavily armed guerrillas or former rebels control drug production in lawless jungle areas." -- Rotters

In Colombia, the government and the military--funded with $6 BILLION in U.S. military aid--are thickly involved in the drug trade as well as massive death squad activity. (Thousands of union leaders, community organizers, human rights workers, peasant farmers, political leftists and others have been murdered.) This is highly, highly distorted reporting, that leftist guerillas are "top cocaine producers" in Colombia without mentioning that **60** of the president of Colombia's closest associates are under investigation, indicted or in jail, for their ties to death squads and drug trafficking. I don't know about Peru--but it also has a very corrupt government. And guess who is the world's no. 2 cocaine producer, after Colombia? Seems like wherever the U.S. "war on drugs" goes, cocaine production increases. Hm.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60S4MD20100129

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I am also suspicious of a possible underlying motive as to why this issue--the decriminalization trend in Latin America--is getting promoted by a corpo-fascist 'news' article. In Argentina, for instance--which is used, in this article, as a prime example of the decriminalization trend--the notion of treating drug addiction as a disease and diverting "war on drugs" resources to medical treatment and rehab, will likely result in actual treatment/rehab only so long as Argentina has a leftist government. But in the hands of a rightwing government, it will likely mean tax cuts for the rich at the expense of poor drug addicts. The poor drug addicts will be dumped onto the streets--with not even the regular meals and health care provided in prison. And the money will go into pockets of the wealthy.

In California, back in the 1970s, the notion was conceived that many mental health patients in state hospitals should be transitioned to half-way houses, to be re-integrated into communities. But what this resulted in, in the hands of Reagan and other rightwing governors, was a wholesale dumping of mental patients onto the streets, with no help at all. The funding for the "half-way houses" never materialized. This was the beginning of the huge homeless problem in California--the most prosperous state in the most prosperous country in the world. Tens of thousands of mentally ill people were dumped onto the streets and soon disintegrated into "human refuse" --'bag ladies,' shopping cart pushers, people babbling to themselves, people unable to feed or even clean themselves, people living in sordid conditions under freeways and in back alleys.

In Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador--which have governments with solid leftist majorities--poor drug addicts will be taken care, and the money saved by rejecting this U.S. "war" will be well-used. But in Mexico--which has a rightwing government? In Argentina--where the leftist government has suffered a rather steep drop in the polls and may lose to the rightwing in the next election (with CIA help, no doubt)? Or in Brazil--whose hugely popular leftist president is facing a term limit (and may also be in ill health), and where there is a powerful rightwing element (no doubt funded by the USAID and supported with covert CIA ops)?

And what about the United States? Would decriminalization result in help for poor addicts, or simply dumping them out of prison onto the streets, to join the mentally ill--and, these days, the many former workers and middle class professionals and their families who are homeless? The burdens on minimum maintenance--food kitchens, temporary beds--are already overwhelming. Add the population of minor drug offenders in U.S. prisons (most prisoners), and you have a Republican 'conservative' heaven: The rich and the privileged literally walking on a sea of impoverished, broken bodies--the "unfortunate"--into their glittering venues of luxury and pleasure.

Is Rotters pushing this because it is good policy, or because it is yet another arena of public service that can be looted, and the resources diverted to banksters, global corporate predators and the super-rich?