OAS study says countries should consider decriminalizing drug use
Source: Los Angeles Times
OAS study says countries should consider decriminalizing drug use
By Chris Kraul
May 17, 2013, 2:30 p.m.
BOGOTA, Colombia — The Organization of American States said Friday that countries should consider decriminalizing drug use, a shift backed by several Latin American leaders but opposed by the United States. Decriminalization could be one of many “transitional methods” in a public health strategy that could include “drug courts, substantive reduction in sentences and rehabilitation,” according to a report released by the OAS on the possible liberalization of drug polices.
The report, presented by OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza in Bogota, was commissioned during the April 2012 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, in response to many leaders’ complaints that U.S.-driven drug prohibition policies of recent decades had failed to stem the illicit drug business.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said he favored discussion of the decriminalization or legalization of drugs as a way to try to curb illicit drug use and trafficking.
Officials in countries known as drug production and transit locations, such as Colombia and Guatemala, have said they were paying intolerable costs in violence and corruption while consumer nations such as the U.S. and those in Europe were getting off relatively easy as the drugs keep flowing.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-oas-countries-decriminalizing-drugs-20130517,0,2066979.story
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