Since its independence, the influence of the United States over Latin American countries has been the clue to understand the policies and programs applied in the region, especially those related to the war on drugs. Decades of failures in drug policies have led to the spreading of the idea that other policies are not only possible, but more adequate and effective to the historical moment we are living in. Truth is, forty years after the expansion of the US created war on drugs policies through Latin America, the situation is by far worse than at the starting point. The social and sanitary consequences of drug abuse continue to rise as drug supply routes multiply; the prisons are overcrowded with small criminals, while corruption guarantees that important criminals rarely step in; the drug cartels have grown in number, importance and influence and the weapon flow from north to south has increased, in parallel to the regional killing rates.

These results, added to the reforms in some States of the US (especially in relation to  cannabis), the rise of leftist nationalist governments in Latin American countries, the laws they promote and their actions in multilateral agencies and bodies, like the United Nations (UN) or the Organization of American States (OAS), have led to a dynamic debate and study of alternative approaches in the whole region that has progressively expanded internationally. Nowadays, there are multiple alternative approaches at all political levels in many parts of the world including Latin American countries; but also European ones like The Netherlands or Spain, in which there is a process of municipal regulation of private clubs for cannabis private smokers and therapeutic use, as well as also different ways of facing addiction and law enforcement.

The first steps in the direction of reconsidering the traditional approaches towards drug enforcement policies in Latin America were taken by Colombia, whose internal situation in the eighties and nineties got so desperate that they had to change their ways to confront the problem. In 1998, hundreds of public figures of Latin American societies signed a letter addressed to Mr Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the United Nations, asking him for an “open and honest dialogue on the future of global drug policies”. At a regional level, during the first decade of the new millennium and each country at its paste, most of the regions applied laws to decriminalize drug abuse and possession, as well as to reduce the maximum sentences of drug trafficking related crimes. In 2009, Argentina went a step further when its Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for law enforcement officers to repress drug consumers. In 2012, Guatemala announced it would allow pharmaceutical companies to grow cannabis for medical purposes. Two years later, in 2014, Mr Rodolfo Carter, major of the Chilean municipality of La Florida, announced the future creation of a public cannabis growing facility conceived to ease the pain of the cancer patients of the community. Furthermore, Uruguay’s president Mr José Mujica told the world that he had the intention of creating legal markets for cannabis, controlled by the government, and has been developing the project until the end of his mandate. Analyzing the facts, it is harmless to conclude that in the last fifteen years through Latin American countries there has been a cautious dynamic of decriminalizing drug abuse and possession, but also allowing to investigate and develop pharmaceutical aspects and even proposing alternatives model to face the failure of traditional approaches.

As president Mr José Mujica stated “Uruguay is a small country where it is easier to apply a new idea (…) Uruguay would serve as an experiment” for the rest of the region to evaluate pros and cons of this model. As Mr Julio Battistioni, member of the national parliament explains, “this project of law has been developing since 2010 (…) it makes reference to the right that every person has to plant for themselves and be independent from the black market”. 2013 was finally the year the law was passed and Uruguay made it to the front pages of all big newspapers worldwide, even being named “country of the year” by The Economist. Anyway, not everything was that easy for the Uruguayan government, as this subject became very controversial political and socially. The opposition attacked fiercely Mr Mujica on this issue, as well on other advances as homosexual marriage and abortion, and finally won the next elections. The International Narcotics Board, dependent on United Nations, stated from Vienna that Uruguay's new law was in direct confrontations with the international treaties the country had signed in the past. The subject even split society, as polls showed that around 60% of the population was against that law.

Uruguay's model

The main idea around the law is the creation of a state-controlled market around cannabis in Uruguay with two main objectives: fighting against organized crime by supplying one of their products at a lower price and guaranteeing the rights of the consumers, as well as the quality of the product. To make it possible, home growing has been allowed (with limits in quantity per person, six plants and 480 grams annually per person) but also five companies selected to grow each a ton of cannabis a year to satisfy the internal demand. Another advantage of this approach is the creation of another demand that Uruguay can now fulfill: the worldwide demand of cannabis based medication, as the big pharmaceutical companies all around the world have that interest but find a lot of legal problems when trying to develop and test cannabis based medicine on patients in other countries. As Mr Diego Cánepa, secretary of the office of presidency of Uruguay, said “Canadian and Israeli companies mostly have asked for information in order to install themselves in our country (…) it wasn’t one of our main objectives when we were developing the law, but we see now it can make out of Uruguay a center of biotechnology in certain areas”.

However, from the point of view of the users of cannabis, the law expresses the need of “clear information, education and prevention on consequences of cannabis abuse”, as well as “protection of the Uruguayan citizens of the risk that illegal drug trafficking creates”. In order to control the distribution, the law foresees two complementary options: cannabis distribution in pharmacies and creation of cannabis social clubs (CSC, also expanding through Europe). 

Progressively, Latin American countries have become more active on this subject at international level. In 2009, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy presented a paper stating that it was necessary to completely reform the drug policies. The results of this Commission had an important impact on the media and when the Global Commission on Drugs paper came out in 2011, the reform of drug policies had made it to the top of the international political agenda. That same year, Bolivia decided to step out the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as it was in confrontation with its national constitution, reformed in 2009 to, among other changes, reformulate the use of the coca leaf as a cultural heritage and not as a dangerous narcotic. After trying to amend the convention conclusions in relation to the coca leaf issue, but finding it impossible as the US and other 18 countries ruled against, the Bolivia's president Mr Evo Morales decided to step out, but In 2013 Bolivia was re-accepted and the international community recognized the cultural aspect of the coca leaf in regions of Bolivia and Peru, being a stated exception in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Colombia’s and Guatemala’s presidents, Mr Juan Manuel Santos and Mr Otto Pérez Molina respectively, where the first to put the term “legalization” on the table and as already mentioned the Uruguay’s president Mr Jose Mujica went a step further by presenting in 2013 a possible model of how to make it possible.

Because of their efforts, the turning point came in April of 2012 at the OAS Summit in Cartagena (Colombia) where most of the presidents of Latin American countries held closed doors meetings with drug policy reforms as only subject. As a consequence, the OAS was entrusted to “analyse the actual drug policies in the region and explore new approaches and alternatives to enhance them and make them more effective”. The goal of this technical and not political paper is to act as a kind of menu of the different options there are to confront this problem. It tackles different subjects such as Drugs and Health, including prevention and treatment; Drugs and Socioeconomic development; legal systems and possible alternatives; organized crime and security; and perspectives of production and drug markets. In the 2013 at the OAS Summit in Antigua (Guatemala), drug policies were the main point in the debate and a report, entitled “The problem of drugs in the Americas”, was presented. This report, divided in two parts, an analytic and the other of possible future scenarios, represent the first time that this subject was widely studied and discussed. As a result, tensions with the US flowered especially around a subject that had been ruled out in the meetings: the importance of the drug demand in the US as a generator of drug production and trafficking. But not only that, from the Latin American’s perspective there are other responsibilities of the North that include more control of the products necessary to produce some of the drugs, new measures against money laundering by drug cartels and local funding of alternative development. On one side, the Cartagena and Antigua Summits showed that it is not easy to achieve political consensus at a regional level, but on the other one, it was the first time that the problem was realistically addressed and discussed on the highest levels and recognized as one of the most important problems to solve, especially in Latin America.

The reforms will have to advance through the legal flexibility of the international treaties, but confronting their dispositions when necessary, as Bolivia did when their cultural heritage was confronted by international laws. The Uruguayan proposition of law regarding the regulation of the cannabis market, but also Argentina’s and Guatemala’s mentions during the plenary session of the Global Commission on Drugs in Vienna on the need to change some of the dispositions of the Treaty are steps in that direction. It is quiet symbolic that just hundred years after the first international treaty on drugs, some of the parts have openly criticized for the first time some of its dispositions. Latin America is clearly trying to take the lead in the global reform of drug policies and shake off the US American influence on their policies, at the same time that internally many US states are taking decisions in the same direction. Regional consensus is still not in sight but the opportunity of debate created has helped to change each countries approach and, most importantly, create the support for the countries to implement their own policies. USA’s war on drugs era is coming to an end its failure is impossible to be ignored anymore by the rest of the world.