4.08.2012

Latin American Leaders Declare 'War on Drugs' a Failure While Canada Increases Enforcement Efforts

On April 14 and 15, heads of state and government from across the Americas, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and their Latin American and Caribbean counterparts, will gather for a two-day 'Summit of the Americas' in Cartagena, Colombia, and the 'War on Drugs' will top the agenda. Latin American leaders have already declared the 'War on Drugs' a total failure citing a report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.  The commission includes former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria, former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, former U.S. secretary of state George Shultz, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and Canadian Louise Arbour, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Notice how all the commission's big name members are 'former' heads of state. That's because when they were in power they were under tremendous pressure from the US drug warriors and they knew if they tried to stand-up against the puritanical US crap they'd soon be being overthrown by the CIA. Now though even the current heads of state throughout Latin America, having suffered the brunt of the costs in lives and freedoms lost, are standing up on their hind legs and speaking the truth to the religiously dominated ultra-right wing Canadian and US drug warrior hypocrites.

Obama between '04 and '08, before needing as many evangelical votes as he could muster, made many public speeches denouncing the 'War on Drugs', especially the continued prohibition against marijuana possession. The U.S. war on drugs has cost Americans, on average,  $69 billion a year for the past 35 years and led to 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offences, now Canada's Harper government is following in their idiotic footsteps with its new Bill C-30 which, among other regressive moves, legislates mandatory minimum sentences for small time marijuana users and growers.

One excellent source of information on the real story behind Canada and the US's 'War on Drugs' is Jack Herrer's site 'The Emperor Wears no Clothes'. Though Jack died a while back his wife Jeanie maintains the site's daily news area and continues the good fight against the evil empire. It will be fun to watch Obama and Harpo squirm at the upcoming 'Summit of the Americas' in Cartagena. Hopefully there'll be lots of youtube coverage of the event and lots of pressure on Obama and our Canadian ass-kissing PM Harpo to join the rest of the hemisphere in sanity instead of their current policy of insanity eh.