“Latin American Governments Seek Drug Legalization”

Several Latin American governments have recently began to put forward the view that drugs should be legalized and that Washington’s War on Drugs in the Southern Hemisphere should come to an end. The president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, yesterday at the UN Office of Drugs and Crime summit called for the legalization of drugs. But why?

First, as President Zelaya laid out, legalizing drugs would deal a bowl to drug-trafficking violence. The drug market is violent because it is illegal and pushed into the black market. Thus gangs compete for limited truff and violence also breaks out in shoot-outs between the authorities between drug gangs. By moving drugs into the legal fold, the drug can become as peaceful as, say, the detergent market.

Second, not only will violence decrease on both sides and from crossfire deaths, it will also free up police to go after the real criminals, meaning criminals who do harm not facilitate harm.

Zelaya is not alone, recently Argentina and the conservative government of Mexico also called for, to varying degrees, drug legalization.

These pro’s for legalization drugs have been evident before. The reason for the utterance now is due to two reason. One, many of these governments are left-wing governments that already have uncooperative with Washington and would suffer minimal consequences for bucking Washington’s policy on drugs because aid has already declined so there isn’t much to lose. Second, due to free trade agreements, Washington could not impose punishments by way of closing market to the United States to governments that disagree with it now. This gives Latin American governments more freedom to choose their own course.