“The Constitutions are not respected to make war against drug in Latin America”

Prisons overloaded with small dealers, every day more women deprived of their liberty for crimes related with drugs; illicit crops constantly displaced from one place to another among Andean borders; outrage from indigenous groups; and injured political constituents in favor of a repressive policy are some of the consequences from the War on Drugs exposed by Latin American specialists in this first day of debates at the III Latin American Conference on Drug Policy.

(Mexico City, September 13th, 2011; 12:30 PM) What consequences have the repressive policies had in Latin America to combat drugs? The National Assembly of Ecuador deputy María Paula Romo, the ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia for the Hague Roberto Calzadilla Sarimento, the Mexican researcher Alejandro Madrazo from the Center of Economic Research and Teaching, and the Colombian Daniel Mejía Londoño, researcher from the University of the Andes, considered enumerating human rights violations, massive displacements of people, and infringement of constitutional principles from this basic question.

This all took place today during the “Consequences from the War on Drugs” Panel at the III Latin American Conference on Drug Policies at the Crowne Hotel in Mexico City which concludes tomorrow.

The deputy from the National Assembly of Ecuador, María Paula Romo, reported that in Ecuador, the principle victims of this repressive system against drugs are women. “The people deprived of their liberty due to drug crimes constitute 40% of the total prison population. Of all the women deprived of their liberty, 85% are imprisoned for crimes related to drugs. They’re women that neither direct cartels nor are large traffickers. They are women detained for transporting small quantities of drugs,” Romo said.

The deputy cited the case of a 75-year old elderly woman condemned to 8 years of prison for the possession of 22 grams of cocaine. “Cases like this flood the Ecuadorian penal system. In 2009, 60% of those sentenced for drug trafficking were given maximum penalties, while only 2 of every 100 convicted for homicide finish their sentence. In other words, we have 98% impunity in regards to homicide. This is a total distortion of a judicial system.”

Although she emphasized pardon awarded to almost 2,000 people accused of microtrafficking in 2008 in Ecuador, Roma warned about the recoil that was involved at the beginning of this year from the referendum that amended the Constitution, which returned to repressive mechanisms.

Another Constitution that has been affected by the imposition of the War on Drugs has been that of Mexico. Agreeing with the researchers from the Economic Center of Research and Teaching CIDE, Alejandro Madrazo, the laws for corroborating with the War on Drugs police have been reformed in Mexico, “but fundamental principles like the guarantee to personal liberty have been ignored.”

He used the modification to the Penal Code of Chihuahua as an example to introduce the concept of “arraigo,” which means detaining a person and leaving them in the hands of the authorities without any accusation of a crime. The Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico declared this measure unconstitutional by considering it incompatible with the guarantees of personal liberty, among others like due process. “But three years later, the president Felipe Calderón proposed to the Congress—and it approved—to introduce arraigo at the constitutional level. This practice still isn’t constitutional. However, it’s in a conflict with values in the Constitution,” Madrazo explained.

A different but no less conflictive situation is found in Bolivia by presenting resistance to U.S. policies that violate the National Constitution of the country presided over by Evo Moraels. Bolivia finds itself in an international campaign to obtain support in its demand against the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics, which includes the coca leaf as well as cocaine, heroin, and others in its list of illicit substances.

The Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the Hague, Roberto Calzadilla Sarmiento, was emphatic about the legitimacy of depending the coca leaf and its traditional use as a part of the Bolivian identity with two thousand years of traditional acullico practice, or sucking the coca leaf for its medicial, societal, and ritual effects.

“This is no way means that we will neglect coca control. After the expulsion of the DEA, we have demonstrated that we can exercise an efficient control of the cultivation of coca without the need for foreign interference: in 2010 we eradicated 8 thousand hectares of coca and, so far in 2011, another 8 thousand. There are 31 thousand hectares in Bolivia, which means there are stability in the control and efficiency in the net reduction of cultivation. And we have done it guaranteeing respect for human rights and social consultation,” assured Calzadilla.

The ambassador stressed that Bolivia will comply with international treaties and that his country will not be outside the provisions of the Convention for a single day, since the demand will continue an immediate adhesion, with the exception of coca. “If more than 66 countries opposed, the reserve would be vetoed, but we consider that we are going to have understanding from the international community and especially from Mexico,” which is the only Latin American country that has not supported this initiative from the start.

In Colombia, where there are also indigenous groups that practice the coca leaf “mambeo” for many centuries, change has been applied to Plan Colombia. The University of the Andres researcher Daniel Mejía Londoño conducted an investigation about his results in terms of the availability and prices of cocaine and their relation with the eradication intentions of coca leaf cultivation. “The country wasted 700 million dollars that year. In other words, it’s the largest intervention in illegal drug markets that has been done in the world and is worth 1.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Colombia,” he affirmed.

According to Mejía, initially the eradication had a rapid effect on the number of planted hectares, but this wasn´t maintained in the long run and generated a displacement of cultivation outside of Colombia to Peruvian territory. Additionally, this resulted highly harmful for the environment, human health, and sustenance agriculture.

“Based on studies of other illegal markets, like lumber trafficking, one can observe that that which increases the rates of violence isn’t the product itself, rather the illegality of the market. Our research in the lumber trafficking markets are evidence for an increase in homicides,” he concluded.

The III Latin American Conference and I Mexican Conference on Drug Policy meets today and tomorrow with more than 30 experts and government officials from 11 countries to define proposals about how to tackle problems related to drugs in the region.

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