The IV Latinoamerican Conference on Drug Policies was inaugurated

“The correlation of drug prohibition is murder”

Such was the assertion by the Mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, when inaugurating the IV Latin American Conference on Drug Policies that is being held today and tomorrow in this city, organized by Intercambios of Argentina and Acción Técnica Social of Colombia.

Both presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and José Mujica of Uruguay sent their letters of regards towards the event 

(Bogotá, 5/12/12, 12:00hs) “There is a correlation between violence and a style of drug policies.  Drug prohibition has constructed illicit commercial routes that can only be edified from the extermination of human beings. The correlation of drug prohibition is murder”, stated Gustavo Petro, Mayor of Bogotá when inaugurating the IV Latin American Conference on Drug Policies, the most important encounter at a regional level on this topic, that is being held  this wednesday  5 and Thursday  6 of december in the Huitaca Auditorium of the Bogotá Town Hall.

The opening session also had the statements of Bo Mathiasen, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia (UNODC/ONUDD), Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas, viceminister of Criminal Policy and Restorative Justice of the Ministry of Justice and Law of the Republic of Colombia, Coletta Youngers, representative of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), Julián Quintero, executive director of Corporation Acción Técnica Social (ATS), also local organizer of the encounter, and Graciela Touzé, president of Intercambios, regional organizer of the Conference.

When explaining the motives behind the realization of the IV Conference, Touzé stated: “We want to promote a debate and make use of the democratic right to dissent with the discourses and dominant practices in the field of drugs. And we want to make use of this right with the intention of transforming a reality that is uncomfortable and painful for us”.

“We are not here to discuss the failure of the war on drugs, something that is already of public knowledge, but to concentrate on how and by which means can we change the paradigm”, affirmed Julián Quintero, executive director of Corporation Acción Técnica Social (ATS) from Colombia, organization that served as local host of the encounter.   

 

Quintero expressed the need of priorities: “We are interested in defining what we should do when there is 9% of HIV prevalence in users of injectable drugs, remember the rise of cocaine consumption by 75% in schools and ponder if drug policies are killing more people than drugs themselves”.     

Bo Mathiasen, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia (UNODC/ONUDD) urged to “not criminalize people that consume drugs”. He also informed that, based on statistics from his office, only 5% of the world´s population consumed some illicit drug once in their life and 0,6% of the world´s adult population has a problematic consumption of drugs. “The great challenge today is the prevention and treatment”, he asserted.   

The Mayor of Bogotá put as an example the regulation policies of drug consumption in Vancouver, Canada, and compared them with the initiative of the Centros de Atención Médica para Adictos a las Drogas (Camad) that started to be implemented in the city: “Our little centers of regulated consumption are still somewhat in process, but they are a place where already more than six thousand persons came up to talk about their relation with drugs”.  

On his part, the viceminister of Criminal Policy and Restorative Justice of the Ministry of Justice and Law, Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas, established a link between illicit forms and violence both in the cases of drugs and illegal mining. “We have expectations in overcoming the slowness in development caused by traffic”, he assured.

From the perspective of the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), Coletta Youngers explained that this coalition of non-governmental organizations form all over the world share a critical view on the effects of the convention on narcotic drugs approved by the United Nations in 1961 that “did not achieve the desired results and had negative impact”.

Youngers stated: “It´s the first time that I feel a real debate happening, and finally not only from the ex-presidents but from current heads of state like Juan Manuel Santos and Otto Pérez Molina”.

During this first journey, a debate is foreseeable on the following topics: drugs and socio-economic development; public health and human rights. At 18hs (Bogotá) is due the presentation of the awards to the winners of the Second Latino American Award in Journalism on Drugs.

The IV Latino American Conference on Drug Policies is sponsored by the Bogotá Town Hall, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Republic of Colombia, the Ministry of Justice and Law of the Republic of Colombia, International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Press Contacts

For Colombia

Acción Técnica Social -ATS

Marcela Gómez Ardila

Telephone: +(57) 3002720146

For the rest of the countries

Intercambios Asociación Civil: +54 11 4954 7272

Sol Wasylyk: 0057 3044500653 (in Colombia) +54 9 11 15 5863 3790 (in Argentina)

Horacio Torres: +54 9 11 15 6794 6315

Pablo Cymerman +54 9 11 15 6100 3000

http://www.conferenciadrogas.com – prensa@conferenciadrogas.com – lista@intercambios.org.ar

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