Updated Apr 14, 2012, 1:35 pm
Speaking in a country that has been ravaged by the narcotics trade for decades, President Barack Obama on Saturday told a forum of leaders from the Americas that legalization was not the answer to the drug war, according to The Associated Press.
Obama was participating in the meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, and the news agency says Latin America has seen growing calls for decriminalization as a way of ending the violence of the drug trade.
Mexican authorities revealed in January that nearly 50,000 people had died as a result of the drug war in that country since the government enlisted the army to combat narcotics cartels in 2006.
According to the AP, Obama said he was not opposed to the discussion of legalization but that he doubted any agreement could be reached to make this a reality.
Instead, Obama reportedly said his preferred answer to drug crime was economic growth, strengthened rule of law and sound law enforcement, according to the news agency.
The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that Obama was likely to face a rocky reception in Cartagena as many were under pressure to find a way to stop the killing.
According to The Times, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos was to ask the 33 leaders present at the summit to consider a regulatory scheme that would control the sale, use and possession of marijuana and perhaps even cocaine just as tobacco and alcohol are regulated.
"You haven't had this pressure from the region before," Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, was quoted by The times as saying. "I think the [Obama] administration is willing to entertain the discussion, but hoping it doesn't turn into a critique of the U.S. and put the U.S. on the defensive."
1 comment on this story
If you’re a bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking prohibitionist who’s career has entailed subjecting the rest of us to off-the-scale corruption and lawlessness, then maybe you should consider moving to somewhere that won’t extradite you to a future national or international drug-war tribunal for your crimes against humanity.
Prohibition has finally run its course; the lives and livelihoods of hundred’s of millions of people worldwide have been destroyed or severely disrupted; many countries that were once shining beacons of liberty and prosperity have become toxic, repressive, smoldering heaps of hypocrisy, and a gross affront to fundamental human decency. It is now the duty of every last one of us to insure that the people who are responsible for this shameful situation are not simply left in peace to enjoy the wealth and status that their despicable actions have, until now, afforded them. Former and present Prohibitionists must not be allowed to remain untainted and untouched from the unconscionable acts that they have viciously committed on their fellow human beings. - They have provided us with neither safe communities nor safe streets; we will provide them with neither a safe haven to enjoy their ill-gotten gains nor the liberty to repeat such a similar atrocity!
Prohibition has evolved local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, helping them control vast swaths of territory while gifting them with significant social and military resources.
Those responsible for the shameful policy of prohibition shall not go unpunished!