URUGUAYAN LEADER URGES LEGALIZING DRUGS

He became the first head of state in the region to do so. He says
traffickers would lose their economic incentive.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - This small, quiet, slow-moving nation does not make
much news.

But Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle has figured out a way to get
headlines. He has become the first head of state in the region - and one of
the few anywhere - to call for the decriminalization of illicit drugs.
Batlle, a blunt free-market reformer, questions the costs and effectiveness
of a drug war whose primary theater of battle is Latin America.

"During the past 30 years this has grown, grown, grown and grown, every day
more problems, every day more violence, every day more militarization," the
73-year-old president told a radio audience recently. "This has not gotten
people off drugs. And what's more, if you remove the economic incentive of
the [drug trade] it loses strength, it loses size, it loses people who
participate."

If this were Colombia, Mexico, or another nation locked in mortal combat
with the drug cartels, the reaction would be fast and furious. The
president would be pilloried by rivals and the security forces. He probably
would win cheers from some leftists and people who survive on the drug
trade. The U.S. Embassy would no doubt express concern.

But this is Uruguay. The debate over Batlle's endorsement of legalization
has been measured and civilized. The drug problem is growing but not
monstrous, so some Uruguayans have not paid much attention. And because the
president insists that his "philosophical initiative" will not affect
antidrug enforcement, U.S. diplomats have kept quiet.

Breaking ranks with U.S.

Nonetheless, a line has been crossed. Although Batlle's voice may be small,
the verve with which he speaks out on the issue at regional meetings of
presidents and journalists probably will contribute to a growing debate. A
Latin American leader has broken ranks - at a crucial and difficult time -
with the hard-line antidrug campaign led by the United States.

These days, the term "drug war" is more appropriate than ever. Bolivian
troops are approaching their goal of eradicating the coca crop used in
cocaine production from a key jungle area - at the cost of deadly riots and
economic hardship. Plan Colombia, the high-stakes, U.S.-funded attack on
the cocaine trade linked to Colombian guerrillas, is cranking into gear.

The plan makes the leaders of Brazil, Ecuador and other nations nervous.
They fear that violence, anarchy and displaced drug traffickers from
Colombia will spread through the region. Batlle has expressed similar
misgivings; he suggests that it would make more sense to decriminalize
drugs and deprive narco-guerrillas of a multibillion-dollar business.

Concern over Colombia

"Look at the mess there is with Plan Colombia, where everyone thinks we are
going to end up in a war like Vietnam and there is a kind of global
psychosis," Batlle said recently. "And what are they going to do with Plan
Colombia: give [billions of dollars] to Colombia to build schools and
roads. What does 'Sureshot' [aging Colombian guerrilla leader Manuel
Marulanda] care about that? Sureshot is not going to go to school; he's my
age."

As the effort against drugs heats up in Colombia, the hemisphere's antidrug
strategy is in flux. The United States has acceded to pressure from foreign
leaders and has proposed phasing out its much-resented yearly
certifications of countries' antidrug efforts; U.S. and Latin American
leaders want to replace the certification process with a multilateral
evaluation developed by the Organization of American States. U.S. officials
have increasingly accepted the Latin American argument that they must
reduce demand for drugs, noting that the United States has cut use almost
in half.

By espousing a far more radical change of direction, the Uruguayan
president joins an assortment of public figures in favor of legalization,
including billionaire philanthropist George Soros, former Baltimore Mayor
Kurt Schmoke and Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago and
Nobel laureate whom Batlle knows and admires.

After winning a narrow election in late 1999, Batlle cultivated a
reputation for speaking his mind and stirring up Uruguay's staid political
culture. He declared war on a contraband business that he says relies on
well-placed allies in government. He criticized the cushy salaries of
public servants.

Most notably, he pushed forward - with initial success - an uphill effort
to deregulate and open up the economy in a country of 3.1 million that is a
bastion of old-fashioned leftist statism.

His 48 percent approval rating is remarkable, according to political
consultant Juan Carlos Doyenart, because Uruguayans are not enamored of
bold change and split their allegiances equally among three political blocs.

The talk about decriminalizing drugs is part of a plain-spoken, irreverent
style that serves Batlle well at home and draws attention overseas, said
Doyenart, an occasional presidential adviser.

"He enjoys himself, and he knows that with these things he wins
popularity," Doyenart said. "This gives him a space to enact his neoliberal
economic policy. He is a sincere neoliberal; he believes in free markets."

The president's critics generally accept his argument that he wants to
provoke an intellectual debate rather than dismantle current laws. But
Congressman Alberto Scaravelli, Uruguay's former drug czar and its current
emissary to the antidrug council of the OAS, thinks Batlle is playing with
fire.

"The debate is fine, but I hope no one is going to get confused and think
we encourage drug consumption here," said Scaravelli, an ardent opponent of
legalization. "This was not part of the president's electoral platform. I
have been assured that there will be no softening of the laws. If there is,
I will be the first to stand and oppose it."