A COURAGEOUS STAND ON DRUGS

Legalizing the use of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, according to
Mexican President Vicente Fox and Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle Ibanez,
is the only way to stop narcotics trafficking and to end the death and
carnage that accompany it. We applaud these two Latin American leaders for
their sensible and courageous stand against the orthodoxy of criminalizing
drug use.

While no one believes drug use will be made legal any time soon or that
either country will act unilaterally, their statements reflect what many
experts have long known. Law enforcement officers are losing the battle
against the use, production and trafficking of drugs, and they almost
certainly always will.

As undesirable as drug use is, legalizing it makes sense because it's the
only way to eliminate the high profits that drive the business. It could
liberate the billions of dollars wasted annually on fighting drugs. By
bringing the price of drugs down, it could also reduce the many crimes drug
users commit to feed their habit. It also could begin the process of
treating drug addiction as a health problem, not a criminal activity.

The money saved by abandoning the war on drugs could then be put to more
productive uses like education and health care. As President Ibanez put it,
imagine what billions of dollars could mean to the lives of millions of
people who really need help in Latin America.

But the U.S. is standing in the way of decriminalizing drugs. Successive
U.S. administrations have taken a hard stand. Even with reams of evidence
proving the war on drugs to be an unmitigated failure, they persist with
this policy and insist their neighbours do the same.

Until now, Latin American leaders have been reluctant to challenge
U.S. policy for fear they'll be economically punished. But last week, in
separate interviews, both President Fox and President Ibanez argued that
legalizing drugs is a better way to go. President Ibanez even said he'd
raise the issue either formally or informally during the Summit of the
Americas in Quebec City next month.

Canada, fearful of upsetting our biggest trading partner, has been
reluctant to deviate from the U.S. policy of waging war on drugs. In the
Commons Wednesday, Justice Minister Anne McLellan reaffirmed Canada's
commitment to this losing strategy, thus missing a great opportunity to
open up the debate on drug legalization and provide some moral support and
diplomatic cover to the two presidents.

Ottawa's response is unfortunate because only a bloc of countries can,
without the fear of economic sanctions, try to convince U.S. leaders that
their policy is fatally flawed. More leaders from the Western Hemisphere,
including Canada, should be showing the courage displayed by the Mexican
and Uruguayan presidents and stand up for a more practical approach.