MEXICO CITY POLICE CHIEF CALLS FOR HOLLAND-STYLE DRUG POLICY

A Three-Part Solution Against Drugs

The possible solutions to the drug problem, if we accept the premises
given in our last article about the grave and irreparable damages that
addiction and drug trafficking produce in people and in countries, are
the following:

The first has been applied to the hilt in communist China and in
ultra-right Singapore, consisting in brutal execution, without
tolerance nor exception, one of the most Draconian policies that can
be imagined: The death penalty and the making of examples for any act
involved in drug trafficking, including ferocious punishment for
consumption.

The results of these policies have flattened the drug trade, to the
point that in these nations the evil has been eradicated at the root
and has almost stopped being a problem for their inhabitants and
government. The social cost paid by these nations has also been very
high, since both countries are known for their social intolerance and
fierce authoritarianism. And each one, with its economic limits has a
common denominator of repression and control that is inapplicable in a
country like our own.

On the other extreme are found countries like the United States, Spain
and other European nations that are known for democracy, openness,
liberties and general respect for human rights: in these countries the
trafficking and consumption of drugs has grown exponentially and has
become a true nightmare.

In the United States more than 20 million people are daily drug
addicts and the apparatus of production, transport, storage and
distribution that is needed to supply this immense number of people
daily has to be colossal, efficient, sophisticated and highly
productive, and it generates profits much higher than those of the
largest legitimate businesses in the world. Faced with this
overwhelming criminal apparatus, the governments of these nations have
lost ground day after day, in spite of the economic and political
efforts made by thousands and thousands of people involved in this
fight, from police to judges and prison guards, and the untiring
rhetoric that defends this policy also fails daily. Nobody gets it
right to correct the problem.

The production and transit countries for drugs, like Cambodia,
Colombia and Mexico, live with their own hell, while their
institutions are infiltrated by drug traffickers and suffer a constant
decay, their social structures brutally erode without finding answers
or viable solutions.

The third path has worked for countries like Holland that try to end
the economic pressures of drug trafficking and recognize that drug
addicts are ill, taking charge to allow the free use of drugs by those
addicts inside of a therapeutic project, so that those who have
irredeemably fallen into this vice do not become instruments of the
economic interests of crime.

This option has the merit of recognizing a reality and confronting it
in a scientific and social form, and has provided small but
satisfactory results.

From the three options, I believe it is possible to design the one
most viable for our country.

From the first would come legislation that is fundamentally more
effective with greater penalties that establishes an efficient and
well supervised vigilance in schools and neighborhoods to eradicate
drug commerce from these places that are so important to the
community. This would require taking very clear actions on a police
level to confront the natural promoters of drug trafficking.

From the project of the more democratic countries, we can use the
budgetary support and need for health programs and public education
projects that permit the organization of these tasks within the
atmosphere of how the great majorities prefer to live.

From the third option, it is indispensable to rescue the fundamental
idea of ending the economic interest in drug trafficking, recognizing
that addicts are sick and they require a controlled dose of drugs,
that lessens over time, and medical assistance so they can recover.

The common denominator in this fight must be to end the economic
interest of drug trafficking while creating conscience in the entire
community about the damages of these addictions so that the youth are
protected to prevent them from falling into into this evil.