REGION'S LEADERS SEEK U.S. DRUG POLICY DEBATE

BUENOS AIRES-- A group of former Latin American presidents on
Wednesday described U.S. drug policies as a failure and called for
debate on making marijuana legal while treating drug use more as a
public health problem than as a crime.

Former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Colombian
president Cesar Gaviria and former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo
presided over the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy,
which also released a report in Buenos Aires about the need to find
alternatives to eradication, interdiction and penalizing drug use.

Gaviria said the commission wanted to see Latin American drug policies
closer to those of Europe, with more focus on treating drug users as
patients, not criminals, and on encouraging drug-policy debate in the
United States. "We are very concerned that the policies in relation to
narco-trafficking in the U.S. have practically no public debate
today," he said.