LATIN AMERICAN LEADERS SAY U.S. DRUG WAR A FAILURE

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The war against drugs is failing and the U.S.
government should break with "prohibition" policies that have achieved
little more than cram its prisons and stoke violence, three former
Latin American presidents said on Wednesday.

The respected former presidents urged the United States and Latin
American governments to move away from jailing drug users to debate
the legalization of marijuana and place more emphasis on the treatment
of addicts.

Former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said there was no meaningful
debate over drugs policy in the United States, despite a broad
consensus that current policies had failed.

"The problem today in the U.S. is that narco-trafficking is a crime
and so any politician is fearful of talking about narco-trafficking or
talking about policies because they will be called soft," he said.

Gaviria has joined with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique
Cardoso and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to try to change
the debate on drugs in Latin America, where trafficking gangs have
killed tens of thousands of people and weakened democracies through
corruption.

From Mexico's gang wars to the drug-funded FARC guerrilla group in
Colombia and daily shoot-outs between gangs and police in Rio de
Janeiro's shantytowns, much of the region is scarred by drug violence
and many believe U.S. policies have failed.

A United Nations meeting in Vienna next month will frame international
drugs policy for the next 10 years, and the three former presidents,
whose group is called the Latin American Commission on Drugs and
Democracy, said it is time for change.

They pointed to falling street prices for cocaine and still high
levels of consumption in the United States despite decades of policies
focused on punishing users and cutting supplies from Latin American
countries such as Colombia.

'PREJUDICES, FEARS'

The presidents' commission released a report calling on governments to
refocus policies toward treating users, move toward decriminalizing
marijuana, and invest more in education campaigns. It said current
policies were rooted in "prejudices, fears and ideological visions"
that inhibited debate.

Even as the group met in Rio on Wednesday, police arrested 51 people
in a major operation in the city and other states against a suspected
drug smuggling ring that sent cocaine to Europe and brought back
synthetic drugs like Ecstasy.

Organized crime has flourished around drugs and is now threatening the
stability of Mexico, where a spiraling war between rival gangs killed
more than 5,700 people last year.

Cardoso, one of Latin America's most respected figures, said U.S.
leadership was essential to break the cycle of drug-related crime and
violence. "It will be almost impossible to solve Mexico's problems and
other countries' problems without a more ample, comprehensive set of
policies from the U.S. government," he said.

Despite winning power on broad promises of change, drugs policy
featured little in U.S. President Barack Obama's election campaign and
there are few indications that he will embark on a major overhaul.

Gaviria said Washington appeared increasingly isolated in its
repressive approach as Latin America and Europe move toward treating
drug abuse as a health problem rather than a crime.