THE FAILED WAR ON DRUGS IN LATIN AMERICA

Could Decriminalization Be the Answer?

The massacre in Ciudad Juarez at the end of January made it clear that
Mexico is losing the war on drugs. Narcotics-related violence is on
the rise in other Latin American cities as well. An increasing number
of voices are demanding that drugs be decriminalized.

The killers arrived in four or five SUVs. They quickly blocked off the
road to Salvarcar, a working-class neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez,
where 60 students were attending a birthday party.

The intruders, armed with automatic weapons, opened fire on the
revelers. Sixteen people died in the hail of bullets two weekends ago.
Most of them were adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19, and many
were athletes, members of a local baseball team. One of them, Jose
Adrian Encina, had only recently been named the best student in his
class.

It was the bloodiest weekend of the year to date in the notorious
Mexican border city: Forty-three people died a violent death.
According to the government, the massacre was related to feuds within
the drug trade, but the families of the victims say that most were
innocent students.

Other Mexican cities have also been rocked by violence in recent days.
Seven bodies were found in the southwestern city of Iguala. The
victims suffocated when the murderers wrapped their mouths and noses
in strapping tape. In Quiroga in southwestern Mexico, the police chief
and two officers were shot, while several plastic bags containing body
parts were found in nearby Zitacuaro.

Seven Murders a Day

Mexico's drug war is becoming more and more brutal. President Felipe
Calderon has deployed 45,000 soldiers and federal police in the
government's fight against the drug mafia, and 5,000 of them patrol
the streets of Ciudad Juarez alone.

Despite the government's stepped-up efforts, the death toll continues
to rise. Before Calderon came into office in December 2006, an average
of two people a day died a violent death in the border city. By 2008,
the daily death toll had risen to five, and last year the murder rate
in Ciudad Juarez was up to seven people a day. Since 2007, more than
15,000 people have died in Mexico's drug wars.

Meanwhile, the drug business is booming. In 2009, Mexico became the
world's second-largest marijuana producer, with poor, small farmers
switching from corn and beans to cannabis. Frustrated government
officials are convinced that they have already lost the drug war.

It is a defeat that affects all of Latin America, where the drug mafia
is gaining ground from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande. In the
former Colombian cocaine capital Medellin, which was considered
"pacified" seven years ago after a bloody military campaign, the
murder rate was up again last year, to more than 1,800 people.
According to the government, most were victims of drug wars between
what it calls "mini-cartels." The Shining Path terrorist organization
is making a comeback in neighboring Peru, now that it has marched into
the cocaine trade.

Drug Dealer Vendettas

By the end of 2008, the amount of farmland devoted to growing coca in
Bolivia increased by almost 11 percent since the country's populist
President Evo Morales took office. And in Argentina, gangs of dealers
carry out their vendettas in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. The
gangsters are becoming increasingly bold and brutal. In Rio de
Janeiro, which was chosen for the 2016 Summer Olympics, they recently
shot down a police helicopter, and criminals control more than 300
slums there.

An entire generation of young Latin Americans is dying in the killing
fields of the drug war. Many are hardly more than children, and most
are poor and dark-skinned. Those who survive often end up in
overcrowded prisons, which the drug mafia also controls.

"They are schools of crime," warns Rubem Cesar Fernandes, director of
the respected Brazilian aid organization Viva Rio. "The war against
drugs can no longer be won with suppression."

Latin American governments spend billions of dollars a year to battle
the drug cartels. In Mexico and Colombia, the armed forces have been
deployed in the drug war, and for decades the United States has
provided generous military assistance to South America. Nevertheless,
the economic strength of the cartels remains unbroken. They have
corrupted police officers and soldiers, bought off politicians and
judges and even subverted entire countries, like Guatemala, Colombia
and Mexico.

Indeed, three respected former presidents have declared the
Washington-supported drug war to be a failure. Former Brazilian
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo and former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria now say they
support the controlled decriminalization of narcotics.

Growing Number of Addicts

This form of liberalization is already being pursued across the
Atlantic in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Portugal, where
drug use has not increased as a result of the lax laws. In the large
Latin American countries, on the other hand, the number of addicts is
growing.

In Mexico, the congress repealed a law last year that had criminalized
the possession of small amounts of narcotics. In Argentina, the
country's highest court has paved the way for the decriminalization of
drug use. And in Brazil, where the possession of narcotics for
personal use is permitted, Viva Rio and former President Henrique
Cardoso have fashioned a cross-party alliance to support proposed
legislation that would define permitted amounts of narcotics.

As it stands now, it is up to the police to decide whether someone
they have arrested is a user or a drug dealer. "Light-skinned,
middle-class Brazilians are released in return for bribes, while
blacks from the Favelas are treated as dealers and end up in prison,"
says university Professor Jorge da Silva, a former captain in the
military police and a former minister of security for the federal
state of Rio de Janeiro.

Da Silva's former jobs involved fighting drug gangsters in the slums
of Rio. "I was geared toward suppression," he says. Today he supports
government control of the production and sale of narcotics, "the way
it was done with alcohol in the United States after Prohibition had
failed in the 1930s." Da Silva points out that the government could
tax drugs, which would "deprive the drug mafia of its source of income."

'Break Apart This Alliance'

Cocaine in government-run shops? Hardly any Latin American politician
is audacious enough to propose such ideas to the public. Not yet, at
least. But experts agree that the drug trade will eventually have to
be liberalized if consumption is legalized.

The problem is more complicated than that, however, because the
"weapons and drug trades go hand-in-hand" in Latin America," says Viva
Rio Director Fernandes. "We have to try to break apart this alliance."

But no Latin American country will be able to solve this problem on
its own. Cooperation with the United States and other large consumer
nations in Europe will be necessary.

In the US, some of the resistance to relaxing the drug laws comes from
the prison system, which is partly privatized, explains Kasia
Malinowska-Sempruch, the director of the Global Drug Policy Program at
the Open Society Institute, based in Warsaw, Poland. "The lobby of
prison operators is blocking such a program."

There are signs that the Obama administration could be ready to
abandon the tough approaches taken by previous administrations. It has
not raised any objections yet to the attempts by Latin Americans to
liberalize drug possession. California recently legalized the
production of marijuana for "medical use." And after her last visit to
Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested searching for
alternatives in the war on drugs.

'The Lives of Our Sons and Daughters'

Obama issued a cautious signal last week, when he trimmed the budget
for funding the drug war in Colombia and Mexico. The United States
should begin "thinking the unthinkable: decriminalizing drug use,"
writes author George W. Grayson, an expert on Mexico.

A new strategy to fight the drug trade would also be in Washington's
interest, because the drug war is destabilizing the country's most
important neighbor. In Mexico, frustration over the gruesome murders
associated with the drug cartels is increasingly turning into rage
against President Calderon and his administration, close allies of
Washington.

The most recent massacre in Ciudad Juarez has alarmed the border city
and the entire Mexican republic once again. At the funeral of the 16
victims of last week's attack, family members placed signs and photos
on the open caskets, demanding respect for the victims.

"At least let us bury our dead with dignity," a mourning mother said
imploringly, directing her comments at politicians, "if you are unable
to protect the lives of our sons and daughters."

[sidebar, Interview conducted by Jens Glusing]

BATTLING DRUGS IN THE AMERICAS

'The Military Is Not Suited to Pursue Criminals'

Drug-related violence is once again on the rise in Latin America.
Former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 78, told SPIEGEL
that the drug war has failed and that it is time to try a new
strategy: decriminalization.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, why do you and the former presidents of Mexico
and Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo and Cesar Gaviria, want to liberalize
drug use?

Cardoso: The drug problem endangers the Latin American democracies.
Addicts are a case for the doctor, not the police.

SPIEGEL: You even want to allow cocaine?

Cardoso: Many people in Brazil take drugs. During my term in office,
we destroyed cannabis plantations, but it didn't do any good. With
such a thriving market, there is always someone who will risk
everything. We have to fight organized crime and, at the same time,
decriminalize drug use for addicts.

SPIEGEL: But wouldn't that only further stimulate the demand for
narcotics?

Cardoso: The only way to find out is to try.

SPIEGEL: Is the Brazilian government even prepared to handle an
onslaught of addicts?

Cardoso: No, which is why it can't happen from one day to the next.
If you don't reduce demand, the war is lost. We have to fight back
with education. It's similar to the fight against AIDS: You can't ban
sex, but you can make it safer. We were very successful with that in Brazil.

SPIEGEL: Washington spends billions of dollars on military and police
assistance to fight the drug trade in Latin America. Is this a wise
investment?

Cardoso: When I was in Colombia on a state visit, the general in
charge of drug enforcement said to me: Although we are killing the
smugglers here, we haven't managed to contain the smuggling. The
profits are so immense that the ones who are killed are replaced right away.

SPIEGEL: Haven't the authorities succeeded in breaking apart the big
cartels?

Cardoso: The drug trade today is no longer vertically structured.
Instead, it operates in small cells that can be disbanded at any
time. Such structures are much more difficult to combat. Besides,
Mexicans have replaced the Colombian drug traders. The United States
pursues a two-faced policy: It bans drugs, and yet it permits the
sale of weapons. As a result, the Mexican gangs go across the border
to get their guns.

SPIEGEL: How do you feel about the use of military force against the
drug mafia?

Cardoso: When I was president, Washington wanted to set up a joint
military supreme command in the fight against drugs, but we never
accepted it. The military is not well suited for the pursuit of criminals.

SPIEGEL: So far the US has advocated a tough anti-drug policy. Does US
President Barack Obama see things differently?

Cardoso: There are some indications that he does. The old approach
has failed. Afghanistan is the best example of that. Despite the
presence of US troops there, opium production is flourishing. And
drug use hasn't declined in the United States, either, where hardly
any marijuana is imported anymore. Most of it is produced domestically.

SPIEGEL: After the US, Brazil is the second-largest drug market in the
Americas.

Cardoso: Drug consumers are primarily from the middle and upper
classes. These people must recognize that they are partly responsible
for violent crime. Cocaine is becoming a people's drug. In every
society, there is a certain percentage of addicts who are lost
causes. Many others, however, could be saved. These are the people we
have to reach.