NEW FIXES IN FAILED DRUG WAR

Search for Alternatives Just Starting; Need Has Never Been Greater,
Says Marcela Sanchez

Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla fulfilled a campaign promise on
her first day in office May 8 and created a national anti-drug
commission to combat drug trafficking and reduce the consumption of
illegal substances in Costa Rica. The day before, Chilean President
Sebastian Pinera flew over Santiago on board a spy plane that helped
seize more than 300 kilograms of illicit drugs and disband two
criminal organization involved in drug trafficking.

For the casual reader, these events may seem like everyday drug war
activity. But for Latin American observers, they underscore a
disconcerting development, unimaginable just years ago: The region's
model nations are now on the front line of the fight.

Despite decades of the U.S.-financed war on drugs in the region, drug
trafficking and drug use are on the rise throughout Latin America.
According to a May 7 Gallup poll, 43 percent of Latin Americans say
illicit drug trafficking or sales are taking place in their
neighborhoods. The number of people reporting such activity has grown
faster in Brazil, Chile and Argentina, countries not typically
associated with drug production or cartels.

If there is a silver lining to the failure of the long-used tactics,
it is that alternative policies can finally be given serious
consideration. The debate is no longer hamstrung by certain drug war
presuppositions and prejudices, such as the notion that lenience is
equivalent to capitulation. Reducing sentences and lowering reliance
on incarceration, for example, are no longer considered taboo.

A U.S. congressional hearing recently reviewed Hawaii's Opportunity
Probation with Enforcement, or HOPE, a program that applies shorter
and swifter jail sentences for drug users on probation. A one-year
study found that HOPE probationers were 55 percent less likely to be
arrested for a new crime and 72 percent less likely to use drugs than
those on the traditional probation system. Likely reasons for the
difference? Offenders under the traditional system never have
sufficient incentive to quit, and the underlying causes of their
substance abuse are never addressed.

Like the HOPE program, President Barack Obama's new National Drug
Control Strategy, also released in May, reveals a desire to address
the pernicious "drug-crime cycle" by acknowledging that, unless the
addiction is confronted, drug offenders will continue to pass in and
out of the prison system.

The strategy places new importance on public health solutions. "It is
time for the public health and the health care system to be encouraged
and supported in assuming a more central, integrated role in reducing
drug use and its consequences through prevention," the strategy
states, adding that "drug addiction is a disease with a biological
basis."

New approaches abroad also seek to distinguish between the drug user
and the drug pusher. In Ecuador, for instance, a 2008 constitutional
reform led to the release of hundreds of prisoners who had been
sentenced for carrying less than 2 kilograms of drugs and who had
served 10 percent of their sentence, or a minimum of one year.
According to Maria Paula Romo, chair of the Justice Commission of the
National Assembly of Ecuador, the rate of recidivism among those
released has been 0.5 percent.

If reduced criminal sanctions coupled with effective treatment succeed
in reducing demand, it seems fair to suppose that the market for
illegal drugs and thus the profits from drug trafficking will
eventually shrink.

The search for alternatives to the war on drugs is just beginning, and
policy change in Washington will proceed incrementally. Still, with so
many countries and people affected, the need for more successful
strategies is greater than ever.