VENEZUELA MOVING TO DECRIMINALIZE DRUG POSSESSION

The embattled government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is moving
to decriminalize drug possession. But contrary to some reports
circulating on drug reform email lists, decriminalization in Venezuela
is by no means a done deal. The opposition newspaper El Universal
(Caracas) reported Tuesday that as part of its sweeping reform of the
country's penal code, the Chavez government will include the
decriminalization of the possession of small amounts of drugs for
personal use. The proposed reform would also address penalties for
drug trafficking and manufacture, creating a system of sentences based
on weight rather than the current system, which subjects all
trafficking and manufacturing crimes to the same harsh set of sentences.

Under the proposed new Article 383 of the penal code, "A personal dose
would be understood to be the quantity of the drug that does not
exceed the average five-day personal consumption; and a maintenance
(or supply) dose would be the quantity of the drug used by the average
person (as determined by experts) for no more than 10 days."

Under the article, people caught with "personal dose" or "maintenance
dose" amounts of illegal drugs will face no criminal sanction. The
benchmarks for those doses have not yet been set. Benchmarks for new,
graduated penalties for trafficking and manufacturing offenses have
been set:

. 4-6 years if the quantity is greater than the "personal dose" or
"maintenance dose" but less than the amounts listed immediately below.

. 6-10 years if the quantity is more than 1000 grams of marijuana; 200
grams of hashish or synthetic drugs, or 20 grams of cocaine, cocaine
base, or opiates.

. 8-12 years if the quantity is more than above but less than 10,000
grams of marijuana, 4,000 grams of synthetic drugs, 3,000 grams of
hashish, 2,000 grams of cocaine or cocaine base, or 70 grams of opiates.

. 10-20 years for offenses exceeding the quantities listed immediately
above. In all of the above cases, prison sentences can also be coupled
with fines. The amounts of those fines are unclear at this time.
Typically in Latin America, fines are computed by multiples of the
daily minimum wage. The proposed Venezeulan reform speaks of fines in
"tributary units." DRCNet is not yet sure exactly what those are.

Venezuelan penologist Jose Luis Tamayo told El Universal the changes
in drug trafficking penalties were needed to ensure justice in
sentencing. The reform "would correct a certain current injustice,
since today those who traffic drugs in large quantities (for example,
a ton of cocaine) are punished with the same sentence as those who
traffic in small quantities (for example, 10 grams of cocaine)," he
said. "In this manner, the greater or lesser the quantity of the drug
detected in each case would be punished in a proportional manner."

Whether the proposed decriminalization becomes the law of the land
depends on whether it is approved by the judicial and legislative
branches, Venezuelan embassy spokeswoman Arelis Paiva told DRCNet
Thursday. "Under Venezuelan law, the reform has to be approved by the
Supreme Judicial Tribunal and then by the National Assembly," she
said. That process "could take months," she added.

The passage of decriminalization also depends on the survival of the
Chavez government. The democratically-elected president faces a
possible referendum over his rule this summer. The referendum to
remove Chavez -- signatures are still being counted in a highly
contentious process -- is the latest effort by Venezuela's elites and
upper classes to remove the populist, nationalist leader. Those
elites, aided and abetted by the US government, attempted
unsuccessfully to overthrow Chavez with a coup in 2002 and have
remained unalterably opposed to his rule ever since. (Chavez himself
attempted a coup in 1992 and was imprisoned, but he used that
imprisonment to launch his career as a democratic politician.)

The move toward decriminalization of drug possession will likely
provide even more ammunition for the Chavez demonization campaign
emanating from the White House, the State Department, and more shadowy
agencies. Chavez is already well-hated by the conservative ideologues,
such as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs
Roger Noriega, a former aide to Sen. Jesse Helms, and Bush's special
envoy to the region Otto Reich, who cut his teeth helping craft the
Reagan administration's wars in Central America in the 1980s.

Both men have recently increased their drumbeat of criticism of
Chavez, particularly in the run-up to this week's Summit of the
Americas in Mexico. Among other things, they accuse Chavez of
providing assistance to the revolt in Bolivia that overthrew US ally
President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in October -- but they did so
gutlessly, retreating to the anonymity of "officials who declined to
be named" in an Associated Press story last week.

The attacks on Venezuela from Washington drew a predictable response
from Caracas. President Chavez bluntly told the US to butt out of
Venezuelan internal affairs, and Foreign Minister Carlos Rangel
angrily denied the charges. "If they have any evidence... they should
put it on the table so we can discuss it," Rangel told reporters in
Caracas on January 6. "What proof do they have of these statements?"
Like Rangel, we are still waiting for a response.