Out From the Shadows:

FIRST LATIN AMERICAN ANTI-PROHIBITION SUMMIT CONVENES IN MERIDA, YUCATAN,
MEXICO

The first hemispheric conference organized to call for an end to
prohibition and the drug war took place in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico,
Wednesday, February 12 through Saturday, February 15. Some 300 academics,
activists, government officials, journalists and legislators from the
United States, Latin America and Europe gathered at the Out from the
Shadows: Ending Drug Prohibition in the 21st Century conference to seek new
approaches to drug policy centered on regulation and legalization of drug
consumption and the drug trade.

Sponsored by DRCNet, with the cosponsorship of the Transnational
Radical Party's International Antiprohibitionist League and Narco
News, and hosted by the Yucatan newspaper Por Esto! and the Autonomous
University of the Yucatan, Out from the Shadows brought together for
the first time the many disparate voices calling for drug legalization
in the Americas.

Argentine harm reductionists exchanged tips with their Mexico City
counterparts, North American activists met with Andean coca growers
and their supporters, Mexican marijuana activists mingled with
Brazilian legalizers, and legislators from five Latin American
countries came face to face with a hemispheric drug reform movement in
all its diversity.

In two days of speeches and workshops and innumerable informal
encounters, advocates of drug legalization in the Americas began to
take the first steps toward, as DRCNet's David Borden put it in his
opening remarks, "demarginalizing our viewpoing and shifting it into
the mainstream of the public debate."

But it was the grand old man of Latin American legalizers, former
Colombian Attorney General Gustavo de Greiff, who set the tone for the
summit in his opening address.

Calling the policy of drug prohibition "a failed policy, an erroneous
policy," de Greiff bluntly observed that it is "a strategy that does
not work." Citing years of drug war in his home country, the
bespectacled, white-haired scholar noted that, "It is illogical to
think we can suppress drug use or drug consumption. It is a big lie."

There is a better way, he said. "We need a politics of regulation of
drug production and consumption, one that includes education on the
dangers of drugs and treatment for the fallen," he told a rapt
audience. "The policy of legalization is not a policy of supporting
drug use," he added, "but a strategy designed to ruin the business of
the narcos and the corrupt, and to help the addict." De Greiff also
touched on another theme popular with speakers and attendees alike:
the malignant role of US drug policy on the countries and societies of
the hemisphere. "Other countries have to follow US policy because of
economic and political pressures," he lamented.

It was a theme taken up the same day by Por Esto! publisher Mario
Menendez, who accused US officials not only of foisting a failed and
destructive prohibition policy on the hemisphere, but of actively
abetting the trade. "The US is the biggest consumer drug market in the
world," he said. "The drugs enter the US because of corruption. All
that cocaine... the US authorities who say they are fighting drugs
allow the smugglers to enter because the US receives the benefits.

In Mexico, the government gives orders to let pass the drugs that
enrich the US. They talk about getting the narcos, but they don't
chase the powerful ones. This is business," he said. The US has a long
history of cooperating with the drug trade, he added, citing the World
War II-era deal with Italian mobster Lucky Luciano as well as Oliver
North's dealing with cocaine-trafficking Contra "terrorists" in the
1980s. "Where are those famous puritan principles?" he asked. "What
moral principles are we talking about?"

For Menendez, too, the correct policy was clear. "The politics of Por
Esto! is to legalize," he said. "The drugs must be distributed free to
addicts in health centers, and we must have a campaign of education
and rehabilitation. Drug prohibition is a perversion," he thundered.
"You in the US have your prisons full of low-end drug offenders; they
go in and they are not human beings anymore when they come out. US
prisons are like factories for drug dealing; people come out as a
labor force for organized crime. And now it is happening here."

But if Menendez' call for legalization was uncontroversial at the
conference, his attack on the US provoked Drug Policy Alliance
(http://www.drugpolicy.org) director Ethan Nadelmann to respond the
next day. Nadelmann's reply both illustrated the difference in
perspectives between North and South and represented an attempt to
create a dialectic to bridge that divide.

"I want to challenge you to think in new ways about the forces behind
the war on drugs," Nadelmann said. "Our capacity to organize and to
act strategically depends on how sophisticated our analysis of the
problems is. We cannot interpret all information through a single
lens, and understanding what drives US drug policy is not so simple.

I don't believe the war on drugs is driven primarily by economics," he
added, conceding that there are economic interests that do profit from
the drug war. "But the war on drugs is fundamentally in opposition to
US economic and strategic interests."

Instead, Nadelmann continued, the motivating force behind US drug
policy is "a quasi-religious imperative that comes from deep within
our culture." In that sense, he added, US drug policy in Latin America
is largely a projection outward of US domestic policy. "For you in
Latin America who see the tremendous harms committed by my government,
know that millions are also suffering in the US. And for those of you
who ask, 'why doesn't America crack down harder at home,' I ask you to
please stop saying that. Instead, we must build alliances across
borders, across left and right, across the lines that divide worker
and businessman."

With that appeal, Nadelmann touched upon another division within the
hemispheric drug reform movement: the ideological divide between a
Latin America historically more attuned to socialism, populism and
anti-imperialism, and the libertarian impulse so prominent in the US
drug reform movement and, increasingly, within Latin America itself.

That tension was illustrated during the address of Fernando Buendia,
advisor to new Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez and a leading
official of Pachakutik Movement, the political branch of the nation's
largest indigenous organization, CONAIE, and the driving force behind
Gutierrez's electoral victory.

Buendia gave an eloquent speech, rooted in the traditions of Western
dissent, in which he called drug abuse a result of the "crisis of
Western civilization," which worships reason but destroys the social
fabric. "Savage capitalism," said Buendia, "destroys human community
and converts us into a set of atomized consumers.

It decomposes ancient social bonds among families and communities, and
people look to fill the immense vacuum with drugs.

The war on drugs is part of savage capitalism," Buendia
argued.

While his remarks were well-received by many in the audience, Costa
Rican legislator Rolando Alvaro, for one, grimaced noticeably and
shook his head at times.

Alvaro, a member of Costa Rica's libertarian-leaning Movimiento
Libertario party, had earlier told the conference he hoped for the
triumph of the same Western reason that Buendia criticized. How the
tension between the libertarian call for individual rights and the
Latin American concern for community and society plays out will
undoubtedly be a point of continuing concern as drug reformers of the
left and the right seek to forge a unified movement.

But ideological and other divisions at Merida should not be
overstated. Most of the conference, both in formal sessions and in
informal conversations, centered on addressing the concrete problems
of creating a hemispheric movement for regulation and legalization.
Whether it was Uruguayan Deputy Margarita Percovich calling on
neighboring Brazil to step forward on drug reform, Mexico City harm
reductionists seeking to forge links with their Argentine
counterparts, the Bolivian delegation calling on the rest of the
hemisphere to support its struggle on behalf of coca farmers, or
Transnational Radical Party Members of the European Parliament urging
Latin American governments to support change in the United Nations
conventions on drugs, the primary focus of the conference was not
debating differences but finding ways to work together.

The Bolivian delegation certainly had little time for philosophical
questions. With their nation in flames -- fighting between police and
soldiers left 19 dead in Bolivia the day before the conference started
(see related story below) -- the Bolivians arrived without their most
prominent leader, Congressman Evo Morales, who had initially planned
to attend.

But Congressman Felipe Quispe, El Mallku (high leader) of the
indigenous Aymara Nation, did make it to Merida, where he gave a
heartfelt address vowing never to surrender to the coca eradicators in
La Paz and Washington. "Coca may be a poison for the white man, but it
is a blessing for the Indians," said Quispe. "Coca is everywhere.
There is no other agricultural production in the coca areas.

This is our livelihood; it buys us food to eat and clothes to wear. If
we can't grow coca, what will the government do? They want to stop us,
but it is impossible."

The Bolivian government cannot win, said Quispe, because its soldiers
and police do not want to die for coca eradication. "We are willing to
die for our coca," he vowed. "Coca or death!

The government will never win because the Indians are mobilized and we
will not stop here. In the eyes of the elite, my brown face makes me
invisible, but the middle ranks realize they will never win. We demand
respect," said Quispe, "we demand respect for our traditions and for
the coca plantations."

And if, as Quispe argued, "coca is everywhere," that was certainly
evident in Merida. Many conference attendees sampled coca leaves and
coca candy courtesy of Peruvian coca expert Baldomero Caceres and the
delegation from the National Association of Coca Producers. (Meanwhile
on the streets of Merida, a conservative and relatively isolated
provincial city, both cocaine powder and crack could be procured
quickly and cheaply by any interested party.)

Caceres and Quispe were not the only ones waving coca leaves.

In an emotional speech, Peruvian cocalero leader Nancy Obregon from
the Huallaga Valley, told the conference that her people would never
give up their coca. "For us, the sacred coca leaf is our life," she
said. "It is our history, our economy, it provides the education for
our children.

It is the source of our history and the source of our heritage,"
explained the 35-year-old subsecretary general of the Peruvian
Confederation of Coca Growers (CONCPACCP). And Obregon called for
stronger struggle against the machinations of Washington, exhorting
her audience to stand tall against eradication. "What is it we lack to
confront Washington?" she asked. "Is it courage? Do we lack the will?
We lack dignity, my friends, and to regain this dignity, we must fight
to achieve our objectives."

For Caceres, too, the leaves of the coca plant are "holy leaves, a
gift from Father Son and Mother Earth. But I can't take them to the
US." How can a plant be illegal?, he asked. "These are medicinal
plants, not drugs." Caceres also urged a reevaluation of attitudes
toward drug use. "I smoke marijuana and I am not disturbed, but the
psychiatrists say I am an addict," said the sixty-something academic.
"Also, I drink alcohol. Therefore I am a complete lunatic in the eyes
of Catholic Lima, which believes in sin."

It was not sin on the minds of parliamentarians in attendance, but
changing the global prohibition regime. "Los dos Marcos," the Italian
Radical tag-team of Marco Perduca and Marco Cappato, entranced
legislators and activists alike with their discussions of efforts to
reform the system of UN conventions that dictate the bounds of the
permissible in national drug policies. UN anti-drug strategy will be
evaluated at a meeting in Vienna in April, Cappato said. "A
reevaluation of the failed war on drugs is possible at the UN," he
noted. "We are coordinating legislators from around the world and we
are talking about how to unite to take our efforts to the next level."

While urging governments to cooperate in amending or revoking the UN
conventions, Cappato also called for other forms of political action.
"We need proposals for governments to take to Vienna," he said, "but
we must also go to the streets.

We are right, but being right isn't enough.

The prohibitionists seek to impede debate, so we must transform our
ideas into political action, into popular action."

Likewise, Colombian senator and former chief justice of the Colombian
Supreme Court Carlos Gaviria was more interested in human rights than
morality. Gaviria, who authored the 1994 decision legalizing the use
and possession of drugs in Colombia, also called for legalization as
the only workable solution. "The drug problem must be seen as an
economic and human rights problem," he told the conference. "The only
solution is legalization, but it will be a long, hard process." Drug
consumption by itself should not be within the purview of the state,
he added. "Just taking drugs in itself does not hurt the rights of
others, and a democratic, pluralistic state cannot justify this. There
is no worse dictatorship than that which seeks to impose its ideas
over all others."

But the current Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe is heading in a
different direction, Gaviria told DRCNet. "They are seeking a
referendum to recriminalize drug use," he said. "This is a very
repressive position from a very repressive government. It remains to
be seen whether they will be able to accomplish this."

But while Colombia under its current leadership is heading steadfastly
backwards, other governments in the region may be more amenable to
change, according to various conference participants. Uruguayan
legislator Margarita Percovitch told the assembly efforts are underway
at home to create more progressive drug policies.

And although Brazilian Deputy Fernando Gabeira could not attend the
conference, he sent a statement in which he vowed to work for change
under the new government of President Lula Da Silva. Similarly,
Ecuador's Buendia told DRCNet that while the new government there has
barely had time to take office, it was reviewing drug policy and that
Ecuador had already decriminalized drug use. But consumption is not
the problem in Ecuador, Buendia said, the problem is the drug traffic
and the resulting "sinister proposals like Plan Colombia, that seek to
militarize and control the region."

For all the talk about coca and the drug war in South America, the
conference took place in Mexico, and delegates from the host country
also had plenty to say. Mexican congressman Gregorio Urias German from
the state of Sinaloa, long a hotbed of the drug traffic, called for
bringing the debate on drug policy to a new level. "If we can't even
discuss the alternatives, if we can't even admit the drug war is a
failure, then we will never solve the problem," Urias argued.

Existing forums, such as the UN and the Organization of American
States, are not fruitful places to advance this discussion, he said,
"because only the repressive policies of the United States are
discussed at these forums." Instead, Urias said, he has been working
with a group of Latin American parliamentarians to advance discussion
of the issue.

But while Urias averred that his interest was "the majority of
society, not drug users," members of the Mexican pro-marijuana
movement spoke of an emerging drug consumers' movement in there.

Members of groups such as the Mexican Association for Cannabis Studies
(AMECA), magazines such as Generacion, and web sites such as Ricardo
Sala's vivecondrogas.com, described the growth of the movement in
Mexico, regaling attendees with tales of the Million Marijuana Marches
in Mexico City and the nascent struggle to open a space for
pot-smokers in a country that remains a leading marijuana producer.

Similary, Julio Schnell of head.com.mx described the emergence of
activism around hemp issues in Mexico. And Cuban-born Mexican resident
Sylvia Maria Valls would have been at home at any US pro-pot rally.
"We must revoke any laws that criminalize the use of these plants,"
the activist grandmother said. "Cuban independence hero Jose Marti
once said 'the final struggle is between false erudition and true
knowledge,'" she continued. "We must trust the wisdom of our people."

A single report cannot do justice to all that occurred in Merida --
the workshops on social movements, organizing for Vienna, and attacks
on freedom of the press in the name of the drug war; the panels on
legislative efforts, the informal gatherings and much more. DRCNet
will be providing videotapes of the entire conference in the near
future, as will Italy's Radio Radicale, and interested readers may
also want to visit the Narco News web site, which is already full of
reports from the 26 young journalists awarded scholarships by the
Narco News/Por Esto! School of Authentic Journalism who covered the
conference and who retreated this week to Isla Mujeres off the Cancun
coast for more studies.

The Merida conference was a first for the hemisphere, and numerous
participants told DRCNet that while no concrete proposals resulted and
no manifestos were drafted, the conference was the beginning of
something bigger. Enthusiasm for making the conference an annual event
was also high, with the refrain "next year in Rio," being heard
repeatedly. Alternately, Ecuador's Buendia suggested that DRCNet bring
a delegation to the annual Global Social Forum, which will convene
next January in Quito.

And as a first try, the conference was not perfect, or at least, some
participants had suggestions to make it better.

A number of attendees complained of a lack of time for discussion or
questions. "It might have improved matters a bit if we could have had
questions and comments at the end of long speeches," said Andria
Efthimiou-Mordaunt of the London-based Mordaunt Trust and editor of
the Users' Voice, a British harm reduction publication.

That critique was echoed by Silvia Inchaurraga of the Latin American
Harm Reduction Network. "Some people came from very far away and had
many things to discuss, but didn't get a chance to do so," she told
DRCNet. "And perhaps we should have had a declaration or manifesto of
common purpose," she added. "We also need more clarity about different
models of legalization or regulation and the distinctions between
decriminalization and legalization. This is not something that is
necessarily clear to the Latin Americans."

And though conference organizers strove to maintain a strong focus on
Latin American voices, attendees from throughout Latin America had a
complaint they didn't expect -- more of the speakers should have been
from the US.

But all in all, conference attendees seemed uniformly happy to be
there and pleased with the results.

They were, after all, present at the birth of what promises to be a
vigorous and growing hemispheric drug reform movement that can play a
vital role in a global effort to end prohibition in the 21st century.