Latin America Weighs Less Punitive Path to Curb Drug Use

[Joanne98]

BRASÍLIA — The Supreme Court of Argentina opened a path this week to decriminalizing the private consumption of illicit drugs, becoming the latest Latin American country to reject punitive policies toward drug use.

The unanimous decision by the Argentine court on Tuesday, which declared unconstitutional the arrest of five youths for possession of a few marijuana cigarettes in 2006, came just days after Mexico’s Congress voted to end the practice of prosecuting people found to be carrying small amounts of illicit drugs, including marijuana.

Brazil, which has some of the stiffest sentences in the region for drug traffickers, essentially decriminalized drug consumption in 2006 when it eliminated prison sentences for users in favor of treatment and community service.

The new laws and court decisions in the region reflect an urgent desire to reject decades of American prescriptions for distinctly Latin American challenges. Countries in the region are seeking to counteract prison overcrowding, a rise in organized crime and rampant drug violence affecting all levels of society, but in particular the poor and the young.

In February, a commission led by three former Latin American presidents issued a scathing report that condemned Washington’s “war on drugs” as a failure and urged the region to adopt drug policies found in some European countries that focus more on treatment than punishment.

“The global consensus on drug policy is cracking, and an increasing number of countries are agreeing that over-reliance on criminal justice as the ‘solution’ to the drug problem is not helpful at best, and is often harmful,” said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Institute's Global Drug Policy Program, based in Warsaw, who advocates for treatment for users rather than prison time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/world/americas/27latin.html

[Demeter]

1. One Would Think that Compromised Health and Mental Ability Was Sufficient Punishment

Consider it an evolutionary dead end...and let the social/genetic Darwinism effect solve the problem.

[edwardian]

2. Nice stereotyping...

of the consequences of drug consumption/use. However, it flies in the face of my experience. Drug use in moderation is just another thing people do, like knitting. "...evolutionary dead end..." is very silly. There are numerous examples of drug use among varying species. Drug consumption is an important tool as far as self-awareness is còncerned. That,and the fact that drugs are fun, seems pretty much a justification for drug use. Party on, dude!

[pitohui]

3. darwinism don't solve it because druggies have more children than the rest of us

NOT having a child requires the ability to think of the future and plan ahead

we are being out bred by druggies/addicts precisely because children cost a lot to raise, so anyone who can do very basic math AND plan for the future, has one child or zero child (which is the case of any intelligent person i know my age or younger, and a good number of folk from the generation older)

"darwin" means that as time goes by, more and more people, will have the drug addict/alcohol addict gene because those are the folks who keep on popping out babies

any intelligent person who has the ability to plan and take precautions is not having babies

it's a problem the planet over --we have WAY too many people breeding, but very few of the intelligent/thoughtful people breeding\

i don't have an answer but your idea of "let darwin decide" means we decide to let ourselves be outbred by those who are incapable of making good decisions for the future

i don't think addicts should be punished -- nobody is willingly born an addict -- but yah, they should not be allowed to breed, seems to me a quick operation and still allowing the person to have their freedom would deal w. it but unfortunately by chance the nazis had the same idea so it'll never happen (nor will we have trains or allow them to run on time because famously the nazi trains ran on time)