Guatemalan leader sees paradigm shift on drug policy

Reuters/Madrid

Guatemalan President Otto Perez yesterday said he is feeling less alone in his drive to re-think the fight against drug-trafficking than a year ago, when he shocked fellow Central American leaders with a proposal to decriminalise narcotics.

Guatemala, like its neighbour Mexico, is racked by violence from drug-trafficking cartels that ship South American cocaine to the US.

A central American nation of 15mn people, Guatemala has one of the world’s highest murder rates.

Most Latin American countries have long had zero-tolerance drug rules, largely encouraged by the US, which for decades has poured money into its southern neighbours to eradicate crops of coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Perez, a former military officer who took office early last year, has been an outspoken voice saying that spiralling drug violence in Latin America is fed by billions of dollars from US drug consumers and is a market force that cannot be stopped without a fresh approach.

Soon after taking office he broached the subject of decriminalising drugs with his closest neighbours, an idea immediately rejected by his counterparts in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

But a year later, he said there is more openness and a growing consensus to discuss change.

A number of countries from Brazil to Mexico have relaxed penalties for small-time drug possession or are looking to do so.

Uruguay’s congress is debating a bill that would put the state in charge of regulating marijuana cultivation.

In October, Mexico’s then-President Felipe Calderon and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos joined Perez in taking a landmark call to the UN asking for a global debate on an alternative to the current war on drugs.

While concrete action from the UN is still a remote possibility, Perez still sees signs of change.

“For the first time heads of state are openly talking about this. It used to be a taboo. Sitting presidents would not talk about it, only former leaders,” Perez said in a brief interview in Madrid, where he is on an official visit to drum up interest from investors in his central American country.

“We are seeing the first steps toward changing this trend and this paradigm,” said Perez, 62.

Latin America is the top world producer of cocaine and marijuana, feeding the huge demand in the US and Europe. Domestic drug use has risen and drug gang violence has caused carnage for decades from the Mexican-US border to the slums of Brazil.

Perez has proposed what he calls a “third way” in between all-out drugs legalisation and complete prohibition. He says the latter approach has failed as illegal drug use remains high despite decades of being outlawed around the world.