The presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador recently declared their willingness to legalize drugs in their respective countries. The United States embassy in El Salvador immediately denounced drug decriminalization, calling the idea a “threat to public health and national security.” The controversy reveals growing tensions and conflicting national interests between the U.S. and its Southern neighbors.
With the highest level of illegal drug use in the world, American youth and society is certainly threatened by narcotics, but efforts to fight drug production and trafficking are now a major threat to democracy, political stability and human rights in the rest of the Americas.
According to the 2011 Global Study on Homicide conducted by the United Nations, Central America is the most violent region in the world. Amid daily headlines about brutal killings and a 65 percent increase in homicides since 2006, the Mexican homicide rate of 18 deaths per 100,000 people is among the lowest in the Americas. Honduras holds the world’s highest rate, at 82 per 100,000, and El Salvador experiences 66 per 100,000. Comparatively, the U.S. has a homicide rate of just 5 murders per 100,000 people.
It is naive to think that decriminalizing drugs is going to end violence in the Americas. Crime rates are usually the result of economic disparities, lower educational levels, high unemployment rates and weak and corrupt law enforcement agencies. Legalization will not solve any of these issues. On the other hand, criminal organizations in Mexico and Central America profit not only from drug trafficking, but also from other illegal activities. As an example, Mexico’s infamous Zetas organization is rarely involved in drug trafficking. Its main businesses include oil theft, human trafficking, kidnappings, extortion and brothels. And finally, if drugs are legalized in the Americas but remain illegal in the U.S., criminal organizations from Latin America will keep fighting between each other to reach the profitable American market.
Despite all this evidence, Latin American leaders still see drug decriminalization as part of the solution. Why? Because it will relieve their budgets from fighting drug trafficking and allow them to collect taxes from the cartels. Legalization will also allow governments to focus their law-enforcement efforts towards criminal activities against civilians, including kidnappings, extortion and human trafficking. And, perhaps, decriminalization of drugs could decrease incentives for criminal organizations to bribe law enforcement officials.
The majority of Central Americans do not see drugs as their problem. After all, large amounts of money enter these countries via money laundering operations and drive their local economies. Meanwhile, the U.S. pays health costs associated with drug consumption.
The U.S., however, approaches drug consumption from a moral perspective instead of from a policy one. For example, the Netherlands, where marijuana is legal, has not seen an increase in drug consumption, nor does it have a higher rate of users than the U.S. Compared to other Western countries, addiction in the Netherlands is about average.
Disagreement over the strategy of the war on drugs will remain a source of tension between the U.S. and its Southern neighbors. On Friday, February 17th, Mexican President Calderón unveiled a billboard in Ciudad Juárez with the English-language message “No more weapons!” with characters formed by three tons of seized guns and facing the border with El Paso.
The U.S. could help its neighbors to decrease violence through gun control efforts, but this issue faces strong opposition from American politicians, advocacy groups, the arms industry and the general public. While the U.S. sends millions of dollars through the Mérida Initiative to fight drug trafficking in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, there is little evidence that American drug consumption rates are decreasing or that Latin American governments are “winning” the battle against drug cartels.
Is there a way out? Some people think that the Colombian case is a success story, but it is not. Colombia still has one of the highest homicide rates in the Americas and while cocaine production has decreased there, plantations have moved to Peru and Bolivia, according to the 2011 U.N. World Drug Report. While the U.S. succeeded to stop trade routes from Colombia to Florida, Mexican drug organizations now control trafficking routes. American officials also suspect that crackdowns on Mexican and Colombian drug cartels have pushed criminal organizations to Central America. All these facts suggest that when Colombian cartels lost power, other problems emerged elsewhere in the Americas.
Therefore, the real long-term solution is fighting drugs from a public health perspective. Tobacco is the best example. It has always been legal, but its consumption has decreased over the years due to smoking restrictions, higher taxation and public health campaigns.