Sea Change on Marijuana Prohibition in US Continues, Global Commission Criticizes Drug War Andrew Kennis - teleSUR
go to original September 21, 2014

Read the report: Taking Control: Pathways to Drug Policies That Work

If you would have predicted to Erik Alteri a decade ago that the majority of U.S. states would pass ballot initiatives or legislation either providing for medical marijuana usage, decriminalizing consumption or outright legalization and regulation by 2014, he would have told you that you were being a “bit optimistic.”

What a difference a decade can make, as that is precisely what wound up happening.

“We totally expect that momentum to move forward,” said Alteri, the spokesperson for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), hardly able to contain his excitement.

With no less than seven states, 17 municipalities, and one territory in the United States featuring ballot initiatives to reform marijuana laws, 2014 could be a banner year in terms of marijuana and drug policy reform. The upcoming midterm election already features more ballot initiatives of this sort than any other previous election year in U.S. history.

Meanwhile,this month in New York City, a plethora of ex-heads-of-state from Latin America and Europe, a former United Nations Secretary General, Chairman of U.S. Federal Reserve and cabinet member of President Ronald Reagan, along with the founder of the Virgin Group, all co-authored and released a report calling for the decriminalization and regulation of “as many illegal drugs as is possible,” to borrow the words of the commission member and chair of the study, former Brazilian President Henrique Cardoso.

The report, put out by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, goes farther than a previous 2011 release by the same commission in the wake of the 40th anniversary of then President Richard Nixon's declaration of a “war on drugs.” Even at that point, the commission still dubbed the four decade long “war” as largely a “failure” and one worth “abandoning,” though stopped short of calling for decriminalization beyond marijuana. This latest report however, specifically mentions decriminalizing the coca leaf and several other currently illegal drugs.

According to Jag Davies, the spokesperson for the Drug Policy Alliance, Latin American leadership was a significant factor behind the evolution of the commission towards favoring decriminalization of all drugs.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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