Javier Sicilia: We Must Embrace This New Approach to the War on Drugs Javier Sicilia - The Observer
go to original June 1, 2013

In June, 2012, Javier Sicilia extended an invitation to support and participate in the USA Peace Caravan. (YABASTANOMASANGRE)

It gave me a deep sense of personal satisfaction and renewed faith in my fellow man when I learned, at long last, that leaders of the member countries of the Organization of American States – the western hemisphere's most influential international organization – had initiated the first serious discussions on how to bring the "war on drugs" to an end.

I felt this satisfaction and burst of confidence because, in 2011, here in Mexico, gangsters seeking revenge against two police informants tortured and executed my 24-year-old son, Juan Francesco, and six of his friends. Since then, I have worked to draw attention to the death and destruction the drug war has brought to thousands of innocent people across our hemisphere even as the decades-long campaign has failed to slow or reduce the supplies of illicit narcotics reaching eager buyers in the US, Mexico and beyond.

Now, I hope, government leaders will seize this opportunity to look each other in the eye and admit that the drug war is no longer worth the investment of billions more dollars for military equipment, training, prosecution, incarceration and police and military operations.

Read the rest at The Guardian

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