II Latin America Conference
I Brazilian Conference on Drug Policy
Conclusions and Perspectives:
MORE INFORMATION: www.conferenciadrogas.com
On 26 and 27 August, the Second Latin American Conference and the First Brazilian Conference on Drug Policy took place in the noble hall of the National Law School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) with more than 400 attendees and the presence of top drug policy experts from thirteen countries in Latin America. It was the most specialized meeting of the region. Organized at regional level by Intercambios, key civil association at Latin America working during fifteen years on issues of harm reduction and drug policy, and, locally by Psicotropicus, a pioneer in getting out the drugs debate from the marginality and bring it to everyday discussions in Brazil.
With the auspice of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and other UN agencies, the meeting focused on currently legislative reforms in different countries, the ineffectiveness of military responses to drug trafficking and the alternatives that are gathering force in the region. “Regarding drug policy, Latin American is superior than United States “, concluded the participants after two days of debate
“In Latin America we have ´no colonized´ perspectives: there is today a position on drug policy from Latin America and do not about Latin America,” said the National Secretary of Justice of Brazil, Pedro Abramovay, inaugurating the conference”. At the opening panel also participated: Paulo Roberto Yog de Miranda Uchoa, National Secretary for Drug Policy (SENAD); Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, coordinator of the Mental Health Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, Luciana Boiteux, coordinator of the Research Group on Drug Policy and Human Rights in National Law School of the Federal University of Rio, Luiz Paulo Guanabara, Psicotropicus director, and Graciela Touzé, president of Intercambios.
It was the first time that met in Brazil such a large number of experts and policy makers on drug issues. At the opening ceremony, the Lula government officials differed themselves from the past twenty years U.S. policies known as the paradigm war on drugs. “Today it is impossible to talk about militarism in our politics, when it is compared with United States policy, “said the national secretary of the SENAD. Uchoa reminded that he has not accepted most of the state and city councils that drives the government of President Lula Da Silva for social participation in the definition of public policies.
From Psicotropicus, local organizer of the Conference, its director Luiz Paulo Guanabara claimed that still need to “demilitarize the policy of decriminalizing drugs and health care” since “an economic and military system leads to intolerable levels of violence, and what we have seen today in Mexico and we have seen before here in Brazil. Founded in 2003, Psicotropicus aims to reduce significantly the harm caused by current drug policy through advocacy, dialogue, reliable information, supporting research and generating knowledge to have a society where the “global problem drugs” is approached from a different perspective.
From INTERCAMBIOS, civil association for the study and treatment of drug-related problems, founded fifteen years ago in Argentina, promoter and creator of the conference, its president Graciela Touzé warned that “the discursive shift that involves recognizing the failure of the war on drug has not yet been translated into concrete policies that reach people.” He listed that is needed to install non-repressive security policies and long term state policies.
Finally, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, coordinator of the Mental Health Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, said “it is necessary that public health policy responses in the areas of social inclusion and prevention” and that “the current law is an important progress because make a distinction between drug users and traffickers, but it needs a further review.”
During the opening ceremony, representing the university and as the host of the house, Luciana Boiteux reminded that this same hall hosted the Senate for the Brazilian empire: “They signed here the law that ended slavery; we expect, here too, a contribution to concrete measures to achieve more humane drug policy and also closer to health.
The meeting aimed to promote “an informed social debate with a view to promoting non-punitive policies, based on scientific evidence, to respond effectively to the various problems associated with drugs” and generate an exchange at regional level to “update the map on drug use, associated problems, policies and interventions in the region.” The meeting aimed to promote “an informed social debate with a view to promoting non-punitive policies, based on scientific evidence, to respond effectively to the various problems associated with drugs” and generate an exchange at regional level to “update the map on drug use, associated problems, policies and interventions in the region”.
A Human Rights Approach
Worldwide, people who use illicit drugs face discrimination, rejection and violence on the justification of “dangerousness” or “incapacity” of drug users. What kind of drug policies that foster human rights violation? Are there action alternatives? What are alternatives? These issues were central in the human rights and drug policy panel, which opened the first day of the conference with Rubem Cesar Fernandes, Viva Rio’s executive director and executive secretary of the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy as moderator.
“The Brazilian legislation passed through the prejudice but has yet clear deficiencies,” acknowledged Pedro Vieira Abramovay, National Secretary of Justice, Ministry of Justice of Brazil: “There is a limit between trafficking and using drugs. However, a person that will be considered finally user, if the policeman said in the beginning he was a drug trafficker, he must spend the legal process in prison.”
In turn, Jorge da Silva, a member of the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy and ex- Secretary of State for Human Rights of Rio de Janeiro (2003-2006), described his experience in the military police and how he discovered the ineffectiveness of repressive policies. Quoting the case of Portugal he explained “that decriminalization does not increase consumption,” he expressed his “support of a radical way” to the campaigns of decriminalization of marijuana because “we have to start somewhere.
The president of the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) from Argentina, Claudio Morgado, demonstrated to be against the approach that takes the social aspects of risk factors and not as a constituent part of the problem. “The stigma of ‘addicted’ driven out from the person’s identity: male, female, friend, lover. The result is an approach that promotes social rejection.” Finally he said that INADI supported the Mental Health bill that are being debated in Argentina and it has partial approval of Congress, which in its Article 4 provides that drug users have all the same rights as all that are covered by the law. “It’s a non-discriminatory legislation that we expect progress,” he said.
To close the panel, Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch (Poland), Director of the Global Drug Policy of the Open Society Institute (OSI), focused on public health policy and harm reduction: “We can’t focus on abstinence-based policies. If abstinence is the only desired outcome we will not have access to methadone, for example. Doesn´t matter that methadone treatment of opioid allows the users back to work, doesn’t matter that it reduce the suffering of the family, doesn’t matter that it opens the doors for the users: as methadone does not lead to abstinence, it will not be offered in treatments, “concluded.
The International organizations view
What level of priority on their agenda? How could increased attention? With these questions the panel: “Drug users on the multilateral organisms agenda” met at the same table representatives of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Joint Programme on HIV / AIDS (UNAIDS ), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO / WHO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
“The drug policy has to do with thinking about prevention, health promotion and respect of human rights, public safety also looking through the fight against organized crime,” said Bo Mathiesen, UNODC Regional Representative Brazil and the Southern Cone. For his part, Pedro Chequer, UNAIDS Country Coordinator in Brazil, highlighted the role of the social movement of HIV and drugs and said that “it is necessary to expand the supply of services for HIV positive drug users.”
From PAHO / WHO, Marcelo Vila, sub-regional coordinator for HIV/STD said that prejudices and stigma against drug users also exist in public health: “If there is no health services for drug users, and if they can being judged for simply using drugs, they do not seek health services.”In the same way, David Rui Villa-Franca, representative of UNDP said that from the agency “is prioritized human development in general and not restricted to health approach only”.
Finally, Javier Hourcade Bellocq, regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Partnership against HIV/AIDS, executive director of Friends of the Global Fund – Latin America and the Caribbean, said that “in countries where the drug user jailed, there is a greater prevalence of HIV.”
Decriminalizing and provide services without conditions
The first step to achieving the involvement of social and health policies is to avoid the prosecution of drug users. This became clear in the Panel “social-health policies”, where they presented the experiences of Portugal and Brazil with a critical review of achievements and challenges.
The first exhibition was provided by Manuel Cardoso, a member of the directive board of and Drug and Drug Addiction Institute of Portugal, experience repeatedly cited during the meeting for having decriminalized the possession of all substances in 2001: “The great framework is treatment for all, whether they come or we go for them and the second is innovative policies such as harm reduction.” The official said that they are guided by “the principles of humanism and pragmatism, don´t deny care to anyone and use scientifically proven methods.”
Luciana Boiteux, a member of the Advisory Council of the Brazilian Network for Harm Reduction and Human Rights (REDUC), noted that 70 percent of those arrested for drug trafficking are poor men arrested in the street unarmed with small amounts of drugs. From these data, she said that operations in Rio de Janeiro “are counterproductive because it does not inhibit the illicit market but bring much death.” She concluded: “the current policies are ineffective, but a part of the international bureaucracy that is satisfy with the status quo, so it does not change”.
The coordinator of the Mental Health Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, Pedro Gabriel Godinho Delgado, acknowledged that, despite the basic principle of universality, “the fact is the health services are reluctant to attend users who do not accept discontinuation of drug use. He proposed two tasks: 1) attracting drug users from therapies that are not based on conditions of total abandonment, “because they become blackmail” and 2) providing non-compulsory and comprehensive treatment, “with all the necessary areas for reducing social vulnerability”.
The moderator of the panel, the secretary general of the National Drugs Council of Uruguay, Milton Romani, said that the presented socio-sanitary strategies agreed on the need to bring the issue of drugs in the field of health, decriminalize users and universal care without stigma or discrimination as requirements for effective responses.
A good practice guide in policy reforms
At afternoon, Ann Fordham, coordinator of the International Consortium on Drug Policy (IDPC) gave the presentation of the Advocacy Guide prepared by the Consortium. “At a time when the world is beginning to see drugs as a health issue, and we have the first examples of decriminalization of users, with proposals for alternatives to criminal law area, we saw the need to disseminate these experiences,” said.
The book seeks to serve as a tool to replicate the experience and convince more governments around the world about the possibility of carrying out changes that decriminalization and move users to the proportionality of the penalties in relation to traffic. The Guide was discussed by the deputy of Rio de Janeiro Carlos Minc, former Environment Minister of Brazil, who supported the principles on which the publication is structured and added that “the war on drugs not only meets the objective of eliminate the supply of drugs but also has among its side effects promote the territorial control of areas of the city from drug dealers.”
From war on drugs to its impact on drug users
The complexity of the drug cannot be understood without addressing, at a time, its many faces. One hand, production and drug trafficking, armed forces and political corruption. On the other, poverty and social inequality, structural conditions of Latin American societies. Among both there is the social and economic policy of each country in the region. The panel “Structural Determinants of drug-related problems” sought to bring together all these faces in the same panel. Ethan Nadelmann, from the United States, Luis Astorga from Mexico and the Brazilians Tarcisio Matos de Andrade and Monica Malta, accepted the challenge.
Nadelmann, founder of Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), said the United States “for a hundred years has imposed his vision on drugs, so there is the false belief that we must change the laws in America first, but this is not true”. And he said as an example the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, because “for the first time former presidents dare to challenge the prohibition, clearly proposed the decriminalization of marijuana and promote harm reduction measures.”
The situation in Mexico from the so-called war on drugs, dramatic and unprecedented in terms of deaths, was analyzed by Luis Astorga, a researcher at the Institute for Social Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who presented a timeline to show “the drug traffickers always had a link with the different political parties, and this complicity is what is making it difficult to change something.
In turn, Tarcisio Matos de Andrade, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Bahia and coordinator of the Extension Service “Alliance of Harm Reduction Fátima Cavalcanti ” focused on the determining factors linked to stigma. He cited as example the current campaign in Salvador called “Crack: prison or coffin.” “What does say this message? That society has to offer only the drug user death or prison,” he said. He warned that “although the drug use is distributed in all social classes, treatments are only for the upper classes.”
Finally, Monica Malta, from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute Foundation (Fiocruz), which specializes in scientific research on health, said it is a difficult to know largely the situation of drug user population because of the stigma and she introduced the method of Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS), where the researcher is from the community and calls other friends. Ten municipalities surveyed 3,500 drug users with this methodology and concluded that the Brazilian injecting drug users living with HIV are the most vulnerable population than other people living with the virus, because they have less access to services health. Matos concluded: “Brazil is known worldwide for its response to HIV/AIDS, but the drug users populations do not access these benefits.”
The drug users’ prominence
Doors open, closeness and territory. These three words went through all the presentations from the panel “Comprehensive care for drug users” on the morning of Friday 27.
In Chile, the National School of Studies and Training on Addiction and Associated Critical Situations Approach (EFAD) carried out a study on health services access for drug users revealed that 80% of users requiring attention were not receiving it. Maurizio Zorondo, executive secretary of the institution in charge of the study, indicated that the central problem was that “the system is distant to people, with many requirements to access the service” and presented the current strategy, centered on the territory.
In Colombia, in 2006 the attention to drug users was defined as a matter of mental health and public health priority, “which brought economic and social resources to go to communities and provide treatment,” said Ines Elvira Mejia Motta, who is coordinator of the dependence in charge of the assistance and also she is adviser of the Ministry of Social Protection of the country. The approach is similar to that presented by Chile: respecting the autonomy of the drug user and strengthening social networks. A special feature of the country is possession for personal use, decriminalized in 1994, again penalized from former President Alvaro Uribe, “which is a barrier to access to care,” concluded.
Why health services fails with drug users? With that question as the axis, the Department of STD, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis of the Ministry of Health of Brazil made a diagnosis that revealed, among other difficulties, the shame on both sides, “among professional who do not dare to ask and the user does not dare to say that drinks alcohol or other substances,” said Denise Serafim, representative of the organization.
“There are different views on drug users: health sees the use of drugs as a disease, justice as a crime and religion as a sin. My proposal is that the public see drug use as a right,” proposed Domiciano Siqueira, representative of the Brazilian Harm Reduction Association (ABORDA) when he opened his presentation. “The body is from each of us and everything that happens inside the skin side is ours,” he claimed.
About the panel colleagues’ exhibition, he said: “I have heard many conferences talking about the treatment has to be decent, close, but for me the treatment must have, in short, open doors with no conditions.”
A no-win war and many lost
The debate over whether economic factors are structural in Latin America or the cultural aspects of their societies that have allowed upgrade the drug trafficking and organized crime to install in the region, were the axis of the panel, “Consequences of the War on Drugs . Its moderator synthesized, the Bolivian Diego Giacoman Aramayo, a specialist in problems of coca and drug trafficking
“There are factors that led to the installation of the cocaine production in Colombia,” said the Colombian Francisco Thoumi, an economist at the University of Minnesota and researcher on political economy of drugs and crime. And he listed the tropical rainforest, cocaine refining knowledge, access to chemical inputs, ability to develop international networks for traffic and a society in conflict. “These are conditions that do not mean that the problem will arise;” he said before stating that “decriminalization is not enough. To think a policy that addresses the drug trade and violence is necessary to harmonize the law, culture and morality. The real challenge for Colombia is not only legalize drugs in Colombia, that is, establishing the empire of law in the country,” he said.
Juan Carlos Hidalgo, project coordinator for Latin America at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity (Cato Institute, Washington), gave an account of the failure of the war on drugs and cited as an example the price of cocaine: “A kilo in Colombia is U$S 1,600, when it comes to Panama is U$S 2,500, at the Mexican border up to U$S 13,000, in the United States U$S 20,000 and in retail in that country U$S 97, 000 a kilo. ” According to UN facts the annual traffic of illicit drugs move U$S 320 billion. “In this sense it is an economic problem but its causes are multi-faceted, but it is important to think about a solution to the economic issue because it is what will unlock the discussion.”
Then, the Bolivian Reynaldo Molina Salvatierra, General Coordinator of the Program of Social Control of Production of Coca Leaf Support, reinforced this economic perspective: “If it wasn’t a productive business it would not have reached the size that reached.” Bolivia is working on a new national policy to combat drug trafficking and recognition for coca leaf, which includes a census of growers of coca leaf and encourage legal uses of coca, such as food and medicine.
Metaal Pien was in charge of the panel conclusion, from Netherlands, she is a team member of Drugs and Democracy and coordinator of reforms to the drug laws program from the Transnational Institute (TNI). She announced that the results of a large study in eight countries on drugs and prisons will be published soon: “We have found an endemic situation: there are human rights violations that are justified by the war on drugs, in which nobody wins and many lose.”
New laws to a new paradigm
In the panel “Legislative reforms in Latin America” it was a common diagnosis: the current legislation on drugs has created new delinquencies, has ripped social networks and has destroyed the environment. In short, it has created States favorable for human rights violation.” In most countries of the region the drug laws are special schemes, which means they are exceptional and threaten defendants´ rights because the penalties are disproportionate and prisons are full of mule trapped in the prison system rather than major traffickers,” said Freddy Pavón Rivera, vice minister of Justice of Ecuador. “It is a challenge to design a drug policy because it is a sensitive issue, the states do not have absolute freedom. It is remarkable that the same body that promotes human rights promotes the war on drugs, “the official said, in an indirect critic to some of the agencies of the United Nations.
The representative of Argentina, Mónica Cuñarro, executive secretary of the National Coordinator of Public Policy on Prevention and Control of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs, Transnational Organized Crime and Corruption, held that “UNASUR must be used as a window to find consensus for progress in human rights advocacy, because there are more things that join us than separate us. Human rights are given to us by legislators; we must fight and build them as happened after World War II”.
For his part, Minister of the Supreme Court of Uruguay, Jorge Pino Ruibal, warned that “a good drug law does not guarantee justice or respect for human rights” and recalled that his country since 1974 has a law which the user is exempt from minimum penalty for possession for personal use. “It really has been a long process of the society to build the mechanisms to guarantee the rights of people,” said.
Finally, the federal deputy drug expert, Paulo Teixeira, promoter of the first bill that was passed in Sao Paulo on the subject, highlighted the studies that were submitted during the Second Latin American Conference and I Brazilian Conference on Drug Policy, which reveal that persons deprived of their liberty by drug-related offenses are mostly the poorest people. Everyone realizes that we need a reform in our drug laws, which is progressive in its spirit, but it not enough to differentiate the major drug dealers from who consume or who is in retail,” he concluded.
A way that has already started
On Friday, in parallel sessions, was held a meeting of Youth and Drug Policy and other about Drug Users, and some representatives read their conclusions at the close of the Conference. “We are not part of the problem, we can be part of the solution,” said the youth.
The conference was sponsored by Open Society Institute Foundation, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the STD, AIDS and Viral Hepatitis National Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, the Mental Health Program of the Ministry of Health of Brazil and Viva Rio.
Also, it had the support of United Nations agencies: Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization (PAHO / WHO) and other international and national Brazilian organizations: Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL), Ministry of Social Assistance and Human Rights of Brazil (SEASDH) International Consortium on Drug Policy (IDPC) International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA), Transnational Institute (TNI), Latin American Social Sciences Council (CLACSO) Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), American Coalition for Harm Reduction (HRC), International Federation Catholic Universities (FIUC) Brazilian Association of Harm Reducers (ABORDA); Center for interdisciplinarity Studies on psychoactive (NEIP) Brazilian Network for Harm Reduction (NR), Group Candango of Criminology (GCCRIM), Dar Collective and Latin American Group on Drug Policy (GRULA).
After the Conference, Intercambios civil association and Psicotropicus, regional and local organizers, respectively, highlighted the level of participation and relevance of the contributions “to build policies to address drug-related problems effectively and from a perspective that guarantee human rights.” They also highlighted the importance of the Second Latin American Conference and I Brazilian Conference to installed informed social debate on drugs on the public agenda and welcomed the opportunity, in 2011, a new meeting in another host country of the region.
MORE INFORMATION: www.conferenciadrogas.com
