Last December 6th, 2011, the countries\u00a0 from the Tuxtla System for Dialogue met in Merida, Mexico, to discuss, among others, the security situation in the region, focusing on organized crime and narco-trafficking.<\/p>\n
The Summit was attended by the presidents of Guatemala, \u00c1lvaro Colom; Honduras, Porfirio Lobo; Mexico, Felipe Calder\u00f3n; Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega; Panama, Ricardo Martinelli; Dominican Republic, Leonel Fern\u00e1ndez; and First Vice-President of Costa Rica, Alfio Piva and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Belize, Wilfred Elrington; Colombia, Mar\u00eda \u00c1ngela Holgu\u00edn; and El Salvador, Hugo Mart\u00ednez. On this occasion, President of Chile Sebasti\u00e1n Pi\u00f1era also attended in his capacity as Special Guest.<\/p>\n
They published a one-page joint declaration\u00a0 that expresses the growing frustration with the global war on drugs within the Central American region, and his the clearest regional call for\u00a0 drug policy reform to date. (Declaracion conjunta sobre crimen-organizado y narcotrafico<\/a>) – http:\/\/www.presidencia.gob.mx\/2011\/12\/declaracion-conjunta-sobre-crimen-organizado-y-narcotrafico\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Here, is the key paragraph of the declaration:<\/p>\n “Senalaron que Lo deseable ser\u00eda una sensible reducci\u00f3n de la demanda de drogas ilegales. Sin embargo, si ello no es posible, como lo demuestra la experiencia reciente, las autoridades de los pa\u00edses consumidores deben entonces explorar todas las alternativas posibles para eliminar las ganancias exorbitantes de los criminales incluyendo opciones regulatorias o de mercado orientadas a ese prop\u00f3sito. As\u00ed se evitar\u00eda que el trasiego de sustancias siga provocando altos niveles de crimen y violencia en naciones latinoamericanas y caribe\u00f1as\u201d.<\/p>\n or in plain English:<\/p>\n “They indicated that What would be desirable, would be a significant reduction in the demand for illegal drugs. Nevertheless, if that is not possible, as recent experience demonstrates, the authorities of the consuming countries ought then to explore the possible alternatives to eliminate the exorbitant profits of the criminals, including regulatory or market oriented options to this end. Thus, the transit of substances that continue provoking high levels of crime and violence in Latin American and Caribbean nations will be avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n The declaration uses almost verbatim previous declarations made by President Calderon and clearly bear his mark. It was largely ignored by the US medias, even though it represents a dramatic shift in attitude within the Central American and Caribbean region. Let’s hope that this new attitude will translate into a deliberate shift toward drug policy reform!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last December 6th, 2011, the countries\u00a0 from the Tuxtla System for Dialogue met in Merida, Mexico, to discuss, among others, the security situation in the region, focusing on organized crime and narco-trafficking. The Summit was attended by the presidents of Guatemala, \u00c1lvaro Colom; Honduras, Porfirio Lobo; Mexico, Felipe Calder\u00f3n; Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega; Panama, Ricardo Martinelli; … Continue reading “A thinly-veiled call for drug policy reform at the XIII Tuxtla System for Dialogue”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[91,53,71,72,92,87,75,65,90,32,23,18],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drug-policy-reform","tag-central-america","tag-drug-cartels","tag-drug-policy-reform-2","tag-end-the-war-on-drug","tag-global-war-on-drugs","tag-mexican-drug-war","tag-narco-trafficking","tag-organized-crime","tag-tuxtla-system-for-dialogue","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-war-on-drugs-failure","tag-world-war-d"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":563,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560\/revisions\/563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.world-war-d.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}