MAPTalk-Digest Thursday, March 8 2012 Volume 12 : Number 007
001 petition: Support Guatemalan president's call for drug legalization
From:
002 Upcoming debates
From:
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Subj: 001 petition: Support Guatemalan president's call for drug legalization
From:
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2012 09:54:06 -0800
Support Guatemalan president's call for drug legalization
http://signon.org/sign/support-guatemalan-president
To be delivered to: Otto Perez Molina, President of Guatemala, Roxana
Baldetti, Vice-President, Guatemala, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, President,
Mexico, Juan Manuel Santos, President, Colombia, Ricardo Martinelli,
President, Panama and 5 other targets Otto Perez Molina, President of
Guatemala, Roxana Baldetti, Vice-President, Guatemala, Felipe Calderón
Hinojosa, President, Mexico, Juan Manuel Santos, President, Colombia,
Ricardo Martinelli, President, Panama, Porfirio Lobo, President, Honduras,
Mauricio Funes, President, El Salvador, Laura Chinchilla, President, Costa
Rica, Daniel Ortega, President, Nicaragua, and President Barack Obama
President Molina, we applaud and support your proposal for drug
legalization in Central America and beyond.
Vice-President Roxana Baldetti, we support your efforts to promote this
proposal to the Central-American leaders.
We fully support Guatemalan request to open a debate on drug legalization
at the Sixth Summit of the Americas on April 14-15, 2012. President Obama,
we urge you to not stall the courageous process initiated by Guatemala,
and to allow a truthful debate to take place. We urge you to show the
courage and vision to add your positive contribution to the debate.
President Calderon and President Santos, we urge you to throw the full
support of Mexico and Colombia behind the Guatemalan proposal.
Presidents Martinelli of Panama, Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, Funes of
El Salvador, Lobo of Honduras, and Ortega of Nicaragua, we urge to add the
support of your countries to the Proposal advanced by the Guatemalan
Government.
Despite the enormous resources wasted on it, the War on Drugs has failed,
bringing destruction and chaos all over the world, affecting particularly
the Central American region, thanks to its position on the major transit
route to the US. Prohibition is the worst possible form of control as it
leaves control in the hands of powerful criminal organizations. The time
has come to seek more realistic and pragmatic approaches, asking the
simple but fundamental question: “Are organized societies capable and
willing to manage and control psychoactive substances, instead of leaving
it to organized crime?”
Global re-legalization under a multi-tiers “legalize, tax, control,
prevent, treat and educate” regime with practical and efficient mechanisms
to manage and minimize societal costs is the only realistic long-term
solution to the issue of illegal drugs. Far from giving up and far from an
endorsement, controlled legalization would be finally growing up; being
realistic instead of being in denial; being in control instead of leaving
control to the underworld. It would abolish the current regime of
socialization of costs and privatization of profits to criminal
enterprises, depriving them of their main source of income and making our
world a safer place.
On Saturday February 11th, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina declared
that, following discussions with Colombian President Santos, he will
present a proposal for drug legalization in Central America at the April
14-15 Summit of the Americas. Guatemalan Vice-President Roxana Baldetti
will begin a tour of Central America to discuss the proposal with regional
leaders and garner support for it, starting with Panama, Costa Rica and
Salvador on February 29th. Unsurprisingly, the move was greeted by a quick
rebuke from the US government.
President Molina’s initiative is unprecedented and marks the first time
since the launching of the War on Drugs by Richard Nixon in 1971 that a
foreign head of state actively challenges the US-led policies of drug
prohibition and try to build a coalition against it. A former general of
the Guatemalan army, President Molina has impeccable credentials to launch
such a move: he was elected in November 2011 on a law-and-order platform,
pledging to restore security to the country. Guatemala is on the major
transit route from Colombia to the US and drug violence has exploded there
over the past few years, turning this already impoverished and unstable
country into one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
We all need to show our support to President Molina and his potential
Latin American allies. We also need to put pressure on the Obama
administration to ensure that it doesn’t stall Molina’s proposal, and that
it allows a truthful debate to take place at the April 14-15 Summit of the
Americas and beyond.
NEW goal - We need 750 signatures
There are currently 604 signatures
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Subj: 002 Upcoming debates
From:
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2012 20:31:14 -0800
From Pete at Drug WarRant (for the links to the debates go to Pete's)
http://www.drugwarrant.com/2012/03/upcoming-debates/
Friday, March 9
The War on Drugs Has Failed. Is Legalization the Answer?
James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University
Friday (tomorrow) at Noon Eastern: Russ Belville vs. Kevin Sabet
(should be interesting!)
Live Stream
Here’s the rest of the schedule.
Tuesday, March 13
(Via Transform) Transform will take part in the most high-profile
public drug reform debate we’ve ever been invited to (and as far as we
can tell, that has ever been staged). The event, “It’s Time to end the
War on Drugs”, is being hosted by Google+ and the world’s largest
debating forum Intelligence². Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst and
Danny Kushlick, head of external affairs, will join an eclectic mix of
celebrities, public figures and politicians, speaking either for or
against the title motion. Among them are Sir Richard Branson, Russell
Brand, Julian Assange (unclear what his position is on this), author
Misha Glenny, former president of Mexico Vincente Fox, Peter Hitchens
from the Mail on Sunday, two senior figures from the UNODC, Geoffrey
Robertson QC, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise
Arbour, and former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair. (For
the full list of participants, see the event page.)
The debate begins at 2 pm Eastern.
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End of MAPTalk-Digest V12 #7
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