The war on drugs is retarded. People are going to get high. Instead of letting scumbags control the HUGE drug business we need to legalize it and regulate it. I know most people are with me on that with weed but I think we just need to legalize all of them.
(AlJazeera) Otto Perez Molina, the Guatemalan president, came to power promising to crush organised crime with an iron fist.
But barely a month into the job and he appears to be changing tactics, suggesting that drugs should be decriminalised in Central America.
Molina says he wants to win regional support for the idea and is already been publicly backed by Mauricio Funes, president of El Salvador.
The reason, say Molina and Funes: The US failure to deal with its enormous drug consumption, a demand that feeds the Central American drug trade and lays waste to countries all along the route north.
Cynics argue that Molina – a former general – is playing politics by trying to pressure Barack Obama, the US president, to reverse plans to cut military spending for the drug war in the region.
Nevertheless, a growing number of former Latin American leaders say the failure of US anti-narcotics policy is leaving the region with little choice but to consider a radical new approach to the problem.
Guatemala, for example, has seen a dramatic increase in its murder rate with drug cartels now better armed and better equipped than the country’s military.
And so long as tackling drug consumption remains off the US political agenda, many believe the problem will only get worse.
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