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Back on Zero Tolerance
We present our next guest,
he is a political analyst, his name is Eduardo Vergara and he's the Director of the NGO "Asuntos del Sur"
Are you only involved in public policy and drug policy Eduardo?
No, we work with other subjects but the strong one, one of the strong ones is drug policy
Let's see the next note and we'll begin when we're back,
is that okay?
No more prisoners for growing, stop the hypocrisy.
Stop, let's make better laws once and for all!
I am not a criminal and look how they are taking me...
THE SMOKE OF DISCORD
A sentenced doctor and a detained actor,
they both advocate for personal marihuana consumption and self-growing.
Both of them are free and with their testimonies they've opened once again the controversy.
What is clear is that drug policy is a failure
because consumption keeps increasing even though its forbidden
If we already are unable to deal with alcohol, why add another problem that we're not able, as a country,
of absorbing??
In the case of the psychiatrist Milton Flores, he defended the use of this drug with medicinal purposes
and he followed until the end the judicial cause, he said, so that people started talking about the subject.
I think that self-growing should be decriminalised
and I think that, as well as there's people who do not grow lettuce, they buy the lettuce,
I think that both situations should be available.
Those who are in favour of decriminalisation aim to reducing the dangers of the transactions
drug trafficking and the high rates of arrests,
which at the end of the day don't provide us with anything.
I think, I'm pretty convinced that we need to take the sale and consumption of cannabis off the circuit
of drugs and delinquency
because what tends to happen is that you have people in jail simply because of consumption
of a marihuana paper and then they end up in jail with greater criminal contagion.
But, what about the other face of the coin?
There are thousands of young people who see this drug as a gateway for harder substances
What about effective education and prevention?
Even more when 20% of students recognise they have consumed marihuana.
We're having stronger substances.
We are having a less risk perception.
We have children that are starting to use at younger ages.
So, it seems to me that what's logic is completely the opposite,
strengthening the message, that it be a clear and potent message about the harms that marihuana produces.
Drug trafficking, public health, education, freedom and addiction.
Are we, as a society, ready to discuss decriminalisation or definitive restriction of cannabis?
It is indeed a delicate subject to explain to people.
They get scared when you say "let's talk about this issue and look at legalisation".
But you have to have education and see that this has failed.
Throughout all Latin America the policy has failed
I would say: you are in your right, yes,
but the cost for the country in order to legalise that joint is so high, so high,
that I call you to reflect on whether we are willing, as a country, to take the risk.
Fernando Paulsen has the word.
Eh, hello, Eduardo
-Hello, good evening.
I am one of those people who believes that marihuana should be decriminalised
I have said it here, I think that besides, there is a situation which for me is the worst of all situations
worst of all
that is, because there are legal drugs that are sold in kiosks, in liquor stores, in pharmacies
and are legal.
People believe that because thay are legal, they are healthier, less harmful than those that are illegal
and unfortunately that is not so. In the case of marihuana it is not true
and therefore I think that,
and I want to ask you straight-up:
What is the evolution of the appreciation? For example, of the fight against drugs, how true is it that marihuana,
for example, is a gateway drug for other drugs?
Why are there chiefs of State that wouldn't have any reason of trying to change laws
unless there were deep reasons?
The ex-presidents of Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico are some of them.
-United States. -Well, Clinton now.
-Clinton and Carter
What are they seeing to propose a situation of this kind that we are not seeing to discuss now?
Thank you, good night.
I think that
you touch several points of the complexity of this debate and the existing policies. 72 00:04:30,571 --> 00:04:35,889 This is an important opportunity to talk about drug policies that we
could start discussing eventually,
that are far away from calculations and political ideologies.
We are getting closer, little by little, to a debate about drug policies that are fiscally responsible
but that are based on science, health and human rights.
Most importantly, a consensus has been reached
about the fact that drug policy based on prohibitionism and repression has been a failure.
Why?
Because of two things,
because many of them are based mainly in a reduction of consumption, in many cases
totally eliminating consumption and also reducing social violence,
neither of them were accomplished.
We have come to the point were, first there were academics, then ex-presidents joined in,
the Global Commission that makes a very important document
which among its recommendations it states that every kind of drug should be decriminalised.
And it is composed by former Presidents
because ex-presidents have a lesser cost by opening themselves,
and also have learned from their own experience.
I've had the opportunity of talking a lot, and we have commented this earlier, with president Gaviria in Colombia
who was one of the supporters of Plan Colombia
and was also one of the most repressing administrations.
He is now on the other side of the road saying: "Stop, we have to move forward towards a new drug policy,
because this one is inefficient".
Mainly this is handled in leaders from the right wing
that, the reason that drives this need for reform is because the costs associated are too great
but on the other hand it also blends as well with the human cost that this war on drugs has had.
In Mexico, without going further, estimations are around 60 and 80 thousand deaths in 6 years
and also 23 thousand people arrested.
In prisons of places such as Ecuador, 80% of women who are behind bars are there for breaking a drug law.
In Chile, in words from the Minister of justice a few months ago, 42% of the crimes committed by women are drug related.
So, to wrap up
the costs are so evident now that there was no other option than to arrive at a consensus and from there is that we move forward. 104 00:06:27,738 --> 00:06:28,302 You,
I had...
I asked you before we came in,
we were watching the note,
How many people are estimated to smoke in Chile??
-You had a number. -Yes, I have a number that mainly comes from
the prevalence that the United Nations documents,
personally, and from what we do at Asuntos del Sur,
we think these numbers are pretty conservative
for several reasons.
But it being like that and all, comparing, if you compare the cannabis prevalence, of cannabis consumption
with other countries from Latin America, well Uruguay is the first one,
the same with *** and well, Chile is the second
-In Chile there's a lot of marihuana smoking. -A lot of cannabis smoking.
-That's what you're saying? -Yes, I even think that a lot more than that is being smoked.
Let me, for argument's sake, make a comment, a question Eduardo.
In Chile, according to official numbers, they smoke a lot of marihuana.
Second, smoking marihuana in your house, just a joint, is not forbidden by the law.
-Alone? -Alone. You're at your house,
You smoke a joint, it's not criminalised by law
Last year, talking with a person who was at his place he told me: 125 00:07:19,771 --> 00:07:21,005 "Look, I want to show you something"
and he took me to his house garden and showed me a marihuana plant, a big one,
and he told me: "I smoke a marihuana cigarette every once in a while because I like it and, why...
-So, we started talking about if it was something illegal and he said to me: "Why are they forcing me
to, if I want to smoke this marihuana joint, have to enter the under-world?"
The world of delinquents, where I am risking the chance of getting robed,
where I have the risk of the worst things happening,
where I give money to a criminal that maybe abuses younger kinds, who has drug soldiers.
Why am I forced by the Chilean legal framework to get into that world if I want to smoke
alone, in my house, a joint of weed every month?
I thought it was a pretty accurate analysis,
that could happen to many people and from that point of view, from those eyes,
I also find strange that you always hear: "No, what we have to do is educate upon". It is not exclusive to one subject.
I'd like to know, you who are into these public policies,
How much water there is in this pool so that someday this is taken seriously legislatively?
And, can something be done in Chile regarding this subject?
To answer the duality of your question,
I think that the reason is pretty incoherent,
and we have tried to find what is the main reason why a drug is specifically prohibited
like cannabis is. Because just like you say, in a certain way the system and prohibitionism in general
-Forces you to get in. -Pushes you, not only, as you say, to the under-world, but
to get drugs. But it also pushes the consumer to use in the shadows.
When the consumer is in the shadows and the corners, that is the real gateway to other drugs
for several reasons.
For one, because there is disinformation. You don't know what you are consuming
but also because the person who sells you the drug has as an ultimate goal to
and make money at your expense.
So, for a drug dealer, is more convenient to sell you a drug that is addictive, unlike cannabis
so you...
Prohibitionism pushes the consumer and exposes him or her to a series of negative externalities
as you say, safety, you don't know what you're using, etc.
But in second place, and to analyse a little where we are at... A year ago,
when this subject was also touched here,
eh,
things had not evolved so fast.
The Summit of the Americas opened the debate, opened the windows,
but after that Summit, some stepped in and entered.
It drew attention after what happened in the United States --the leader of prohibition, which has led the repressive policy--
had two States democratically choose to regulate cannabis like alcohol is regulated.
Moreover, it happened along with 18 other states which have regulated cannabis for medicinal use.
That in itself is a total breakup in the international system of the United Nations,
and especially poses a problem to the INCB
because it has a State that is going to have a choice. President Obama has already said that
since he's not going for re-election, he's not going to go after consumers
as he should because they are in difference between state and federal laws.
This may follow on the steps of Bolivia, where they withdrew from the United Nations Conventions
and afterwards said: "So that I go back in, the condition I'm placing is that you don't criminalise the coca leaf."
That may be the only alternative for the United States, which posses a second question...
That the paradigm has been broken in Latin America.
Cristian
I have been impressed that there is more new stuff than what you were saying two years ago.
Next week is the OAS report on drugs,
which is being drafted by the ex-ambassador of the United States in Chile, Paul Simons,
and which makes what can be expected not very strong.
But I also think that in Chile there is an important group, that is working on this issue, of quite influential people
which is going to release a document next week.
Where can we know about this document?
I can not respond at this minute but get back to me...
Who is preparing the exclusive? Reveal their sources.
The headline.
But where I'm going is that the issue has always been talked since the eighties when The Economist started.
It was the first magazine to put the subject on the table, under what aspect?
The philosophical one, individual freedoms, public health, safety.
There is a bad impression about the security issue being imposed in Latin America,
basically, and the United Nations as well.
The percentage of drug dealers who are in jail and people who are in jail,
without having committed any violent crimes is very large.
That is the argument that is being placed on the table.
I think that saying that marihuana is less addictive
or does less harm than the others,
in the end is an argument that ends up being irrelevant to the discussion because people can legitimately say,
that even though it's not addictive, or as addictive as others, it is addictive as well.
And even though it does less harm, it still does harm.
That is the argument that you come to from your rationality.
Remember that what we have achieved these years is that the debate is separated for the first time
between policies that have to be focused on consumption, on the consumer
but also towards diminishing crime. -but you appear to agree with that.
It's the security issue that is changing the drug scenario,
politically, because it is more effective
but it is the argument that is changing the thing. -Absolutely, and the right-wing groups have released it for some reason,
Fox, former President of México, Santos,
Cardoso is not right-wing and he's the one who has liberated the subject the most. -Sure. But he talks about consumption.
because Cardoso saw a security issue in Brazil, in the favelas and the poorest neighbourhoods,
but he's focusing it from a human rights and consumption perspective.
I really believe that if you say they are right-wing you are making a mistake and are making a fault on behalf of your cause,
simply. - No, I am simply giving you, I'm speaking to you about the reality on who have been the most effective
in pushing the reform. They have been right-wing leaders,
I have no problems with saying that.
-In Latin America it has been Henrique Cardoso, right?
-I think the progressivism and the right-wing have a great debt of removing the monopoly of security
off the right and I think that's where we can advance,
but the most effective debate on drug policy, either we like it or not, has been lead by the right-wing ex-leaders.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso is a whole subject.
The reason why I'm working on this is that, when I founded Asuntos del Sur, I got together with Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Paris
and he said to me: "look, this is the big issue, the one that is truncating the development in Latin America".
He was personally the one who inspired me to give a step forward on this,
I am 100% aware,
but if we're talking about the effectiveness of the political discourse, it is being moved forward by the right,
not the right in Chile, but...
Fernando Villegas
Well, it seems to be the case that the subject
of marihuana is a pretty debatable and open subject and it might seem that there's a lot of room there to change things,
by what I've heard from you,
but I want to know, how do you stand on other drugs that
are indeed destructive.
They may or may not produce a deterioration like alcohol in a 10, 20, 30 years term,
when you die from cirrhosis,
or eventually have an accident
because they are isolated things. Statistically they are not massive.
What happens, for example, with ***, morphine, ***, ***, mescaline?
Or chemical hallucinogens such as lysergic acid? They destroy the minds, the finances,
families and everything in a couple of months or in a few years in some cases.
What's the difference that you would have in that case?
Because it's about completely different products, I think, with completely different effects in terms of speed,
harms, everything.
You think that in the case of the so called hard-drugs there should be a change in the repressive policies,
and put an end on what they are trying to do?
Finally, I think that it's not about eliminating consumption but containing it,
if not in an absolute way, in a relative way of diminishing its growth.
-Contention? -Contention, yes.
Look, what happens is very interesting because, finally as the cannabis debate was opened,
quite surprisingly, the debate on other drugs has opened as well.
The first step, to bring it down to the real situation in Chile, and to move forward,
I think that without a doubt we should decriminalise all sorts of,
not only drug consumption, but also the preparatory acts
and preparatory acts imply the cannabis possession and growth.
Closed.
Secondly: what has to move forward is not legalisation but regulation.
To regulate is to control. The first step in cannabis, to regulate in the way that the United States has done.
Regulate it in a similar way as alcohol.
And with the other drugs,
we have to move forward case by case.
I think that, specifically with ***, we should move forward with a system that
we are proposing in Guatemala.
So we'll give more on that when it is proposed, when the OAS report is delivered.
We want a pharmaceutical system where there are controls and where, above all,
and this is the most important aspect of drug regulations,
you can ensure about the quality.
Drugs that come out of Colombia have a purity of 85% the least.
Here in Chile they can sell you a substance on the street with a 6% purity.
-And how do you control quality without legalising ***?
Regulating it. No, sure.
-But, talk about regulating it.
So, if you regulate, yo can make labelling adjustments. You can, as tobacco is regulated.
-That is legalising. -Yes, but I like to talk more about regulation
because that is more... - It's softer, let's say. But it's the same.
But it gives you a broader framework that allows you to say: here we are regulating a drug
in the way other drugs that are now legal have been regulated.
***, for example, it is necessary to move to a pharmaceutical system where a record is required where you know who is using or not,
but above all, to know what is being consumed.
If people don't get addicted to ***, they get addicted to the substances that are being mixed with it to cut it.
-Ok, Eduardo, but tell me one thing. -But now let's enter, I'm sorry,
let's enter the subject of crack… That is complicated!
There, it can't exist for me, personally, a regulation process because it is a derivative
that can be made before and can even be decomposed.
Eduardo, let's assume a person who consumes the 100% pure ***, the best, certified.
What are the effects for that person after one year or two?
My experience with people who consume, I guess good quality ***,
is that they become like a scouring pad,
that they leave their careers, their lives, families are completely destroyed,
everyone is worn-out.
They are capable of stabbing their own grandma to go and buy another dose,
they explode,
not to mention the dangers these people may put themselves in when they are in this state,
this state of *** where you are kind of euphoric and loose control.
The same that happens to people who drink alcohol as well. -And many who don't consume anything are even worse.
Of course, but, leaving that aside, what's the effect for a person?
Let's se, one thing at a time.
I think that it's easy to make a caricature out of the consumer,
a very important statistic, and it comes from the United Nations: Of the approximated 230 millions of consumers of
illicit drugs worldwide, they estimate, and it's pretty conservative, that around 90% are recreational users.
That means consumers who do it responsibly and who don't have any problem.
-Who says that? -The United Nations.
And that the rest, the 10% are problematic users or that show some sort of dependency.
But again, what is the problem?
The problem is that, when you take a substance, you don't know what you're taking
and I think that at the end of the day, what we have to arrive upon is a consensus, on what?
To move towards a drug policy that is based on health, evidence and human rights.
But above all, that there is a health policy for those who require it,
not for the recreational consumer.
We need to ensure people know what is being consumed, that is one way to reduce the harms.
We cannot wait for nothing to happen. We saw it with alcohol because the same examples that you give me
about cannabis, about ***, I could give you about alcohol,
we all know, I'm sorry, we all know we all consume alcohol,
we all consume alcohol but only a few are drunks, or let's say heavy drinkers,
only a few kill people on automobiles. -The same with ***.
And as some people say, society accepts because there's no way to avoid that harm that exists,
that collateral damage, more or less reduced, punctual.
Now, you would be saying to me, for example if *** was regulated,
good quality, you are telling me that the number from the United Nations would be the same and 90% of people in Chile
would consume once and again or in a regular way, the same as the control, as we consume alcohol,
and only a 10% would fall to the situation equivalent to alcoholism?
I pointed two things, one is that it reduces the damage because you know exactly what is being consumed
and you can look after the health of the consumer,
but above all, you can stop criminalising people.
In other words, stop making them feel that they are being persecuted for using a drug.
I prefer reducing the harms, educating, talking about the subject,
that we do what was achieved with tobacco.
Children, if you look at the statistics that we were talking about a while earlier,
from the 8th to the 4th grades there's a 20% prevalence of cannabis use,
and if you take a look on what happened with tobacco, it is no longer fashionable to consume tobacco among children,
because, at least the mother or father, or whoever is the head of the house,
mother, mother, father, father,
can sit on the table and are able to talk about the subject.
The pack of cigarettes in New Zealand, they can no longer make propaganda,
this is an advance,
There are good practices for regulation of alcohol and tobacco regulation
that we can learned from to implement.
-With alcohol, please, they make publicity all the time, t-shirts... -But there are things that we can learn.
-We can learn how to harmonise these two systems. -Did you know that you can buy alcohol on the high-way?
-Obviously, I said it here once.
-You know how when you buy integral bread, they have to tell you what's in that integral bread.
-The problem with alcohol is that it is not regulated. -And you buy a bottle of pisco and don't know
what's in that bottle of pisco.
But you go to a cannabis dispensary in California, I'm sorry, and they tell you THC contents, where it comes from, etc, etc.
It seems to me that the concept, if you want at the bottom, that is being pointed here is,
look, this is the State, and the State tolerates these two drugs,
alcohol and tobacco, I'm just going to use these two,
These drugs you can consume as much as you want,
you can buy them at the kiosk, you can buy them as a child as you do with,
I don't know, a cartoon magazine.
You buy a pack of cigarettes there.
You can take according to whatever your criteria is. All that is great, but with no other drug you can do it like that.
All of the other are forbidden like if, indeed, human behaviour is governed by the line of those things
that are harmful to you but that they tolerate that you do them.
The question is the same for all three, if you want, it is the logic of those who believe that
you cannot pass the ads, I mean, in the past you couldn't pass AIDS ads
there were channels that did not broadcasted AIDS publicity,
because it included the possibility of you using a ***,
and people back then said: "No, what they should do, they have to abstain, people shouldn't be excited
and have *** relationships, they can't."
And therefore the ads were not broadcasted because it introduced the *** variable.
Here its exactly the same. It says to you, the whole State pushes you so that if you want to use drugs you use them,
this drug or that drug,
but not the other drugs, and I think that is really dumb.
I give you a complementary example, what has happened with
the two States that have regulated, now, they are the only ones we have with true regulation.
-Why don't you say legalisation? You think the word is too heavy? -No, it's not like that, not at all.
-Well legalised, if that is the truth. -You know what happens? You could legalise only one part,
when you regulate, you regulate everything,
and that is where I'm going.
we have to regulate. If you regulate one drug you cannot regulate only the consumption, you have to regulate the trafficking chain which is providing you this drug.
-Obviously. -And the legalisation models. They are split models,
that's where I'm going.
-You have to apply taxes. -Sure, you can also apply taxes.
But the decriminalisation examples are very good ones,
look at Portugal, country that decriminalised every kind of drugs and could focus on those who had a problem,
when there are sedentary, hard hands that contain organised crime and consumption
even among youth, they lower it, they reduce it.
So there is no evidence that tells me that if drugs are decriminalised or regulated consumption is going to sky rocket.
Eduardo Vergara, have a very good night. Thank you very much for being here with us.
Thank you.
Trnscribed by Victor Castellanos, Espolea, Mexico Translated by Brun Gonzalez, Espolea, Mexico