Legalizing Drugs, the White House and a Man Named Santos

It is December in Washington. The White House receives news that the FARC has just kidnapped five DEA agents and will only release them if the Colombian government frees an imprisoned narco-guerilla leader. The president of the United States gives the order to enter Colombian air space without informing Bogota. But instead of rescuing the hostages, the mission loses a helicopter and nine soldiers. It is quite a blow. The gringo leader calls the Colombian president, an individual named M. Santos, and tells him flat out that “90 minutes ago we entered your air space.” Santos thanks him for the call, releases the prisoner and saves the hostages.

The events lead the gringo president to a deep meditation about the war on drugs. “I don’t know who we’re fighting against, but I know we’re not winning,” he says. Sixty percent of the prisoners in his country are locked up because of drug trafficking. “We imprison a higher percentage of our citizens than Russia under Communism or South Africa under apartheid,” he laments.

Convinced that “we finance both sides of this war (combatants and consumers), so we will never win,” he asks his advisors to study alternatives to the failed model. In addition, the secretary of Health, Education and Welfare of the USA believes in legalizing marijuana consumption. But a poll reveals that 69 percent of Americans are opposed to legalization, and faced with this figure, the president backs off and continues, against his better judgment, the useless war.

The above story is from an episode of “The West Wing”, Aaron Sorkin’s masterful TV series, broadcast in February 2001. The Colombian president’s last name is pure coincidence — Sorkin was ten years early in choosing it. The figures, the failure of the war on drugs and the arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana are completely real and well-documented. As far as the meekness with which “M. Santos” tolerates the incursion of DEA airplanes, I doubt that any Colombian leader, including the one who was in charge at that time, would have been so accepting.

It is interesting that ten years ago a fictitious TV series would dare to make this proposal. But “life imitates art,” and the day will come in which a U.S. president will imitate the actor Martin Sheen and decide to change the current anti-drug model, which has increased the consumption of the product it prohibits, enriched drug dealers, armed violent groups, destroyed thousands of homes, corrupted institutions and broken fragile democracies. This is exactly what happened with the notorious prohibition of alcohol in the ’20s: Prohibition was accepted as constitutional dogma, right up to the day the politicians overturned it.

Recent statements by [Colombian President] Juan Manuel Santos in The Guardian Observer, where he proposed the universal decriminalization of drugs, caused the prestigious London paper to publish an editorial in support: “It is unconscionable for the leaders of the largest consuming nations — the U.S., U.K. and Spain — to remain silent any longer. The habits of their citizens are not only directly responsible for the wasted lives of many Latin Americans … The war on drugs has failed. When policies fail it is incumbent on our leaders to look for new ones.”

Santos had the courage to speak out on a subject that is often discussed in whispers. He should continue doing so, repeatedly, clearly and fearlessly, in multiple forums. He will surely gather allies. And one day, he may well gain the support of the occupant of the West Wing.