Unilateralism

It is true that spokesperson John Feeley does not hold a position of significant responsibility: He has barely settled in as the U.S. Department of State’s coordinator for the Summit of the Americas. This has not prevented him, however, from officially representing the government of the United States. Feely stated, in an apparently trifling tone, that while the United States is opposed to the decriminalization of drugs, he does not believe that there is a problem if other countries try to do so in some way.

Did we hear him correctly? Readers will recall the thousands of times during which we have been threatened with scenarios in which a country like Colombia would be crucified by the world, especially by the centurions of the gringo government, should there be a unilateral move to suspend the fateful War on Drugs which has accumulated more than 40 years of strife in its wake. What fear! Aircraft carriers from the imperial United States were on their way to bomb us back onto the straight and narrow if we even toyed with the idea of disobedience.

I never fully believed in this apocalyptic prophecy and at times suggested that the paths of unilateralism be approached with caution, but for the leaders of the Colombian state, the threat of avenging aircraft carriers was literally guaranteed. Today, in an about-face, these same American officials are inviting us to experiment with what we otherwise would have. They are, in effect, suspending the threats.

In realpolitik terms, what Feeley said means that the government of Barack Obama cannot, for the moment, take any definitive action regarding anti-drug politics since that would be hurtful in an election year, especially given an increasingly volatile white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (the famous WASP) majority. However, the government too has come to the conclusion that the darned War on Drugs is an outrageous exercise in futility and that other countries need to come together with legislation that will immediately go into effect and overrule prior anti-drug policies in such a way as to allow [the American government] to throw up its hands somewhere down the road [without losing face] and hem and haw a little before accepting what a good majority of the world will have accepted: Drugs must be legalized. The American government is clearly not in a position to spearhead this paradigm change (much as the Republican Party, given its brusque radicalism, is not in a position to lead anything close to civilized change) despite the fact that it realized it has the option to dodge the bullet.

I’m not saying that the end of the War on Drugs, and consequently the radical diminishing of narcotrafficking, is right around the corner. In countries, notorious among which is Colombia, that have fallen victim to narcotrafficking, the myopia inherent to those in the majority would actually conspire against the war’s demise. Nonetheless, options to reduce the damage can be immediately accelerated and pilot plans can be made to legalize drugs in all of Latin America. As Voltaire said, “Everything is dangerous in this world, even caution.” The idea is to frighten away the fear that is spreading even now and be prepared to manage the potential ill effects of this trend in public health. The campaign against tobacco, which has been so successful in developed countries, particularly the United States, is the model that must be studied in this respect.

This is big news: the day is finally in sight when the bloody waste that is the War on Drugs and the consequent abusive intervention of the state in the private lives of individuals will cease. We should pop champagne, remembering that at one time alcohol was also prohibited.