OAS Drug Report Envisions Growing Legalization in Western Hemisphere Matt Sledge - The Huffington Post
go to original May 18, 2013

The Organization of American States on Friday released a report laying out a future in which more countries in the Western Hemisphere legalize marijuana.

Although marijuana decriminalization and legalization was only one "scenario" outlined in the report, drug policy reform advocates praised it as a sign of an increasingly open conversation about alternatives to the war on drugs. The OAS delivered the report to Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos. It commissioned the report at last year's Americas summit in Cartagena, Colombia.

Trying "alternative legal and regulatory regimes, starting with cannabis," the report found, could lead to "reallocation of resources from controlling drugs and drug users to preventing and treating problematic use (and) shrinkage of some criminal markets and profits through regulation."

... That discussion may continue in a June assembly the OAS will hold in Guatemala. There is far from a consensus within the organization about how to handle changes to drug policy, but reformers say they are encouraged that it is no longer taboo for prominent leaders to discuss legalization.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

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