ABSTRACT: The author, director of the Instituto de Estudios Liberales, illustrates the reasons why various segments of public opinion in Colombia have reached the conclusion that their state is the foremost victim of prohibitionism and how the anti-prohibitionist theory is steadily gaining ground. As a matter of fact, three influential political figures in Colombia have stated being in favor of drug legalization: Jaime Castro and Ernesto Samper, running for president of the Liberal Party, and Rodrigo Lloreda, a conservative candidate.

Colombia is caught up in a spiral of criminal violence triggered by powerful drug traffickers and those in the industrialized countries who run and benefit from dealing in narcotics. For this reason, various segments of public opinion are drawing inceasingly closer to the anti-proibitionsist theory.

The Institute of Liberal Studies got this campaign under way by demanding a shift in official policy towards an alternative, entailing the following four conditions:

- number one, that the theory be ethically valid. Depenalization is ethically valid since its alternative, prohibitionism, has not only been unable to reduce drug use (as a matter of fact, the number of users is increasing every year), but has added the ugly extra cost of street crime in the US or Europe and terrorism in Colombia or Turkey.

- number two, that the innocent are provided suitable protection. Legalization protects the innocent, because the dealer who performs street sales will have no incentive to cause the addiction of new clients; moreover, because the huge amounts of money currently being used to stamp out drug use (over $10 billion this year in the US), could be used in prevention, for treating drug addicts and crop replacement.

- number three, that of getting to the bottom of the issue, not merely dealing with its consequences. Decriminalization goes to the root of the problem because both drug-related crime and drug-related terrorism are due to the fact that narcotics are so stringently banned and so highly lucrative. And the very reason why they are lucrative is because they are prohibited. Drugs exploit the willingness of many persons to pay large sums of money for illegal merchandise: thus in the industrialized countries there are between 30 and 40 million users, who spend an estimated $30-50 billion US each year.

- number four, that an international approach be framed for confronting an international challenge. An international approach is needed because it is useless for Colombia to unilaterally decriminalize the sale of narcotics unless a new international

convention is phased in along the same lines.

Leading political figures have subscribed to such a proposal. Jaime Castro and Ernesto Samper are currently running for the presidency of the majority Liberal party and Rodrigo, a conserative party candidate, having publicly pledged their support for "depenalization", "step-by-step depenalization", "monitored legalization" and "regulation of drug manufacture". This would mean drafting legal procedures, commercial laws and user guidelines for psychotropic substances.

According to Jaime Castro, the Declaration of Cartagena, signed by Presidents Bush, Barco, Garcia and Paz Zamora, does not alter the strategy heretofore used in the struggle against trafficking. It adds nothing new in that producing countries face nothing but outright repression with the offer of unspecified economic aid, and the user, nothing but the well-known prevention and rehabilitation rhetoric. In other words, Colombia will continue to shoulder the main onus in this struggle, whatever the cost may be. Thus, it is important to question whether different strategies, at lesser costs, may yield better results. It is a commitment the countries beset with this problem must face. The commitment must be met without taboos, false moralism or emotional positions, but with objectiveness and earnestness. This new approach does not imply relaxation, lack of control or permisiveness, because it does not lead to a total liberalization of supply, commerce or drug use itself. It would represent, however, a conc

erted action between the state and society which would undermine the tremendous manufacturing capability of drug trafficking, its vast corruptive power and its habitat of crime and violence. Ernesto Samper Pizano argues that the scenario or warfare against drug trafficking must not be limited merely to Colombia. "We will not allow our country to be turned into a Vietnam because of 40 million drug addicts." Therefore, either a clear compromise is reached to regulate drug use in the affluent countries or else the issue of international legalization must be confronted. In the interim, Colombia cannot continue to pay the price of this war while being devoid of any real support from without. "What we need is not an impetuous military squad, nor congratulatory pats on the back, but rather proper prices for coffee and markets for our export goods."

Finally, Rodrigo Lloreda, a presidential candidate of the Social Conservative Party, emphasizes that it is one matter to put an end to drug traffickers and another to put an end to drug trafficking. Drug traffickers may be done away with by accepting their public and reiterated surrender, with the proviso that those committing acts of international terrorism be tried, through international supervision, for crimes relating to breach of martial law, prior to the compensation of victims. It will be impossible, however, to do away with drug trafficking until such time as there exists in consumer countries a high demand and until the same stringent sanctions we are pressing for are enacted in those countries, or better yet, until the manner of coping with the problem is decriminalized.

The previous proposals issued by Colombia on world decriminalization contain the moral authority of a country which has paid the highest price in terrorism, loss of human lives, institutional upheaval, limitation of national sovereignty, unhinging of its judicial apparatus, altering of its economic framework, corruption and deterioration of its moral values.