 creo que vamos a empezar. Esto es el panel sobre la mesa redonda, sobre innovaciones en América Latina. Muchas gracias por estar aquí, muchas gracias por mostrar un interés en la región. América Latina sin duda es una de las regiones más impactadas por la guerra contra las drogas. Escuchamos en las noticias todos los días sobre estos impactos y para muchas activistas de los Estados Unidos solo escuchan de esa parte, pero hoy vamos a hablar de innovaciones, vamos a hablar de todo lo que está sucediendo, donde hay esperanza, donde hay reforma, donde hay ciertos avances en Uruguay, el debate en México y también un poco sobre el proceso en la organización de Estados americanos, los informes que han salido. Tal vez han escuchado algo de eso, pero no conocen muy bien cómo es, vamos a hablar cómo está pasando la cosa, el tema de política de drogas en toda la región y en las organizaciones multilaterales que nos controlan a veces y a veces nos dan oportunidades. También sabemos que a nivel regional y internacional los países están impulsando cambios, que fue México, Colombia y Guatemala, que pidieron una sesión especial en las Naciones Unidas. ¿Pero qué están haciendo a nivel local? ¿Qué está pasando dentro de sus países? Vamos a empezar un poco en ese rango. Por fortuna tenemos un grupo de personas que conocen muy bien el tema, el contexto y los cambios que están sucediendo. Jana y yo estamos muy agradecidos que todos están aquí, muchas gracias y a todos ustedes también por estar aquí. Buen día a todos, voy a presentarles a nuestros panelistas, empezando a mi izquierda, tenemos a Julio Calzada, secretario general de la Junta Nacional de Drogas del Uruguay, Fernando Velanzarán, Diputado Federal de México, Pablo Sirmerman, colegador de Relaciones Internacionales de la Asociación Civil Intercambios de Argentina, Marcela Tobal, consultora de Acción Técnica Social en Colombia, Pedro Abobay, director del Programa América Latina y el Caribe de la Open Society Foundations y el Néstor Cortes de la Asociación Costa de Quince de Estudios y Intervención en Drogas. Bueno, no sé si quiere decir quién es para mí. Ah, y yo soy Jana Hetzer, Drogos y Armada. Tell us a little bit about the current status of that bill. Representatives in the Senate, it was discussed during eight long months in the House of Representatives, but there was a special commission that was formed to bring this to fruit, which happened on August 31st by a vote in the House, and then it went to the Senate, the Senate Health Committee, and it will certainly be absolutely, there's no reason to believe you won't. He's the one who motivated it, who pushed it, and he's the one who's made it possible to initiate this entire process of debate and almost there's nothing to indicate that the law won't pass in the country. So that's the big difference between the initiatives here in the United States in Colorado and Washington. They were motivated by popular vote, by citizen vote. And in Uruguay and other countries it's coming more from the higher government levels. Fernando, what's happening in Mexico now? Where's the debate? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Hannah, for inviting us to this panel. This year of debate that we've had in Mexico, what we're seeing is a growing debate because during the six years if it's been worth anything, it has shown us that the war against drugs is pointless. Felipe Calderón, he's the one who has led us into this disaster situation. We are much worse off than when this war against the drugs started. It began, and I'm talking more about when it escalated. And given these results and given what's going on in the world, I presented an initiative to regulate marijuana two weeks after the referendum in Washington, Colorado. And of course, that has helped to change. We have a better climate to do that in. And it's been taken very seriously. The Mexican Congress, as part of the Mexican government, decided to send a delegation to this convention, to this program. We have two of our representatives here in the audience with us. In the federal district, the debate has also been promoted by leaders in our community. Mexico City is the most open city. It's the only place in the country where we were able to achieve legal abortion. There's gay marriage. And women's rights have had a lot of success. And that's been, in Mexico City, our representatives have a different perspective. What I would say is there's a strong debate. And it's been shown that the prohibition paradigm doesn't work. And it doesn't meet any of its goals. It creates a lot of undesirable, brutal consequences. There have been hundreds of thousands of deaths and people who have disappeared. It's a humanitarian crisis. Yesterday, I found out about something. We talk a lot about people who have died, about the murders, the high costs. But I see that the U.S., the United States also pays a high price for a massive incarceration because of drugs. And we have paid a very high cost for something that has failed. And we want to build a different paradigm. And we ask the United Nations to have a meeting expected as a result of that failure. And I hope that the Mexican government will come to that meeting as a promoter of that new paradigm. So everything stays the same. That would be shameful and pathetic. That in both sides of the board, there are many problems associated with drug dealing. We have heard a lot about the violence drug. It's about making drugs illegal. And especially looking at that. But I think that there is a possibility of reforms. What do you think now? And what is your opinion? En la religión centralamericana, despite the fact that it is a small region, there are many differences. The northern countries, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are living through a very different situation than the one that we live in. Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In Honduras, they are living with your living in Mexico. It's an open war. Homicides and Hondurans, the rate of homicide is the highest rate in the world right now. The difference in Costa Rica where we have a very different context. In fact, it's been ten years that drug consumption has been decriminalized. The law, the law, it's against putting somebody in jail for treatment drugs again. And the Department of State said that it made it possible for people to have to be able to have the drug states. It's been there has been the social security system and the health department have decided to have instituted this and there has been a whole lot of treatments for people who are in terms of drug consumption. But there is an institute for drug and alcohol addiction that has been dealing with this issue for the past 15 years. There's been a big change this past year. They reduce the sentences for women that would introduce drug contraband to the jails. They have to do something with fairness and parity. Absorbing and understanding that it has to do with property and economic conditions. So in Costa Rica it's going through a different situation. There's a different dynamic going on and we look forward to organizing a conference and it will be a great event and it will be a great venue and it will be the fourth conference on the drug policy and it will be the first one that is Central America. For those that would like to go it will be the conference on drug policy in Costa Rica. So sometimes it's much easier to talk about just marijuana but we know of many frameworks and we are discussing about other drugs in a very creative way. Can you talk about what's going on in Colombia and what are you implementing or experimenting with? Good morning. You cannot be absent from the... the fact that we're consumers and we're producers and that... how we need to think round and both we have negotiations with the FRARC where there has been... and the government and the guerrillas have taken the position in relationship to the use of pesticides and there has been very detrimental effects in regards to the use of pesticides but also it affects the consumption and in that areas production and how the state's going to respond and we have the in-ground in terms of the consumers of psychotrappites in Colombia after the initiative in terms of the amount of professional consumption the work came forth is the land law that the force institutions to provide treatment for folks that are considered addicts now there is the self-conception. There is another thing that the state is not able to carry out the number of institutions I started instituting the exchange for needles in Colombia there is a high consumption of heroin and there is a number of cases of HIV where heroin is production is in the pacific coast in the border in the area of Pereira, near the Colombian border so we are dealing with high state representatives they are the ones that are locating the distribution of needles but they also work with the secretary of state and we are trying to carry out a chemical study about what the benefits of marijuana those that are addicted to coca-paste people who live in the streets and that when they are in high need of the substance will carry out crimes to be able to get a few guns, a few pesos in why they call it Paco you guys might call it Paco it is consumed by a lot of people it has a lot of it does a lot of harm to your body it is also lead to crime and we also know that if you are if you deal it causes a lot of anxiety it leads to more crimes but there can be a transition to health care consumption or the end of the addiction and now we are trying to document this and the use of anecdotal evidence is to deal with the bigger problems that is one of the bigger problems we have we don't have any kind of evidence you have to share your results with us you have to have the support to get the evidence it is very difficult to do clinical studies about this, well we need right now a support from the national government because as you can imagine there are problems from the legal perspective there are 19 plans each person has allowed to have each plan so in social civil spaces we can create a network among individuals to develop certain varieties but then you have authorization from the national council of drugs that they are willing to experiment with 15,000 plans to try to carry out scientific studies but we have not been authorized because the national drug policy council has blocked it very interesting reforms but what do these changes mean for the region? Pablo what has been the role of international organizations as well as the organization of American states in relation to this, hello good morning well it is true that social organizations are trying to fight to reform drug policy for many years in the last few years maybe because of the changes, important changes that the different governments have gone through going towards more going towards progressive governments what we are doing in some of the initiatives in terms of the multilateral organizations that are organizations that are formed by governments that are there the governments that should be giving the leadership their departments of states can work on these things now there is also there was a very important threshold that was crossed in the region which was the formation of the Latin American commission that was formed by different ex presidents that began to discuss the failure of the drug policies also some current presidents began to express the Japanese this rapid chronology that I am putting together at the summit of the Americas in Cartagena that took place last year the president Santos put forward a debate in that summit it wasn't very fruitful but it forced the OAS secretariat to carry out to elaborate a report or was the situation and the results of drug policies in the regions as a result of that work we have two reports one that it's an analysis and one that describes different scenarios that describes it's useful because what would be the possible scenarios depending on what steps the government takes in those scenarios you can see some of the things that we've been proposing things like the ones that have been done with the results that we are all familiar with the OAS has began to play a role a prominent role in this debate and this year we began to the General Assembly of the OAS for the first time we had a central issue the discussion on the drug issue that assembly had a resolution that includes some of the issues that we've been putting forward but there was no consensus on some of the more difficult issues what controversial is this and the idea has been tried but this gives us some time to continue to think about these issues and to come back to convene the Special Assembly maybe in October in Antioa, Guatemala this process of the OAS is going hand in hand with the General Assembly of the OAS like the Panamerican Health Organization he made a statement in this previous assembly and has reaffirmed that and has put forward the drug issue as a healthcare issue and basing its steps on the studies and the issues of human rights this issue had never been put forward before and now there is at least discourse there is a change in the agencies that could help and be favorable to the steps that some of the governments at the particular place and to provide support to the initiative that civil society is putting forward and to share with some of my colleagues here is the high visibility of what is happening in the Americas I have been attending conferences of DPA and there has always been a panel about Latin America so we have to take some of the panel have to come down from the podium of those who were attending and there was very little interest in the American society and among the participants of the DPA conferences but the interest that this is awakening now this strengthens that we are doing it it gives more visibility and on the other hand it enables us to be able to come back and to be able to carry out the activities that we are doing thank you very much you have been talking about processes and institutions and governments what do people think in your countries do you want to talk about Brazil please tell us a little bit but it is not necessary and what's been the influence of the church the Catholic church I think as far as public opinion goes, if you look at the region there exists a certain position that's very similar amongst almost all the countries in the region when you ask somebody about drug legalization in general you get a very negative response of course countries are changing a little but generally speaking about 78% are against it it's not the same when you ask me about marijuana in many countries in some cities it's different but generally that's our reality in our region you could look at those numbers and you could say let's change the subject the reality of those numbers is that they are starting to change and I think there's some things we need to understand to understand those numbers and how to deal with them the first thing that we need to realize is that we're talking about a subject that for 50 years it's been imposed on generations people I mean, now it is even people who are 78 years old grew up with their solving experience while they grew up was a world in which the ideology was a war against drugs that was imposed on them and specifically in Latin America that imposition from the outside from the north has been very strong and so we're talking about starting to work with prejudices that are inculcated in everybody's consciousness I think that the American example doesn't work there because in 1997 here in the United States 73% of the American population was against marijuana legalization and now 58% of people are in favor of it that shows us first that it's possible to change and change here has a lot to do of course there are many reasons but I think it has a lot to do with the stigma that a marijuana consumer isn't necessarily just the idea of a person a young guy related to crime and everything when you start seeing that it could be executives middle-aged ladies when that stigma starts to change and drugs it starts to occur to people that it's inconsistent so I think there's a lot of work to do in Latin America and we need to believe that it's possible to break the stigma I think that there's something else the fact that they weren't of popular interest it was very hard to talk about those subjects but traditional political organizations unions, parties they weren't interested in it they might have had opinions I was in the government for years and I know that a lot of people say I agree with you guys but I can't talk about that in public and that creates a vicious cycle because no one is going to talk and if it's the only way to take what you do the innovation the new communication devices social media, the internet people are being able to work with agendas that used to be blocked against traditional organizations but we have the example of the Iguana March there were always a whole lot of people in the streets and after that phenomenon no parties supported it, no unions supported it but they had 10,000 people in the street in the cities so there's a possibility of change to mobilize people now and lastly I think something that's important to say is change when some politicians talk about the subject and have civil society supporting them it's hard to find allies in this sometimes but we have to create alliances partnerships around that subject and the Latin American Commission has been formed by a president didn't necessarily have a strong relationship with the progressive movements in their countries resisted support but support of civil society in these movements is fundamental and it can be a real change with connections with society as far as the catholic church I think hope was in Latin America recently and it's been a big surprise because he didn't talk about anything about morality hardly, he didn't talk about gay marriage, he didn't talk about abortion everyone was expecting that from a conservative standpoint of course, but he talked about drugs but he said two things, the first thing he said was that it's important to have compassion and to take care of consumers that's not the policy of most Latin American countries when we see how treatment is carried out we don't see care and compassion or solidarity, not Christian or otherwise to the contrary, their torture houses their torture houses throughout the continent that's how treatment exists in most countries having the church as an ally to really think about decriminalizing for consumers I think it's possible what he said was that he was very concerned that many Latin American leaders were talking about a world of free drug use and he said that was very bad and I think we all agree with the Pope on that I mean, not everyone but what is free use of drugs do you want access to crack or marijuana or whatever easy, easy enough free access is easy if a kid wants access to those things he can get it, no problem I think the Uruguayan example is different, they say we want responsible regulation not about free use, alcohol is subject to free use free access to it, in Brazil nowadays where the Pope was we have events like the World Soccer Championship that's sponsored by by drug organizing companies I'm talking about alcohol companies and that's free use and I think that's where the debate needs to be when the church says that it's against free use open use then we have to set a debate to say there's a program that we have in the area that's free use of drugs and now we have to exercise a responsible regulation on drugs that are legal and illegal this is very shocking that in a few years that public opinion changed to be in favor of legalization almost 30% changed but here our policies are a little behind the process here it's a reverse process talking about the public we're going to open it for round of questions for the panels or for a specific panelist if you want to ask a question just raise your hand we're going to take these 4 questions and then we're going to let them respond ok, if you can raise your hand otherwise we're going to do another round at the end can I ask in English? The question is what has been the role that social movements, human rights organizations grassroots organizations and what has been the impact that the time has been the impact that the top down processes have on this I have 2 questions I have a comment and a question my comment is that last week I was not so well I was surprised to see that the the change of rock policy and for a more health oriented perspective is the evangelical church plays a very conservative role but I think that there is a whole universe of actors in this scenario that we sometimes want to think about and I would like to ask also if I could ask if there is some kind of initiative local or state level to modify the rock policy today or if the issues is not going anywhere right now hello, thank you my name is David Dillon and I was born and raised in Miami and now I'm a researcher in criminal justice I am for the representatives from Mexico and Colombia and maybe also the man from Brazil almost all these problems that we are trying to change they are interrelated for example from 2008 to 2008 in Mexico the production of heroin has multiplied many times before 2007 and the problem with drug cartels is that they were more tied to marijuana this problem with marijuana is not just marijuana because the cartels are going to remain after the reforms and now when we are talking about the changes that we can do the changes have to have they will have their own consequences this problem I think is we have to do a coordinated effort a concentrated effort not just in one country but in a number of countries not just in one market if you could use the microphones interpret thank you the next round I'm going to ask but if you could go to Miss Maria quickly good morning I want to talk about I want to discuss an issue that our representative came from Mexico he talked about the most important issue is the legalization but he just discussed a problem that is critical in Mexico if my sisters can please stand up we are victims of the war that is being carried out against organized crime but we know that this war was carried out against society I am a mother I have four of my sons are disappeared we have been in all the meetings we have been everywhere where we think that we can get support I want to ask a direct question to the representative what have you done or what have you done to try to prevent the strategy that we are living in Mexico and I also want to ask you another question what do you intend to do because the truth is we are living a horrible situation and we are not receiving the support that we should be getting as victims we want to know what you are doing to help us find our dear ones to disappear we are just a sample we are just a spec of what is being experiencing in Mexico I want to remind I want to insist these four kids that I have lost and for five years and five months I have been looking for them we know that all those that are going what has been discussed in all these nations is very important but we are being skin alive day after day and we don't get any support from our representatives from our senators in terms of our efforts to find our dear ones I want to know in the name of all my brothers and sisters here what is it that you have done and what are you going to do to take responsibility for this we have been here we have gone to Washington we have gone everywhere that we can go and not because they are giving us the not because we are getting the support in Mexico, we are here because of the support that all of you as society in general that you have been supporting us for these trips so we can be here in all the and to try to get all the possible changes the United States and Mexico are tied together why not come together in the effort to find our dear ones you are taking our lives away piece by piece we don't know why or how we know we need your support Mr. Representative and we need to see each other in Mexico so you can give us an answer you tell us what are you going to do or what are you going to promise I know just promises we want the real thing we want to have our dears once back we don't know if they are alive or dead or if they have something to eat or if they are getting treatment I tell you as a mother I get treatment because I have thousands of people around me that give me support and take care of me but my kids tell me about my kids if I can know if they are listening to me I want them to know that my voice I want my voice to reach them that I never stop that each and every one of the mothers in Mexico are in the same situation I take advantage of this now the fact that I am here to tell you the representative we want your help not just yours but all your colleagues and all the people that are here represent in your delegation thank you very much and we love you very much we have been able to do together with victims who are very well organized we have a victim act that has been approved but anything we do will not be enough because there are some things that can't be fixed there are other issues that we have to work on but to fix such deep hurt such deep harm is not possible and we are talking about these absurd facets of war to think that public health issues are going to be solved by war and violence and murder because war that is the most painful and harmful thing that can exist and the suffering that we see that we know is tremendous I would like to acknowledge civil society in Mexico and of course the movement toward dignity and justice I would like to acknowledge and recognize them because what they have done they have used their pain as a foundation to try to stop this organization in the first few years they killed themselves inside Pearson and the victims we said that the victims were guilty for their own murders and they used to treat victims as if they were responsible for that situation for having been killed or abducted and I think that one of the most important things that this movement has done is to reach consciousness and make society much more sensitive to the issue the movement is very important it's not only important for that sector but for other sectors Mexico needs and has to find a way to control time we are against this absurd war there are multiple organizations legislatively what you've been able to do is to pass a victims act a victims law we are fundamental we make it a habit pito at the ball and then we were able to achieve it that's what we can do in the legislature I know that's not enough of course it's not about me and many lawmakers who are committed to ending this absurd war want to stop pursuing and persecuting the users the people who are making the most of our criminals they are making the biggest profits they are making so much money of the black market one way or another they it's not society they have generated what they've generated I mean that profit that's what predominates and it's heartbreaking of course there are many other things we need to do I think we need to set up a commission of truth a commission of truth to invest in all the crimes that have been committed all the injustice but I have to repeat the justice always be partial because to fix pain to make pain go away is impossible but what should be done should be done and we have to maintain a memory history and make the same mistakes and if we want to get out of this vicious cycle not let it happen not let the same thing happen again we have to do something different therefore we have to change the policy and the paradigm against drugs of course we have to look for people who are inductive of discipline and we have to we have to fight y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y 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