 I would ask you to make some reflections on the current situation in Latin America where we stand in this debate about drugs. And I would ask our panelists to make some comments. I would like to introduce them first. Mr. Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary-General of the OES, Mr. Oscar Naranjo, Director of the Instituto Latino Americano Ciudadini of Mexico, then Michael Bodicelli, Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drugs, and finally Washington Oliveira from the Cultural Project Afroregia from Brazil, a perspective of the communities in the street. Thank you very much for being with us. Therefore, I'm going to ask the panel members, as I just said, to give us in this plenary an outlook, some ideas on the current situation of the status quo in Latin America in order to launch the conversation. Introduction of where we're standing, sort of a diagnosis of the status quo. So thank you for allowing me to be here today. I find it a distinct honor that we're able to talk about this in such global terms. We are very proud to have just released yesterday our 2013 National Drug Control Strategy. That strategy is based on a balanced approach in the view that drug use and its consequences are a public health issue. And I think it acknowledges the fact that this is a complex public health issue that is not solved by looking at it by a war on drugs policy or a legalization policy, but this is a very complex issue that requires a complex and comprehensive response that we need to focus on demand reduction and supply reduction on the development of our social institutions and on criminal justice reform. So I think that we have really looked at how do we arrive at a science-based scientific policy relative to implementing drug policy in the United States. Mr. Secretary, can you give us our regional perspective? Yes, thank you very much. Of course, we have been discussing this issue for a long time. But during these last two or three years, it has become a much more urgent topic. And of course, this is related to the high consumption of drugs that is more or less stable at the moment, but it is also related to the violence and the crime that is related to drugs and that is current in many countries in the region and has increased the sense of alarm of citizens. That is why it is necessary to have a very comprehensive debate and also to have a wider perspective, as has just been said. This is fundamental and that there is a consensus that drugs are already a health-related issue. People who consume drugs are not treated anymore like criminals, but as drug addicts that it is necessary care of from a health point of view. But it is also necessary from the point of view of the Americas to try to attack this phenomenon in all its aspects. There are drugs everywhere in the whole world, sometimes is producing the drugs, trafficking them, selling them and making money on drugs. And this is happening throughout our region. I would say that in this region, all the steps are followed in a very significant manner. That is why it is necessary to take into account that drugs are also affecting the security and the stability in many of our countries. This is a very important topic for us. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Naranjo, from the point of view of citizenship, security and the work of the community, can you give us your perspective? Thank you very much. It's a real privilege to share this panel with so many important personalities. I would say that this debate on drugs is closely linked to a kind of humanitarian emergency that Latin America is going through. Latin America is currently the region in which there are more violent deaths in the world. And it is true that these violence has many causes, but there is no doubt that drug consumption amongst us is closely linked to the violence based on criminal economies. This is the first reflection. The second one is that Latin America is showing today that public policies to address this phenomenon are imperfect, incomplete. And we have to take into account that drugs in Latin America have been seen not only from a consumption issue, but also they are related to an appetite for power amongst groups in Latin America. And that is why finally we confuse the victims and the criminals in these policies. And we have tried to repress crimes these last years. But now we are facing a humanitarian calamity and emergency. And therefore our current policies or the old policies are dysfunctional. That is why we are happy that under the leadership of the OAS and the Secretary, and also as this forum is saying it is now necessary to have a very deep reflection, well, it is not a regional problem, it's a global problem. Washington, from the point of view of the favelas in Brazil, what is your diagnosis in order to understand this issue? It is necessary to realize that in the favelas in Rio we have had genocides, but we have been working with communities that in order to reach the people who have been victims of these crimes, and there are a lack of policies of education, of health, and social inclusiveness. I was drug trafficking and I entered the crime world when I was 13. I was just a child and I became a leader in drug trafficking in a community in Rio. And I can tell you that I have been the witness. I am 37 now. I have been the witness of a great number of crimes because of these confrontations, more than 300 crimes. Therefore I believe that we should discuss all these issues so that no more people die because the people I'm talking about are very poor and miserable and they are at the basis of the social pyramid. Therefore it is necessary to take care of them because up to now their social inclusion policy has been lacking and I have been rescued from this crime and therefore now I want to help other people. And until they are repented like myself, they are part of a group with which I have been working. I am working so that these people have new opportunities and at least they have a hand that is extended to them so that they don't fall in this trap that is drug trafficking. Thank you very much, Washington. Now I'm going to ask the first question. I'm going to ask several questions to the panel and I'm going to change a little the order of the questions after Washington's comment. There is a concept that there is a war against drugs and the Mexican and the U.S. government are applying this concept. But the media is also based on what the people tell us. We are at the border between Mexico and the U.S. and people tell us every day there are lots of violent deaths that are related to drug trafficking. Okay, therefore why not call this a war on drugs, Mr. Naranjo? Our point of view is that when there is a public security policy that involves the term war, this policy loses its nature because war is not a concept that can be applied to citizens' security and public security. The concept of war is polarizing because it means losers and winners, good and bad. But at the center what is questioned is human life. So security, public policy and anti-drugs policy should ban this term. When in policy, in politics we talk about security and a hard hand, what we mean is that there is desperation, there is an importance so that the rule of law really can mitigate, prevent and control the damage caused by criminality. And with regard to drug trafficking and war, from a criminal point of view, point of view of criminology, what is this logics of war? We see the disappearance of the threshold of uncertainty of the criminal. Policy is successful when there is a threshold of uncertainty for the criminal so that this person knows that there are other options besides crime. But when we add the concept of war, the only thing that happens is that the criminal knows that he has only one option, which is death. And the logic would be I kill because otherwise I will be killed, so we have to ban this concept when we formulate public policies. And when we talk about war, also there is a damage that is related to the humanization of politics. This may sound aggressive, but we are convinced that no matter how dangerous and powerful a criminal is, even if he kills in a state of law, this person should have the possibility of appearing before the law and being rehabilitated and not being killed or annihilated. When you involve the concept of war, then the criminal becomes an enemy that has to be destroyed. Whereas criminals are people that have to be subject to justice and have to be socialized and rehabilitated. During this last year, the term war has been insisted on. But each state, each society, each government had certain nuances around this concept. For some, it meant, in particular, forgetting that policies have to be comprehensive. We should have social prevention of crimes, but at the same time, security should become a public good and a democratic value for citizens. And the office you represent here is also thinking in the same tenor. I would completely agree with my panelists that a war on drugs in very human terms translates to a war on people, and that's never been part of the Obama administration's policy relative to how we deal with drug use and its consequences, that it really is this partnership between public health and public safety in looking at a balanced approach. And I think that we all know that it undermines our economy, it destabilizes our community relative to violence. And just yesterday, I had the privilege of traveling to the Waiaga Valley and to talk with many of the citizens there relative to looking at both eradication efforts as well as alternative development strategies. And one of the things that incredibly impressed me was the peace and tranquility in the valley as they've transitioned from cocoa production to cacao production and coffee production, as well as the incredible sense of pride and ownership they had in terms of being participants in the legal economy. So I do think that when we have these kind of balanced, comprehensive approaches that we have seen success. And I also think as we think about the context of criminal behavior that we also see an incredible diversification not just on drugs and illicit drug trade, but on a whole host of illegal activity. And so I think that we have to really look at this from a comprehensive response and again not just look at it from a war on drug mentality or a legalization mentality that it really does require a balanced approach and I think that we've seen success internationally and I think we've also seen success in the United States. So drug use is significantly down in the United States and I also think that we have legal substances that contribute to instability and violence like alcohol and like other in the United States we have an issue with prescription drugs and these are kind of legally regulated highly controlled substances. So so we do have to think of this as a public health issue and a public health response and in partnership with law enforcement. Mr. Secretary General, independent of the perspectives that we've heard, I understand that there is a report that is being prepared at the OAS and the demand of many regional leaders is what we're seeing unprecedented levels of violence and we need better solutions. Certainly the summit of the Americas in Cartagena did task us with preparing a report on the topic of drugs which we hope to present to President Santos who was the president of the summit and the incoming president of the summit, President Martina Leof-Panama and we'll be presenting this in the next 20 days or so. I can't talk about the conclusions yet because obviously that wouldn't be right but in any case certainly there is a topic of violence as has been mentioned here. I agree with this definition. I mean when you talk about a war, a war is you obviously have enemies and I understand that these are the criminal gangs and the criminal groups and we're not succeeding in that war. I mean they're increasingly strong and so therefore in terms of a war, I don't know that we've been very successful. Sure, we see 40, 50 percent of the shipment of cocaine in 2010 but cocaine continues to be shipped. We see increased consumption in the Western Hemisphere. There's something like 3.7 million people who are incarcerated of which 40 percent are incarcerated on drug charges and so we have a lot of prisoners in this war that we have certainly captured but the business is doing better and better and I think that in our context, I mean we're talking about a series of governments that have done research on this and that I can talk about and that's the drug business and the drug business is huge and it's 80 billion dollars a year around the globe of which 34 billion are in the United States. Now to understand, I mean this is a win-win for the drug traffickers. I mean some say they make more than others but in any case, I mean if you have a kilo of beast cocaine that leaves the jungle of one of our countries, Peru, Bolivia or Colombia, it's around three to five hundred dollars a kilo in terms of production cost and considering how much the coca leaf grower gets paid but by the time it gets to the port, it's 2,800 dollars and somebody's made a whole lot of money on that kilo and then when it shipped from that port, it's about 7,000. Now I'm not going to go through the whole chain and then it arrives at some destination and then it's transported by land or so forth into the United States in the case of the US and at this point, the kilo of course is now two because it's been cut and divided and so forth and therefore a gram ends up costing a whole lot more than the original kilo and the original brick is cost $133,000 on the streets of a major city, a major urban area so from 500 bucks we're going to $133,000 and a whole lot of money is left by the wayside and that is for corrupting people, it is for scaring people, it's for buying weapons, it's a huge business and the more we attack it from the war perspective as a business, what they're selling is risk then obviously our enemy is getting more and more powerful and because I can do more and more weapons and more and more weapons and I don't think or it's right to call it a war on drugs, on the contrary I think that everybody tries today or talks about alcohol and drugs together when talking public policy, there's a recent book in the US that was just published unfortunately I don't recollect the name of the author but the book is called quite simply clean and it talks about all the things that can be done with regard to drugs and it's a dramatic issue, one of 12 kids is using drugs rarely in the US but there is a footnote there that says that alcohol is included as a drug but it doesn't mean it produces the same impact but not the same violence that's one of the arguments that those who are in favor of legalization say I don't know whether that's actually right, I mean alcohol is legal and I don't think anybody's suggesting we should make it illegal but it does produce tremendous amounts of harm but I think that everyone at least agrees that the controls the enforcement efforts to try to get these products out of the hands of children and adolescents which is where addiction starts that is fundamental and so therefore we need a very good policy of public health that includes alcohol certainly but we also need a good public safety and security policy and I agree whole heartedly with a general on this particular note it's not a military operation it's not a war we need a good strategy for social protection to impede people from continuing to profit and to kill in Maine. Now going back to that thank you for those remarks, well Washington I'd like to ask you what is being discussed in these fora of what we're talking about these concepts of whether we call it a war or not does that have any echo on the street is that salient germane relevant or is this completely irrelevant to what's happening in the slums of the favelas of Rio or in these discussions I mean you've been to other international fora do you find that this discussion is productive or not and is there any virtuous discussion as a result of what we're talking about here do we see the impact on the street yes I think it is something that does need to be discussed and debated but we also need to put this in a proper perspective it's not even said that drugs exist around the globe certainly now Brazil is not a drug producing country we are a drug consuming nation certainly and the scourge of the lack of public policies in health care in education of effective policies has led that lower strata of society to want comfort to to want a better to have a better lifestyle and it's led them to traffic in drugs and I think that the the solution perhaps is in these communities is families I mean the families have been devastated as result of the lack of appropriate education policies and and public health policies and you end up also getting people that are imprisoned and to you the fact again the families have been decimated as a result of this and because I my I ended up being raised my grandparents because my own parents were in jail as well and and so therefore you end up getting people involved in the world of crime at the age of 12 13 years old and even younger because there's a lack of appropriate social policies targeting and focusing on the actual family and supporting the family and the children and we have to ask ourselves what is family or whether what does society really want if we look at what the needs of society if we and we I mean whether it's cocaine or whether it's marijuana we know that in Rio we have an epidemic of crack use today and that is devastating once again the lowest strata of our societies and so the question is what do we do I mean there is a policy in which the policy on drug users and trying to assist those who are actually addict but there is a relation with with crack users there are and on the topic of marijuana as the general has said there was a study done at the university in Sao Paulo where 50 people were subject to three years of treatment and 50 heavy crack users were also subject to treatment with act they were actually put on marijuana to try to relieve them of the addiction to crack and these three these three two three different groups I'm I mean it you get it used to be that marijuana was perceived as the gateway to heavy drug use well today I think it can more it could better be perceived as the solution as the exit from heavy drug use me because I think that these are there are different cases I mean we can look at the case of crack we can look at the case of marijuana we can look at the case of cocaine and it's also the topic of synthetic drugs it's not just the lower-class issue the synthetic drugs MDMA and so forth ecstasy is a problem of the upper class as well and this is something that is being sold by the upper classes in our societies thank the station has surfaced in the debate Michael I want to ask you something the White House seems to be caught in between a push from the south from leaders in the south asking for a new approach on this drug debate and its own citizens moving forward with a new approach 18 states in the US have medical marijuana loss in place and two states Colorado and Washington have actually moved forward voting initiatives for a recreational use of marijuana in the states what is the White House gonna do our fundamental policy relative to marijuana legalization has not changed that you know we remain firm in terms of our policy against legalization I think we approach this from a very public health and scientific-based approach and I would have a tendency to I would disagree with my colleague here relative to the harms associated with marijuana and not just from an addiction potential but from a lost productivity potential so so we know even occasional use of marijuana even occasional use three times a month or less has is significantly correlated with dropping out of college and from an economic development standpoint and from a human and public health standpoint I don't think that that's the message that we should be sending are the youth in our society relative to that I think we also see that when the discussion of legalization or medical marijuana occurs that the perception of risk of marijuana goes down and so you know while we've made significant progress in the United States relative to other drugs we still have an issue relative to marijuana so I think that you know legalization is not the solution and I don't think that it is what we want for the youth in our society if we're really going to prosper as a nation or as nations relative to our economic development general do you have anything you'd like to add to that I know that you seem to want to chime in on that well thank you and again I mean perhaps I could comment the following obviously we're dealing with an issue that is not a matter of black or white there's a huge amount of gray in between and it's enormously complex and that does reflect two or three needs firstly that this debate needs to have a tremendous amount of humility in it first of all to understand where the blanks lie that are keeping decision-making from making proper decisions and they'd be convinced that they are making the right decisions for example their needs in academia and needs to reach a consensus on building a new paradigm but what we're seeing which is really quite surprising in 21st century is that we don't find that consensus in the scientific literature on the we see contradictions and the information on marijuana is a typical case or case in point now given these complexities I think that we need to be highly realistic in addition to being humble about our perspectives and that is why I'm so pleased to have Washington here as well because there is one thing these so-called experts think or the institutional operators think and another issue is what is happening in individual families when you go out on the streets you find public opinion that really has other concerns other points of anguish that sometimes are not seen behind these four walls of the of academia and I think we need institutions that are much more efficient transparent effective that are capable of and we need to strengthen the capabilities of our existing institutions because when we look and see what is happening on the street we have to acknowledge the state cannot ignore what is happening and it's a matter of what path you choose know what paradigms are chosen but the fact is that the state is called to play a fundamental role in any of these environments of public health public safety and security or even just in the strengthening of democratic values you just mentioned this need also for better science in this area it's also important to note that the greatest scientist Nora Bolkov who leads the National Institute for drug addiction is actually Mexican so it's important to point that out as well I'd like to go back to something that was mentioned in a meeting yesterday and I have a question for you Mr Secretary General on this and that is a lack of insecurity and specifically insecurity stemming from drug trafficking is that the new foreign debt for Latin America no I don't think it's a new form of foreign debt but certainly it is a break on development undoubtedly this topic impacts something that I mean sometimes we in these international fora often say that we have a demographic bone we will have a lot of population that can work in better conditions and yes we can certainly we have a demographic bone but only to the extent that we can train them and keep them out of drugs because again no matter how opposed I am to the concept of drugs excuse me of the war on drugs but there are definitely soldiers and this conscription of so-called foot soldiers in this drug war is certainly a Scourge that we have to combat more effectively certainly our region as is impacted by the by this factor of crime crime certainly has an impact an innovative impact on foreign investment and it also creates a more ongoing lasting type of harm to democracy I mean we have these huge groups of individuals that are run by their own laws and I'm working on something or they always were working in something and I have a very positive view of this and that is this armament and or at least the truth of the so called gang samaras in El Salvador because I mean they've dropped the number the amount of gang violence in El Salvador by half in it in the last year but the point is that that they themselves will say that they or the gangs themselves are calling for the death of others they it's not possible for them to have their own rules and regulation but it is extraordinarily dangerous for society for democracy to have groups that are operating outside the law with their own rules and regulations and that are not willing to bathe the actual laws of the land and so I don't know that it's a new foreign debt but it is certainly something that is a terrible scourge for a region now when we talk about organized crime and multinational organizations that are extremely well organized and a governmental efforts that are also not as well organized nor that necessarily have this multinational approaches or tax now we are coming to the end of our debate here but we certainly do want to offer a few minutes for questions and answers from the floor I understand that we have two mics on either side please identify yourselves and say who you represent before posing the question and please direct your question to a specific individual I am Felix Madadiaga I am from Nicaragua I'm the former minister of defense and I'm currently a member of young global leaders thank you very much for your comments general sir I'd like to ask you when I worked in Nicaragua we signed a set of agreements with the other forces across Central America and the military was given a particular task in combating drugs across the region and your comments have been hard in terms of the question of whether either enemies or human beings but what is your vision of the growing use of the military and the fight against drugs is that a good thing that's a very good question particularly when you talk about the critical situation that for example that Columbia has grappled with about a decade ago where the accumulated capabilities of these criminal groups was pushing our country into a reverable status of being a failed state now that threat has fortunately been reverted or overcome but when you are dealing with that level of organized crime that is in a position or is poised to defeat the actual organized state now that it's necessary to preserve democracy but the question is and how do we do this how do you and when do you use military capacities and capabilities and I think that the Colombian experience and expertise I think we have a lot of lessons learned there lessons that are of success and a failure the success is military participation but without denaturalizing the role of the armed forces and the understanding that they are responding to a public policy of security and it is a military capabilities that are applicable to the nature of the threat and only the best of them and the role of the military but not just military deployed with weapons in urban areas I wouldn't do that but certainly the military contributing to introduction on the high seas in the air and contributing to intelligence contributing to the security model I would also say that that is not what should be but while it may be necessary we have to ensure that this does not become the status quo where the participation of the military ends up means a growth in terms of the conflictiveness of the problem or in which we see a growth in criminal organizations and we also see the growth of the military present in our cities and in our country side and lastly I would say that a public policy like on drugs and public policy on security need to have very clear specific civilian civil and political mandates and that the entire political apparatus political apparatus needs to respond to that civilian political leadership and not the other way around turning over the policy of the using the military to the political sector I believe is vital I don't know if there's anyone else on the panel well I didn't have the opportunity of mentioning the war and the military saying something in this regard but what criminology and some economists have proven for example Gary Becker the Nobel Prize is that the important thing with regard to crime is not the duration of the of the punishment and the menaces but the punishment in itself for example I believe that the criminals should have the certainty that they will be arrested will be tried and that they will be condemned and you can threaten them with death penalties and the army but as long as what General Narango has does not happen that we have institutions that are actually capable of doing it then we won't have much progress there are violence rates that are different from country to country but in the US a lot of drugs are consumed as well as in Canada but however in our countries we also have violence because there are institutions in other countries that function better and therefore the institutional aspect the functioning of the police force the courts of justice and also the aspects of corruptions and prisons are important as well as public security well this is everything all these issues that we should aspect that we should be strengthening we also have the concept of impunity in Latin American countries and these are his concept Washington excuse me general but I have just said that military policies combat drugs but we would be more or less in the same path still I believe that we should decide how we can act in new ways against drugs we are not talking about combating anymore because I'm talking about Rio and about Brazil we have people who are currently dying in the streets because of drugs and therefore these confrontations are not good they are not successful this has been proven and there are research institutes that are showing that this problem has to be treated case by case while I fully agree I believe that banning drugs for more than a century have not given the results that were expected there has been more consumption and more violence in Latin American countries and others good morning I my name is Nova Opus I have been living in Mexico for 20 years or more although I am from Austria I have seen and I've been very impressed by it the economic power that is behind drugs and there's always a discussion about being more or less inclusive being more or less hard and I believe however that these issues and find sooner or later there are very significant figures that are involved throughout the whole line and therefore there is an economic component in this issue but if we carry out the legalization then do we just take the economic component out of the equation what will be the economic models that will be followed if everybody who is involved in non-trafficking has to have a different activity are there strategies or any thoughts besides trying to combat drugs well what I believe making a parallel between medical treatment and this matter it's not a question of stopping the hemorrhage it's a question of saving the patient is that the question well I believe that actually there is a difference between the drug problem from the health standpoint and also the question of organized crime the mafias did not disappear when alcohol was legalized alcohol was legalized which was necessary but some other avenues were also found and nowadays it is interesting to see that the industry the business has to diversified for example we have people's trafficking and immigrants trafficking in particular which are new components as well as extortion piracy for example intellectual piracy which is much more organized in counterfeit products nowadays so if the drug problem disappeared by magic organized crime would still prevail for a long time general and then michael michael there was just a un odc report that was released looking at illegal activity in china and it showed that trafficking in pirating in pirated goods actually now the revenue from that actually now equals the drug trade so so i do think that it is not solely restricted to drug trade you have to look at this holistically relative to economic development and economic opportunities so these these are again you know for the most of our widely diverse organizations that you know you do worry if there's not alternative strategies in place that you know will you just move the problem from drugs to another illicit activity state that is stronger stronger institutions we want to indicate in particular in latin america that organized crime is an expression of criminal economy where there is criminal economy then there is organized crime why do we have these flourishing criminal economies in the region one of the most revealing cases is the relative success of colombia uh in the phytogeast trafficking the level of production is at its lowest but however criminality crime is increasing uh in illegal mining activities of gold extraction and this is probably much more devastating in social and environmental terms than the tragedy of illicit cultures of coca that is why i would say that in latin america we have to try to encourage the culture of legal activity which is at the base of the problem there are many informal economies and somehow these processes are accepted and finally the state of law is distorted and the spirit of the law is destroyed and this is on this basis that there are flourishing criminal economies which is a threat if we don't change the logic questions on this side we still have five minutes for questions and answers a brief questions biff answers jose Luis Cordeiro i am from venezuela this is an amazing and very interesting session we are talking about criminals that do not belong to the state and the government what happens to criminals that are members of the government in the case of venezuela the chavista government has financed the FARC and now there are several venezuelan generals that have arrest warrants in the u.s because they are involved in drug trafficking venezuela has gone from a petrol state from a drug from drug trafficking in some cases well that happens also in many other countries including lindsay well corruption is present no doubt about it and i agree with you we cannot refer to any country in particular let's be clear on that this is certainly related to the culture of legality that general naranjo has just mentioned in our region without any doubt there's still a tendency to use power as something that could get benefits and not in terms of public service so the reply should be much larger corruption is at the bottom of we are at the lower bottom of transparency indexes by national standards but i believe that a lot has been done there's an important effort in favor of transparency and accountability we cannot deny that there is corruption but still we have to acknowledge that in many countries there has been significant success in this regard now with regard to the narco states i don't or the drug states i don't think that this idea has to be exaggerated there is certainly corruption in many states and many local governments as well but we have not perceived that is public institutions or cities or states have been taken over by drug traffickers some people used to say that they bought mass in the past and now they are the ones that elect the mass and they miss happening in certain cities but not it's not so everywhere so what happens in the favelas washington well the power comes from the people everywhere now drug dealers are just one percent of the population and they intimidate the people they oppress the good people that live in every community now thanks god now right now we have our public security policy in real and the police force is intervening but they won't be able to solve all the problems in these neighborhoods and therefore our movement is stating that there has to be many parties involved the sports the education health high quality education and social training for citizens all this is important documented cases of corruption among officials in the water customs officials you know it's it's also something that us is dealing with the power of corruption coming from organized crime you know i would completely agree that you know looking at kind of whole of government response and a a solid public safety and social institution infrastructure is really a vital part of our strategy i think relative to our border you know the president has increased dramatically the resources that we have at the border we have a we've significantly increased the amount of drugs seizures that we've had but you know i i think we all agree that we need strong social and public safety institutions as part of a holistic and balanced strategy tell us about corruption in police forces and in government in the government is this an obstacle to going in the direction you pointed out well yes let me go back to this logic when we talk about corruption processes we see that there are some institutions that are pointed as corrupt and this is the case in latin america with police forces where there are many deficiencies we have to acknowledge this the level of integrity is still far from the right level to that would lead to confidence among citizens but i don't think that the debate should be limited to these institutions we have to see what is the chain of institutional links that allowed this corruption and on the other hand corruption is not necessarily the result of the capacity of the mafia of penetrating this institution but it's a result of the lack of professional training of the police forces for example which are case in point if there are no protocols or procedures that establish the compliance in these forces the corruption is a result of the freedom that these officers feel and that is why in latin america in the police forces in particular there is a very high degree of lack of professionalism because recently the very hard policies were applied that can be related to populism it is necessary therefore to have a more professional police force which will lead to greater trust from the public and i share what Mr. Sulza said it is true that in latin america there are cases of corruption but during these last 20 years the voice of the citizens and the capacity of denunciation by the press as well as institutional reactions against corruption are more and more evident in the past there were high levels of corruption but nothing was said in this regard but now there is awareness in society and there is and everybody is looking to these cases through the magnifying lens okay one last question since i promise this would be an interactive section rafael and the catcher from mexico city next week he will come to mexico and to costa rica i wonder if there's going to be a new message on uh organized crime on cooperation on on on crime and on security issues because the feeling in latin america is that washington continues to put too much emphasis on interdiction that washington is not doing enough to stop the traffic of arms into latin america i mean what what will have what will have to happen in latin america for you to to fully change your policy towards the region on security issues i think that you know certainly the president is looking forward to his visit i think the president wants to focus on those issues that are important to both mexico and the united states and costa rica and and looking at how we have strong economies and strong partnerships relative to the work that we can do i think that he is looking to cement his relationship with the new government in mexico and we look forward to being a part of that and certainly uh of uh working on joint economic issues is going to be a prime point of the president's visit so this is the first time in a very complex discussion which will take a long time but i would like to uh congratulate the web that organizes this session and thank all the panelists