Carlos Fuentes on drugs as a health problem

According to an international commission of experts which includes renowned members like Javier Solana, Amartya Sen and Fernando Cardoso, the current international policies against drug trafficking don't work. In the left-liberal daily El País, Mexican author Carlos Fuentes calls for a radical revision of drug policy: "The prohibitionist policies of the United States and Europe's damage limitation policy have neither stemmed supply nor reduced consumption - both have actually increased. First Columbia, then Mexico became the epicentres of a business which depends on consumer demand. So the goal is to reduce demand. How? By making consumption a public health problem instead of a criminal activity and making addicts patients instead of buyers. This would cut demand and lower the prices. ... Prohibition alone has neither reduced production nor consumption. The current policies have been directed against supply more than consumption. In other words, we have come to realise that eliminating the supply doesn't eliminate the demand, and that demand often translates into death by overdose and the spread of infectious diseases."

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