Legalization, decriminalization? Paraguay and its “war” on drugs

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By Jorge Rolón Luna

In 1875, the May­or’s Of­fice of San Fran­cisco (USA) is­sued a ban on opium dens, mark­ing, per­haps, the ini­ti­a­tion of an of­fen­sive model against con­scious­ness-al­ter­ing sub­stances that is still in force to­day. 147 years later, the same coun­try that ini­ti­ated, pro­moted, glob­al­ized, and es­ca­lated to lim­its of ir­ra­tional­ity with­out par­al­lel in his­tory “its” war on drugs, par­tially passed a bill that was un­fath­omable only a short while ago. Through the Mar­i­juana Op­por­tu­nity Rein­vest­ment and Ex­punge­ment Act of 2020 la Ley de Opor­tu­nidad, Rein­ver­sión y Ex­pu­gnación de Deli­tos Mar­i­huana, the bas­tion of the war­like ap­proach to a hu­man trait, all too hu­man, such as over­com­ing the state of con­scious­ness – the Span­ish philoso­pher An­to­nio Es­co­ho­tado dixit in his now clas­sic Gen­eral His­tory of Drugs – is one step away from le­gal­iz­ing mar­i­juana at the fed­eral level. Soon, it seems, the US will re­move cannabis from the fed­eral Con­trolled Sub­stances Act, which will al­low states to le­gal­ize cannabis, its pro­duc­tion and sale, with­out fed­eral in­ter­fer­ence. As of to­day, 37 U.S. states have al­ready le­gal­ized med­ical use and 19 (18 plus the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia) have le­gal­ized recre­ational use of cannabis.

Be­tween these two his­tor­i­cal mo­ments men­tioned above, many things have hap­pened, most of them hor­ri­ble: mil­lions of dead, hun­dreds of thou­sands of dis­ap­peared, over­loaded ju­di­cial sys­tems and col­lapsed prison sys­tems, gross and sys­tem­atic hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism, cor­rup­tion, state cap­ture by drug traf­fick­ing or­ga­ni­za­tions, huge fi­nan­cial and hu­man re­sources squan­dered, eco­nomic dis­tor­tions, de­struc­tion of the rule of law, among oth­ers.

And all for noth­ing. It was never even close to win­ning a war that was im­pos­si­ble to win in the first place. There are more and more drugs and their use has be­come an un­con­trolled pan­demic. In Mex­ico alone, be­tween 2006 – the year of the be­gin­ning of for­mer Pres­i­dent Calderon’s “war on drugs” – and mid-2021, 350,000 peo­ple died and 72,000 were miss­ing. On the other hand, in the flag­ship of this “war” (USA), in 1970 there was one over­dose death per 100,000 in­hab­i­tants, a fig­ure that reached 20 per 100,000 in 2019, de­spite the as­tro­nom­i­cal sum of more than a tril­lion dol­lars in­vested. Un­doubt­edly, the por­trait of an ab­solute fail­ure due to its null re­sults and its very high cost in lives, money, and de­mo­c­ra­tic de­te­ri­o­ra­tion.

Paraguay is the first cannabis producer in South America, the second in Latin America after Mexico and the fourth in the world. And we are still not taking advantage of a product with important medicinal uses and for various purposes such as food (see hemp), with an endless productive, employment and revenue potential if its production and marketing were legalized. Let’s see what is happening in this regard in the U.S. In 2020 it generated $17.9 billion in business, in 2021 it created 340,000 jobs and it is estimated that by 2025 it will raise about $100 billion in taxes. The potential of cannabis for the Paraguayan economy is unestimable.

Paraguay, as it could not have been oth­er­wise, has bowed to this global im­per­a­tive, which has its other side in the in­ter­na­tional sys­tem and which had its found­ing mo­ment in the 1909 con­fer­ence of the In­ter­na­tional Opium Com­mis­sion in Shang­hai. Fol­low­ing ex­ter­nal man­dates, the coun­try has waged its own “war on drugs” and as could not be oth­er­wise, the ex­pected re­sults were never ob­tained. How­ever, there were ter­ri­ble con­se­quences, such as the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of liv­ing con­di­tions in large bor­der re­gions, narco-pol­i­tics, con­tract killings, the de­com­po­si­tion of the se­cu­rity forces, the con­sol­i­da­tion of transna­tional crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions, the over­crowd­ing of our pris­ons, the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the jus­tice sys­tem, the sur­ren­der of the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, the suf­fo­ca­tion of the rule of law, among oth­ers.

The ex­am­ple of the fail­ure of our “war on drugs” is the case of the “sicari­ato”, a mar­ginal phe­nom­e­non in our coun­try un­til a few years ago. Hit­men are es­tab­lished, un­de­ni­able and ex­panded to a large part of the na­tional ter­ri­tory. In 2021, 180 hit­man at­tacks were reg­is­tered through­out the coun­try, 32% more than in 2020, rep­re­sent­ing an at­tack every two days.

While the coun­try be­comes a “neu­ral­gic cen­ter for the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of transna­tional traf­fick­ing” and it is be­com­ing in­creas­ingly vi­o­lent due to the grow­ing vi­o­lence of drug traf­fick­ers and the se­cu­rity forces, pol­i­tics is go­ing down the drain due to the also un­de­ni­able links be­tween the il­le­gal drug busi­ness and vast sec­tors of the rul­ing party, some­thing that has also af­fected op­po­si­tion ac­tors, al­though in an in­fi­nitely smaller pro­por­tion and with­out the im­pu­dence shown by the gov­ern­ing party. Lo­cal gov­ern­ments in bor­der ar­eas have rep­re­sen­ta­tives of this busi­ness di­rectly in­stalled in po­si­tions or fi­nanced by the drug money, dis­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zen in­volve­ment as well as cit­i­zen de­mands and par­tic­i­pa­tion. In some places, it is risky to run for pub­lic of­fice with­out the ap­proval of the drug lords, ac­cord­ing to cred­i­ble tes­ti­monies that are con­firmed by at­tacks against can­di­dates and mu­nic­i­pal of­fi­cials in the run-up to last year’s elec­tions.

At the same time, Paraguay is the first cannabis pro­ducer in South Amer­ica, the sec­ond in Latin Amer­ica af­ter Mex­ico and the fourth in the world. And we are still not tak­ing ad­van­tage of a prod­uct with im­por­tant med­i­c­i­nal uses and for var­i­ous pur­poses such as food (see hemp), with an end­less pro­duc­tive, em­ploy­ment and rev­enue po­ten­tial if its pro­duc­tion and mar­ket­ing were le­gal­ized. Let’s see what is hap­pen­ing in this re­gard in the U.S. In 2020 it gen­er­ated $17.9 bil­lion in busi­ness, in 2021 it cre­ated 340,000 jobs and it is es­ti­mated that by 2025 it will raise about $100 bil­lion in taxes. The po­ten­tial of cannabis for the Paraguayan econ­omy is un­es­timable.

It is true that an even­tual le­gal­iza­tion, the de­crim­i­nal­iza­tion of cannabis will not be enough to re­verse all the vi­o­lence that ex­ists to­day around this busi­ness. But, it is pos­si­ble to see that no­body loses or noth­ing is lost in se­ri­ously dis­cussing this is­sue. The coun­try will be able to re­duce its so­cial con­flict, de­flate its over­crowded pris­ons and open the doors to an eco­nomic ac­tiv­ity that can cre­ate jobs, tax rev­enues and sav­ings that could be used to treat ad­dic­tion. Is­n’t it about time?

*Lawyer, re­searcher and for­mer di­rec­tor of the Se­cu­rity Ob­ser­va­tory of the Min­istry of the In­te­rior. Au­thor of the book of short sto­ries “Los sicar­ios”.

Cover im­age: Mamá Cul­tiva Paraguay