Abstract
Drug policy in the American hemisphere is in flux. After decades whereby a prohibitionist regime reigned supreme and proposing alternatives was taboo, several countries have begun to reconsider policy, particularly in the case of marijuana. International law has been instrumental in building the legal and institutional regime of prohibition, and it has remained largely impervious to critiques of its disastrous consequences. Indeed, when it comes to drug law and policy, international law has been part of the problem. Nevertheless, countries in the Americas have begun to adopt innovative strategies that also embrace international obligations. In this essay, I examine the failures of the law and order paradigm behind prohibition. I then analyze legal reforms in the Americas as motivated by three different perspectives: 1) human rights, 2) public health and 3) political economy. Each one offers a powerful challenge to prohibition but relies on different assumptions and offers different transformative potential.
Highlights
Drug policy in the American hemisphere is in flux
When it comes to drug law and policy, international law has been part of the problem
International law has been instrumental in building the prohibitionist regime
Summary
Drug policy in the American hemisphere is in flux. After decades whereby a prohibitionist regime reigned supreme and proposing alternatives was taboo, several countries have begun to reconsider policy, in the case of marijuana. International law has been instrumental in building the legal and institutional regime of prohibition, and it has remained largely impervious to critiques of its disastrous consequences. Defenders of the law and order approach attribute the failures of current drug policies to ineffective institutions or insufficient enforcement. They recommend institutional reforms, improving the police force, reforming the criminal justice system, transnational cooperation, and so on, proposals long tried in countries most affected by the violence of the war on drugs.[1] Measured against its own objective to prevent the harmful health effects of drug consumption, the strategy of prohibition has failed. TIMES (Jan. 6, 2020). 5 Zedillo et al, supra note 3, at 134
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