El Blog de Montaner

Interamerican Institute for Democracy
Interamerican Bar Association
Demos of the Americas
ICCAS, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla.

Carlos Alberto Montaner
May 24, 2016

Before I start, I must make a double disclaimer that’s absolutely necessary.

Although my presence here tonight is due to my nature as president of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy, the opinions that follow are mine alone, not those of the Institute.

Because I am also a collaborator for CNN en Español, my opinions should not be confused with the editorial views of that television network.

I shall begin by stating my position with regard to the issue of drug trade: I have — and I shall set out — two fundamental reasons to defend the unfettered production and sale of substances that are today prohibited.

The first is of a practical nature; the second, of a moral character.

Let us begin with the practical reason.

Perhaps it will be useful to depart slightly from the title of this conference. Drug trafficking DOES NOT threaten democracy.

Democracy is only a flexible method to make collective decisions about ordinary affairs.

The threat is a lot more serious and complex.

The illegal traffic in drugs threatens the Rule of Law, political stability and the good functioning of institutions, especially because of the corruptive power of the money raised by drug trafficking.

The money raised by the illegal traffic in drugs finances the campaigns of presidents and other high-ranking dignitaries, especially in Latin America.

With the money raised by drug trafficking, someone like the notorious Colombian Pablo Escobar, at one time capo of the Medellín cartel, used democracy to be elected as an interim senator.

The money raised by drug trafficking bankrolls numerous political campaigns, and today it is feared — with reason — that the FARC narcoterrorists, if they finally enter the political game in Colombia, will invest 500 million dollars to buy the nation’s presidency.

After all, the FARC are the world’s third most powerful drug cartel and have more economic resources than any of Colombia’s political parties.

Finally, what threatens the Rule of Law is the existence of immensely rich mafias engaged in drug trafficking.

What furnishes those earnings is the illicit nature of that activity.

The dangerousness of these criminal organizations comes from the complexity of the activity and the enormous flow of resources that it generates.

• It has an agricultural aspect. Coca leaves must be harvested. To do that, the mafias need to control hundreds of farmers and protect them from police persecution through hefty bribes.
• It has an industrial aspect. It is necessary to turn harvested leaves into coca paste. Dozens more people are needed for this, some of them with an average knowledge of chemistry.
• It has a commercial aspect that invariably includes clandestine transportation to international markets.

The creation of a cartel capable of developing this trade requires a cupola with some sophistication, intelligence and, of course, an absolute lack of scruples that enables it to commit all kinds of crimes.

In a way, the process resembles the production and sale of coffee, except that the banned nature of cocaine has exponentially multiplied its price, while the persecution that it’s exposed to forces the drug traffickers to “buy” powerful persons in the public sector or to try to become elected or appointed functionaries, so they can protect such lucrative activities.

If coffee were banned tomorrow and its commerce were persecuted, it is very likely that its price would increase substantially and that mafias or cartels devoted to its production and sale would emerge, same as occurred with alcohol in the Prohibition era.

In Galicia, Spain, some decades ago, a real cartel of imported U.S. cigarettes emerged as a consequence of the excessive taxes imposed upon them. Eventually, that criminal organization shifted toward the traffic in cocaine, which was more lucrative.

In the second half of the 19th Century in Europe and the United States, the Mariani wine — produced in France — was sold successfully and freely. It was lavishly advertised as a reinvigorating tonic because of the Peruvian coca extract it contained.

Indeed, it was powerful stimulant. It was imbibed by, among other figures, Pope Leon XIII — who promoted it in a famous poster — by Queen Victoria of Britain, Thomas Alva Edison, President Ulysses S. Grant and the Cuban writer and patriot José Martí.

Let us look now at the moral aspect of this issue.

I have no doubt that drug consumption is a colossal stupidity, given the damage that it produces in our organism and the painful death it causes.

I also know that, once the diabolical mechanism of addiction is unleashed, it is difficult to distance oneself from the consumption of drugs.

But I do not ignore a vital aspect of this sorry behavior: drug use does not cause harm to third parties.

The only person hurt is the pitiful man or woman who consumes it, same as it happens with morbid obesity or the consumption of cigarettes or alcohol.

Therefore, the State should have NO legal authority to tell us what we should do with our bodies.

If an adult citizen chooses to adopt the foolish practice of smoking marijuana, inhaling cocaine, mainlining heroin or ingesting hallucinogens, the State has no business forbidding him those acts, putting him in jail and designating him as a criminal.

Grotesque though it may sound, that citizen is exercising a freedom, his freedom over the use and abuse of his own body.

Somehow, his absurd conduct (like tattooing) is framed in the growing “right to one’s own body” claimed, for example, by many pregnant women.

That right is taking root everywhere and is expressed in organizations that defend the right of people to commit suicide or to bring death with dignity to those others who, for reasons that seem valid to them, decide that they don’t want to continue to live in the grip of enormous pain or afflicted by a terminal disease that will consume them slowly.

“To live,” said a famous Spanish suicide, “is a right, not an obligation.”

Of course, publicity is something else.

It is up to society, through the State, to warn individuals about the immense damage caused to them by addictions — all addictions, including the pain killers prescribed by certain doctors who end up manufacturing addicts, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes on purpose.

Addictions generate a high cost, not only in those who suffer them but also in the immediate circle of their families and, in general, in the whole of society.

A constant campaign of information about the damage provoked by drugs will probably be more effective than police persecution in achieving the gradual reduction of their use.

When I was young, we smoked because smoking was “cool.” My grand-daughters believe it is unpleasant.

There’s no doubt that the campaign against tobacco, which is a struggle against nicotine addiction, is giving results.

The repulsive images of people deformed by the abuse of tobacco, who tell about the horror of pulmonary emphysema, or who explain the relationship between their addiction and the cancer they’re suffering, have a tremendous dissuasive effect.

I suspect that this form of dealing with drug trafficking is a lot more effective than insisting on police repression and the Penal Code.

We already know that that road leads to failure.