By Al Giordano

What if an elected president of an American nation called for the legalization of drugs and nobody in the English language press reported it?

That's what happened twice in the past month when Uruguay President Jorge Batlle called for other Latin American leaders to join him in opposing US-imposed drug policy.

"If this powder was worth only ten cents, there would not be organizations dedicated to make a billion dollars to fund armies in Colombia," said Batlle, speaking about cocaine policy on November 20th at the 10th Latin American Summit of Heads of State in Panama City.

Batlle (pronounced baht-yuh) said other countries must confront the question of legalization. "How do you create the money that sustains all of this? Do you believe that while this substance has this fantastic market value that there is any mechanism that can impede its trafficking? How do you make this product lose value so that nobody is interested anymore in this business?"

The 72-year-old Uruguay leader, elected in November of 1999 in his fifth run for the presidency, said that the countries of America "must stop playing games and treat the theme of drugs seriously at its root. And if I am wrong, then why are we afraid to ask ourselves the question?" In fact, the legalization proposal of Batlle has been percolating in Uruguay since June of this year.

According to the daily newspaper El Observador in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, the president's chief of staff, Leonarda Costa, floated the trial balloon on June 16th. He said, "a line of discussion will be opened among the Mercosur countries (Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay)" in relation to "the idea of legalizing the consumption of drugs."

"Obviously, Uruguay cannot take unilateral measures on this theme," said the presidential secretary to Latitud magazine, that "the coordination between nations" is necessary.

President Batlle told the weekly Brecha magazine that he is in favor of legalizing drug consumption. "When the president said what he said, he was expressing his personal philosophy," said Costa. "But it is viable to the extent that other countries also do it."

The chief of staff affirmed that there would have to be a "generalized agreement between nations," that, "the countries have to come to an agreement about this problem.... The first thing to do is to make an educational effort."

Then, on December 1st, Batlle traveled to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of President Vicente Fox.

There, according to El Observador in his home country, Batlle made his strongest challenge to US-imposed drug policy yet. "The day that it is legalized in the United States, it will lose value," said the president of Uruguay. "And if it loses value, there will be no profit. But as long as the US citizenry doesn't rise up to do something, they will pass this life fighting and fighting."

Batlle, in Mexico City early this month, compared the drug problem to that caused by alcohol prohibition in the United States (1918-1933), saying that the drug trafficking problem "will be resolved on the day that the consumers announce that this cannot be fixed by any other manner than changing this situation in the same way that was done with the 'Dry Laws'."

Of Plan Colombia, he said, "You have to think about the origin of the thing. Basically, where is this consumed? A minimum of 50 percent is consumed in the United States. It seems fine with my that my friend Pastrana (the Colombian president) tries to improve education, health and roads... but this doesn't resolve the problem."

And Batlle added that he has personally proposed the legalization solution to US President Bill Clinton.

America now has its first elected president on record as calling for the legalization of drugs.

(For links to the original stories in Spanish cited in this article and for additional background information, go to: http://www.narconews.com/heroyear2000.html )