Global Drug Reformers Hold Legalization Summit

boulder · January 24, 2003

Global Drug Reformers Hold First Legalization Summit, February 12-15 in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

An international drug legalization summit hosted by the Autonomous University of the Yucatan -- "Out from the Shadows: Ending Drug Prohibition in the 21st Century," will feature leaders from throughout Latin America and the world, beginning on February 12 in the Mexican city of Merida.

Among the confirmed participants -- who will also be available for press interviews -- are former Prosecutor General Gustavo de Greiff (Colombia) and former Solicitor to the Supreme Court Jaime Malamud Goti (Argentina), Bolivian congressmen and coca growers' leaders Evo Morales and Felipe Quispe, Brazilian congressman Fernando Gabeira, Mexican indigenous leader don Andres Vasquez de Santiago, and the winner of the 2002 international press freedom award, Colombian journalist Ignacio "Nacho" Gomez.

One topic of discussion will be the upcoming UN drug summit and campaigns to amend or repeal the international drug prohibition treaties.

Dr. de Greiff, the law enforcer who defeated narco-kingpin Pablo Escobar in 1993, said, "Legalization is one of the best ways to close the market to drug traffickers and stop them from making their obscene profits."

Dr. Malamud added, "The War on Drugs has proved to be so useless and harmful that it demands a collective political effort to stop it. This conference may well be one of the first steps in that direction."

The conference will be free to Mexicans, Latin Americans and the press. It begins Wednesday evening, Feb. 12 at the downtown Merida campus of the Autonomous University of the Yucatan, and continues the 13th and 14th at that location. On the 15th, the conference concludes with a mass public assembly hosted by the daily newspaper Por Esto! in a rural Yucatan community, where civil society will speak out on the issues of narco- trafficking and drug policy.

Contact: Adam Eidinger, 202-232-8997 -- Zoe Mitchell, 202-986-6186 -- Martin Aranguri Soto (Spanish and Portuguese),

Visit: http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/shadows/ -- for further information.

Source: U.S. Newswire

Published: January 14, 2003

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