Source: Minister Gamboa’s Twitter

Current support for the War on Drugs is, at best, tenuous and waning. Just a few days after the Global Commission on Drug Policy called for a widespread decriminalization of as many drugs as civil societies are able to permit and tolerate, the Commanding Officer of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) rushed to Costa Rica to meet with top officials and urge our country’s continued cooperation in the unpopular War on Drugs.

Minister of Public Safety Celso Gamboa met with U.S. Marine Corps General John Francis Kelly on Thursday, and he posted updates and photographs of the meeting on his Twitter feed, adding that:

“U.S. cooperation given to Costa Rica in matters of security is invaluable.”

Minister Gamboa added that he will be traveling to the District of Columbia next week and will specifically request for more assistance from the U.S. to combat drug trafficking in Costa Rica. General Kelly also met with President Luis Guillermo Solis, whom security analysts believe may be more receptive to the War on Drugs than former President Laura Chinchilla.

Costa Rica recently hosted a major international conference on drug policy, and the sentiment by participants therein was that the U.S.-led War on Drugs has gone on for far too long in Latin America without achieving desired results. Even General Kelly has acknowledged a certain level of frustration; readers of The Costa Rica Star will remember our coverage of the General’s comments before the U.S. Congress months ago:

Even warriors get the blues.

 

Looking somber, tired and perhaps a bit frustrated, [General Kelly] recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee and gave a frank assessment of the Drug War as it pertains to nations such as Costa Rica, which are located between a rock (the cocaine-producing regions of the Andes) and a hard place (North American demand). General Kelly mentioned the word “hypocrite” when talking about legalization with Latin American leaders.

 

We’ve been encouraging these countries to be in the drug fight for 25 years. The levels of violence that our drug problem has caused in many of these countries is just astronomical. And so when we talk about decriminalizing, the example I would give you is the two states that voted to decriminalize marijuana, or legalize marijuana. Most of the countries I deal with were in utter disbelief that we would, in their opinion, be going in that direction, particularly after 25 years of encouraging them to fight our drug problems in their countries and, you know, in their littorals. So that’s kind of where they are on it.

 

In 2012, former President Chinchilla seriously contemplated the idea of either legalizing personal drug use or increasing the scope of decriminalization in Costa Rica. To this effect, she was not alone; other Central American leaders felt the same way. What happened next is reminiscent of General Kelly’s recent visit to Costa Rica:

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden scrambled to meet Mexican and Central American leaders as soon as meetings about decriminalization were planned earlier this month.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy does not agree with current U.S. policy or with the War on Drugs. As recently reported in The New York Times:

The commission includes [former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan] plus former presidents like Mr. Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Ruth Dreifuss of Switzerland, along with George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state in the Reagan administration, among others.

 

The group stops short of calling on countries to legalize all drugs right away. It calls instead for countries to continue to pursue violent criminal gangs, to stop incarcerating users and to offer treatment for addicts.