Cato Conference: Ending the Global War on Drugs

Two weeks ago, I noted the growing disenchantment with the war on drugs among current and former Latin American politicians. That subject, along with other examples of international dissent, should be explored in detail next Tuesday at a Cato Institute conference about "Ending the Global War on Drugs." The speakers will include Fernando Henrique Cardoso (right), a former president of Brazil and an organizer of the Global Commission on Drug Policy; Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican minister of foreign affairs; Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, speaker of Uruguay's House of Deputies; Mary Anastasia O'Grady, The Wall Street Journal's longtime Latin America columnist; and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro and wrote a 2009 Cato paper on drug decriminalization in Portugal. They are supposed to discuss, among other things, "the impact of the drug war in Mexico, on the U.S. border, and in Central America"; "lessons from South America"; "how prohibition helps fund terrorist groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond"; "how Washington's anti-narcotics campaign violates the Constitution"; "the effects of criminalization on minorities in the United States"; and "what decriminalization or legalization would look like in practice."

More information here.