Alexis Mera seeks to fight the war on drugs

Alexis Mera

The current Legal Secretary of the Ecuadorian Presidency, Alexis Mera, publicly stated “the war on drugs is lost.”

According to the secretary, the number of homicides reported in some countries evidences his comments. Among those he quoted as examples Honduras and Guatemala.

“The absolute repression does not work, you have to regularize the consumption that is already regularized,” he said yesterday at the closure of the seminar ‘The principle of proportionality of penalty convictions’, held at the Military Circle of Quito.

Mera also said the issue should be “discussed at levels of marketing chains of some drugs like marijuana.” For the government official it’s time to address the issue with the Ecuadorian society. “In consumption is being proposed decriminalization: that a person could be consuming without going to jail. Rehabilitation is what they need, not going to jail,” he reiterated.

The controversial posture of Mera was supported by the Spanish exhibitor Francisco Munoz Conde, who is in favor “of a prudent legalization, but not all of it“.

As delegates announced their plans to combat drugs in the country and the proportionality of penalties by their severity, police announced three drug seizing operations. In Manabi, Imbabura and Esmeraldas, 738,899 grams of illegal drugs were seized. General Juan Carlos Barragan, the national director of Narcotics, announced this. So far in this year the Ecuadorian Police operatives have seized 19.2 tons of drugs.