Interior Minister also seeks drug decriminalization

Jose Serrano

Jose Serrano, the current Interior Minister of Ecuador, confirmed yesterday that the decriminalization of drugs would cause a major blow to drug trafficking in Latin America.

“The global fight against drugs has failed, we must establish clear policies on addictions and then move to a process of decriminalization of drugs,” Serrano said during a radio interview FM World.

“We’re seeing brutal repression has not worked, but rather the only thing that has generated greater crime. The issue of drug trafficking is the basis of the criminal pyramid,” said the minister.

Later on he indicated that repression has not worked. “We’ve been defending the interests of the United States. They have trained our police basically to prevent the drug from getting to their country and there’s the failure, “express Serrano.

Meanwhile, Alexis Mera, legal secretary of the Ecuadorian presidency, said last week that “absolute repression does not work, you have to regularize the consumption (…) it has to be discussed at the level of marketing networks of certain drugs such as marijuana.”

Serrano and Mera are not the only supporters of this controversial issue, in April 2012, the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa supported the proposal of his counterpart in Guatemala, Otto Perez, to legalize the production, transportation and distribution of drugs.