Le CIDDH participe à l’élaboration d’un projet sur le trafic de drogues pour le candidat présidentiel péruvien

Presidential elections in Peru will be taking place on 10th April 2011. In November 2010, Ricardo Soberon, the director of the Centro de Investigación Drogas y Derechos Humanos (CIDDH) was invited, throught the Colectivo Ciudadanos por el Cambio, to participate to the Government Plan elaboration of one of the presidential candidates (Government Plan 2011 – 2016, Drug trafficking and Terrorism), and agreed to participate in the design of a proposal on drugs and drug trafficking based on efficiency, human rights, proportionality, and harm reduction principles.

Main conclusions on drug Trafficking and Terrorism

Drugs and drug trafficking are a complex subject that deserves a priority attention from the State and Peruvian civil society. This is because policies to tackle drugs influence the economy, foreign affairs, democratic institutionalism, public health, rural development and national security. In the last five years, Peru has become a very important world coca and cocaine provider. Important institutional sectors have been permeated by the economy and profits coming from this illicit activity and the organised criminality associated with trafficking cartels.

Isolated and partial government responses have overwhelmed the Peruvian criminal justice system, distracted the police (45% arrested are non-offenders users) and overcrowded prisons.

It is necessary that the next government adopts effective, sensible (realistic), measurable, human right based, autonomous (independent from international cooperation), sustainable, and verifiable public policies that are distant from the 'prohibition vs. legalisation' debate, in order to face both the causes and effects of the drugs and drug trafficking phenomena.

The CIDDH director took the challenge to participate in a very hard campaign. His objective was to propose a serious, realistic and proportional outlook the this drug trafficking challenge

Media coverage

Click here to listen to interviews with Ricardo Soberon: interview 1 and interview 2. In February 2011, El Comercio, a conservative Peruvian newspaper that is usually in favour of tough law enforcement, published a survey in which it concludes that the approach adopted by the candidate supported by the CIDDH director contains “better proposals on the drug trafficking fight”.