On Friday Colombia’s Constitutional Court approved a plan by the government to decriminalize less than 20 grams of marijuana and one gram of cocaine. Those caught with less than those amounts will not be subject to arrest or prosecution.

This ruling comes shortly after a plan was proposed in Uruguay for the government there to sell marijuana to registered users, showing growing momentum in Latin America for real drug policy reform.

Most decriminalization initiatives in Latin America, however, are being proposed and enacted not by courts but by presidents and national legislatures. In addition to President Santos, Guatemala’s new president, Otto Pérez Molina, is an advocate of decriminalization as are – in various ways and to different degrees – the presidents of Costa Rica, Uruguay, Ecuador and Argentina. Some Latin American countries, it should be pointed out, never criminalized drug possession in the first place. This trend follows in the footsteps of European reforms since the 1990s. Portugal, which decriminalized drug possession in 2001, stands out as a model.

In the face of increasing violence, many Latin American countries have learned a lesson from Mexico’s disastrous military War on Drugs over the last 5 years. They will not be repeating that debacle.

Momentum is starting to build worldwide against the U.S. view of things on many levels, especially The War on Drugs. In the end the U.S. might be the last one fighting a war that can’t be won and will only bring misery to us all.

- Joe Klare