Inching forward

SEVEN of the world’s eight most violent countries lie on the bloody trafficking route from the cocaine fields of the Andes to the nostrils of North America. So it is unsurprising that Latin American leaders are fed up with the way drugs are policed. The international rules on prohibition were laid down by the United Nations more than 50 years ago, making drug policy difficult for individual countries to reform. But diplomats and do-gooders are finding ever more chinks in prohibition’s legal armour.

The latest attempt came on May 17th, when the Organisation of American States (OAS), a regional inter-governmental club, presented a report that pushed the limits of what can be said about drugs in polite diplomatic company. Drawn up with the input of academics, officials, policemen and others (including a journalist from The Economist), it envisioned a future in which by 2025 cannabis is legal in much of Europe and the Americas, a regional market for coca-leaf (cocaine’s raw ingredient) is in operation, and the UN’s anti-drug conventions are up for renegotiation.