History and Changes of the Drug Policy in Argentina

Abstract

In Argentina the policy on drugs was developed during the twentieth century, privileging the criminal prosecution as it main tool. Since the 1920s, when the first modification to the penal code related to these substances was devised, various reforms and discourses that expand that response by toughening the penalties have been implemented. Although this process has been apparent since the 1960s, that tendency became stronger during the 1970s and the end of the 1980s, following international legislation on narcotics. Thus, between late 1980s and early 1990s a “prohibitionist-abstention” matrix was defined (Corda et al. 2014). The application of this strategy -with the preponderance of the penal law- has been ineffective and generated more problems than those it intended to solve. The criminal response has affected mainly low-level traffickers and drug users. At the same time, it has complicated -and sometimes stopped- the development of other more effective, and less harmful, non-criminal responses. In the last 5 years, particularly after a ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice (“Arriola” 2009), there have been a series of changes or promises to change that have put the postulates of the matrix in crisis. Some of these promises have not been fulfilled, and even those that have are resisted, impeding their implementation. This chapter will evaluate these reform initiatives and their different levels of success. It will be argued that resistance to change is based on a prohibitionist-abstention matrix which pervades Argentinean drug policy and that continues to influence it to advance in contradictory ways.