Latin America is ground zero for the war on drugs. With less than 10 percent of the world´s population, countries in the region experience more than 30 percent of all homicides. If this war were a laboratory experiment, it would have been stopped long ago. Yet in Latin America and elsewhere there is a taboo around discussing alternatives to prohibition.

Scientific studies indicate that more enlightened policies are not only feasible, but also necessary. Meanwhile, Latin American officials are starting to review approaches that lie between prohibition and legalization, accounting for both criminal justice and public health.

Experts believe that at least two steps are crucial. The first involves decriminalizing the use of all illicit drugs and possession of a “reasonable” amount for personal consumption. The second requires expanding investment in harm reduction programs, like needle exchanges and innovative forms of treatment, as has been successfully attempted in Portugal.

A third step that could also help reduce drug-related violence is regulating marijuana, which constitutes 80 percent of illegal drug consumption globally. Governments around the world are showing a growing openness to regulation — from the coffee shops of Amsterdam and the advanced cannabis clubs in Spain to medical dispensaries in the United States.

In experimenting with cannabis regulation, governments could monitor corresponding changes in prison populations, indices of corruption, levels of violence and even the profit margins of traffickers. They could then scale up effective policies and extend them to harder drugs. Some European countries are alreadyexperimenting with heroin-assisted treatment and opiate substitution programs, with positive effects.

Enlightened drug policy can generate a major dividend for governments during these times of global austerity. As the Global Commission on Drug Policy has stressed, progressive drug policy will require courageous political leadership that puts the welfare and safety of people first.