Argentina Shock: Good News!

Argentina is one of my favourite countries, so it’s especially pleasing to note that, for once, there’s some happy news from that melancholy land. Cato’s Juan Carlos Hidalgo reports that a federal court has decriminalised the consumption of drugs. According to this account (in Spanish) the court ruled that arresting young people for possessing marijuana and ecstasy was pointless, serving only to create “an avalanche of cases targeting consumers without climbing up in the ladder of [drug] trafficking”.

The case now moves to the Supreme Court, but the ruling is in line with President Cristina Kirchner’s own preference for decriminalisation, while the Minister of Jstice, Anibal Fernandez, has also stated that targetting consumers has been a “total failure”.