Diversion

Position Paper:

Capital: Santiago

Language: Spanish

Government: Unitary presidential republic

President: Sebastián Piñera

Area: 756,096.3 km2

Population: 2012 census= 16,572,475

Religion: All religions are tolerate

GDP: $299.786 billion

There are different trends in favor and against changes that would decriminalize certain behaviors related to controlled substances. As with other countries in the region, the debate in Chile in recent years has often revolved around the issue of cannabis, especially liberalization of laws regarding cultivation for personal use and consumption.  According to the National Service for Drug and Alcohol Prevention and Rehabilitation (Servicio Nacional para la Prevención y Rehabilitación del Consumo de Drogas y Alcohol—SENDA), useand supply of cannabis constitute more than 90 percent of all controlled substances.

The presentation of a bill in 2003 to decriminalize cannabis was the first significant step in recent legislative history regarding this substance.  The goal of the proposal was to reinforce individual responsibilities before adopting repressive measures.

The presentation of this bill went largely unnoticed andit was considered ridiculous by some.   Today, in 2012, a similar bill to decriminalize cannabis cultivation for personal use and consumption has been presented by Senators Rossi and Lagos Weber.  While the bill has generated debate in the media, it has not been ridiculed like the legislation presented nine years earlier.  It is a sign that there has been a change in public opinion towardmarijuana.  This substance has gained space in Chilean society.  

Even if the legislation proposed by Rossi and Lagos Weber does not pass, it will have helped spark broader debate in the country and show that today there is greater awareness of the positive aspects of decriminalization.

Prevention in drugs:

President Sebastián Piñera signed the new Drug and Alcohol Prevention Act into law on Monday,which sets up an educational program to warn schoolchildren against the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The president took the opportunity to break his silence over the renewed debate over drug decriminalization, taking a decidedly anti-decriminalization stance. "At a time when some are promoting the legalization of drugs, this administration is committed to fighting against it, not only forchildren but also the entire population.

1.- Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Use

It is evident that in Chile it has increased the consumption of drugs in persons of all ages, specially in the juvenile population. To the traditional abuse of alcohol and tobacco, they have added the consumption of marijuana, volatile, tranquilizing solvents, stimulant and derived from cocaine.

The adolescents andadults persons between 18 and 31 years are those who more consume drugs. The consumptions begin to early age, the majority of the consumers uses them for the first time before twenty years.

Chile possesses the fourth rate of consumption of alcohol in the world and the second one of mortality for cirrhosis; twenty-five per cent of the deaths happened in the country they are associated with theconsumption of alcohol.

The majority of the persons thinks that it is easy or very easy to accede to the drug, specially marijuana and in the north, cocaine. Now it is easier to be contacted the world of the drug because everyone know someone that use this products.

A great number of persons perceives today to the problem of the drug as one of the principal threats in all the areas of the lifein society: individual, family and mental health; violence, delinquency and personal security; work, production and job safety; economy, drug trafficking and national security.

Law:

The current legislation, Law 20.000, was passed and published in February 2005.  It substituted Law 19.366, passed in 1995, which punished illicit trafficking of narcotics and psychotropic substances.  Law...