UUFSMA: “Is the War on Drugs Dead?”

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Online Service

“Is the War on Drugs Dead?”

Speaker: Laura Carlsen

Sunday, August 29, 2021
10:30 am

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/414604040 

Password: 294513

By Joseph Plummer

UUFSMA Board Secretary

Last month, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told the Washington Post that the 13-year-old Merida Initiative providing U.S. support for Mexico’s war on drugs is “dead.”  This was not the first time the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has distanced itself from the policy started under Felipe Calderon and blamed for hundreds of thousands of dead and disappeared because of ramped-up violence throughout Mexico. The question: Is it truly dead? If so, what will be Mexico’s new security strategy and the role of the United States in it? In view of recent violence in Guanajuato, the question could also be, “If the war is over why are so many people still being killed?”

Laura Carlsen, the Guest Speaker for this weekend’s UUFSMA Online Sunday Service, will offer her analysis of these questions, ones that she has studied for two decades. As a U.S. and Mexican citizen and director of the Americas Program, Ms. Carlsen has been a voice against the War on Drugs, the policy that criminalizes production, sale, and use of prohibited substances while it also ignores the costs of that policy to the societies of Mexico and the United States. As a close observer of the War on Drugs, she finds striking parallels between the racist, mass incarceration of people of color in the United States because of such warfare and the extrajudicial executions and militarization of policing in Mexico. This governmental approach to control of illegal drugs creates social havoc in both nations.

As Mexico faces these issues under a progressive government that vowed to change this policy, Carlsen will examine these promises of change and talk about proponents and opponents driving these issues.  Of particular interest, she will also explore ways to stop the violence affecting the state of Guanajuato.

To participate in our online Sunday Service, visit the Fellowship’s website at www.uufsma.org and click on the Zoom Service button displayed on the home page. If requested, enter password: 294513. Sign-in from anywhere Sunday mornings between 10:15-10:25 am CST.

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Due to the coronavirus, UUFSMA has suspended in-person Sunday services and other gatherings. A growing collection of previous online services can be found on the UUFSMA’s YouTube channel. Go to https://www.youtube.com/ and enter UUFSMA in the search box. The UU Fellowship welcomes people of all ages, races, religions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.