Dominican Republic joins nations seeking to “regulate” drug market

MERIDA, Mexico.- President Leonel Fernandez joined the chief executives who’ve signed the declaration of the 13th Summit of Heads of State and Government and the Tuxtla Dialogue Mechanism Agreement, which asks the United States and other drug consumer countries to adopt more drastic measures to track and cut the flow of money to the underworld’s criminal activities.

“However, if this is not possible, as recent experience demonstrates, the authorities of the consuming countries must then explore all possible alternatives to eliminate the exorbitant profits of the criminals, including regulatory or market options oriented towards that intention,” the chief executives said after calling drug trafficking and organized crime one of the their nations’ main challenges.

The declaration states a sensible reduction in the demand for illegal drugs is key to fight organized crime and prevent the trafficking of those substances, which continues spurring crimes and violence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

They also demand that the congresses of the United States and other weapons producing nations to establish effective measures to register, regulate and to keep assault rifles and others highly dangerous arms from reaching criminal groups of the region.

They added that during the last few decades drug trafficking’s extraordinary profits have provided enormous financial power to transnational crime organizations.