Parliamentary Anti-Corruption Front asks the Executive to repeal the drug consumption table

The group of assembly members that make up the Anti-Corruption Parliamentary Front requested the President of the Republic, Guillermo Lasso, the elimination of the drug consumption table as a concrete action to confront this source of corruption and insecurity.

Since 2013, and through several reforms, the ‘Tables of quantities of narcotic and psychotropic substances to sanction illicit trafficking of minimum, medium, high and large scale’ are in force in Ecuador, which although their purpose was to establish the parameters that make it possible to determine the levels of carrying and consumption, thus differentiating consumers, micro-traffickers and drug traffickers, have ultimately become the open door to the indiscriminate commercialization of drugs, says the document that was delivered in Carondelet.

The legislators led by Sofía Sánchez, Ricardo Vanegas, Fernando Villavicencio, Gisella Molina, Pedro Velasco, among others, reminded the head of state that the ‘Tables of narcotic and psychotropic substances to penalize illicit trafficking of minimum, medium, high and large scale ‘ were issued at the time by the National Council for the Control of Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances (Consep), based on the legal provisions contained in the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code (COIP); and that currently, the exercise of this power corresponds to the Ministry of the Interior.

For what they propose to the president, Guillermo Lasso, the urgency of designing and implementing a public health policy, to prevent, control and eradicate drug use.

Said public policy must contemplate a serious and responsible analysis of the elimination of the ‘Tables’ of drug use; At the same time, allocate sufficient economic resources so that the State provides timely attention in this area and, above all, puts an end to this source of corruption and insecurity.

Legislator Sofía Sánchez (Pachakutik) pointed out that this group of legislators is committed to working in two ways, to give answers to young people with the serious problem they face in the country’s schools, on the one hand, to request the President of the Republic to repeal the decree where the table of drugs is stipulated, and at the level of the legislature the COIP will be reformed in articles 220 and 228.

The repeal will allow the elimination of micro-trafficking at the level of educational establishments, because currently the legislation establishes that it is not punishable to have psychotropic substances in small quantities, based on a consumption table, therefore, the sale and consumption; hence, the elimination of this table will penalize the free sale and micro-trafficking of drugs.

Assemblyman Fernando Villavicencio recalled that correísmo, in 2014, was the one that approved this regulation mechanism that facilitates the consumption of drugs based on a table; that allowed the big drug cartels to pay their operators no longer in cash, but in kind.

With this, the intermediate operators of the cartels receive the payment in cocaine and they are the ones who have to expand networks in the neighborhoods, schools and citizens to sell the drug, and to do so comes the market dispute through real armies like Los Tiguerones, Los Lobos and Chone Killers, affirmed Villavicencio, who pointed out that one of the ways to confront the cartels is to eliminate this table or booklet on drug use.

At the Assembly level, currently, in the Justice Commission, a bill is being processed that reforms the COIP, precisely, to eliminate the drug consumption table. The project is the initiative of the legislators of the Bancada Acuerdo Nacional (BAN), Patricio Cervantes and Fredy Rojas.

Pro-government legislators seek to eliminate the drug consumption table through reforms to three articles of the COIP

The project asks in the first change to replace the final paragraph of article 220 of the COIP by the following: “The possession or possession of narcotic or psychotropic substances for personal use or consumption will not be punishable. The State will establish adequate mechanisms for the integral rehabilitation and social reinsertion of said persons”. (YO)