US, Canada alienated at Summit of the Americas

CBC:

Canada and the United States are finding themselves at odds with Latin American countries on two thorny issues — the war on drugs and the exclusion of Cuba — at a summit of hemispheric leaders in Colombia.

The event's host, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, delivered a frank speech Saturday to the assembled heads of state and government in which he said it would be "unacceptable" to hold another Summit of the Americas without Cuba. The communist country was suspended from the Organization of American States, the main organizing body for the summits, in 1962.

Three Latin American leaders are threatening not to sign Sunday's summit declaration unless Canada and the United States agree to allow Cuba to attend the next one, the CBC's Terry Milewski reported from the summit.

The Colombian president also said that the war on drugs isn't working and that he would like to see a debate on decriminalizing them.

Violence related to the drug trade has pushed murder rates in Central America and the Caribbean to the highest in the world.

But Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office has said he won't entertain any policy changes that would lift the prohibition of illicit drugs, while U.S. President Barack Obama repeated at the summit on Saturday that the White House believes "legalization is not the answer."

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