Hear
The sale of drugs in the neighborhoods is one of the main concerns of Buenos Aires residents, especially due to the violence that spills from those places known as bunkers. Despite the repetition of attacks against cocaine retail gangs, there does not seem to be a real barrier to stop drug penetration. On the one hand, an important part of the explanation for the growth of these bands has to do with the increase in consumption. The more demand, the bigger the business. But there is another fact that has an impact on the consolidation of the market for illegal psychoactive substances: the limited effectiveness of research.
In the province of Buenos Aires, only 3 percent of the cases initiated for violation of law 23,737 reach trial.which establishes crimes linked to the manufacture, transportation, sale and possession of illegal drugs.
A report from the Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor’s Office established that in 2023, 88,310 cases related to narcotics were completed. Of these files, 52,746 had been initiated as investigations for drug marketing. Of that group, the 84.70 percent of the cases were archived because there was no way to advance the investigation or people to accuse.
These cases were closed based on article 268 of the Buenos Aires Procedural Code, which states: “In the event that, in the opinion of the prosecutor, there is not sufficient evidence regarding the existence of the act or its authorship, he may proceed to file the proceedings. , communicating the performance of this act to the guarantee judge.”
Specifically, drugs could have been seized in a procedure, but the police officers who intervened ultimately did not provide evidence to support an accusation against any suspect.
To this 84.70% must be added 11.85% of the cases that were closed during 2023 when the prosecutor’s offices dismissed the complaints that had led to the opening of a judicial file.
Only 3.02 percent of the cases were escalated to trial, meaning that the investigation in those files was strong enough to sustain an accusation before an oral court. Less than one percent of the cases had a more expeditious resolution, with the acceptance of community service instead of the expectation of a sentence, the resolution through a summary trial or the dismissal of the accused.
In short, many cases are initiated in Buenos Aires for violations of Law 23,737 – 76,390 cases of these characteristics were opened last year, according to the Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor’s Office -, but a minimum amount reaches a positive resolution for the fight against the organizations drug criminals. And the fight in the Buenos Aires territory has a decisive weight against drug dealing. With only that 3 percent of investigations reaching trial, 7,567 drug sellers remained in prison as of December 31, an important figure since throughout the country the federal and provincial penitentiary systems had just under 13,000 at that time. arrested for drug crimes.
The low effectiveness of the investigations supports the social feeling that although drug sales outlets in the neighborhoods may be closed a few days after an operation, they will quickly become operational again.
Since 2005, Buenos Aires adheres to law 26,052, which allows the transfer to the provinces of responsibility for fighting crimes considered – probably wrongly – minor in the area of illegal drugs. For almost 20 years, then, the Buenos Aires political, police and judicial authorities have had direct responsibility in confronting drug dealing. Few districts accepted the proposal to defederalize the fight against drug trafficking. Rosario, for example, only joined this year, despite being in the daily news a decade ago due to the violence of drug dealing in its streets. That law 26,052 had been promoted in Congress by Buenos Aires.
Now there would be a change of attitude. A few months ago, Governor Axel Kicillof raised the intention of withdrawing the provincial police and local courts from the fight against drugs, with the intention of going back and leaving that issue only to federal forces and prosecutors. To do so he needs the votes in the provincial Legislature.
The central idea is that many resources are consumed in cases that do not progress due to the collapse of the courts in the face of the number of files. Faced with that, the option presented by the governor aims for only the Federal Justice to deal with drug sales issues. That would leave all allegations of retail drug sales out of investigation, since federal courts would have to choose between addressing these cases urgently or advancing investigations into more complex networks. In addition, they would receive all the files opened for possession for personal consumption, which end up in archives, but which require judicial activity.
The document from the Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor’s Office referring to 2023 indicates, in this sense, that 27,409 files were closed that had defendants who had been arrested with drugs for personal consumption. In 99 percent of these cases were archived.
One percent of the cases for possession for personal consumption that were brought to trial had to do with the presence in the file of other crimes not linked to Law 23,737.
Possession of drugs for personal use was decriminalized by the Supreme Court in a case that began in January 2006 in that city, with the arrest of drug users who were carrying a few homemade cigarettes armed with marijuana. It was called the Arriola ruling. But a police officer on the street cannot make that decision, so in the presence of illicit substances, the drugs are confiscated and criminal proceedings are opened against the offender. The case will not prosper when appealing the decision to decriminalize possession for personal consumption made by the highest court in 2009.
Since that ruling, marijuana consumption has increased 300 percent, according to Sedronar reports. The growth of the cocaine market is not known, because during the government of Alberto Fernández the system for measuring the consumption of that drug was changed to prevent comparison with previous years.
