In Ecuador important advances have been made in the area of drug policy, with civil society playing an active part in them. The country's National Assembly is currently debating a bill: "Organic Law for the Comprehensive Prevention of Drugs and the Use of Catalogued Substances Subject to Regulation.”

In 1998 the country revised its “Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act” (Act 108), under which consumption was decriminalised. However, there existed legal contradictions and flaws that ended up penalising users and consumers for holding, possession and transport, without any criterion of proportionality, all entailing sentences of 12-16 years.

In 2008 a new milestone was reached with regards to the discussion of the drug phenomenon as Ecuador initiated a constitutional process, including the publication of Article 364 which, among other things, shifted the government´s approach to drugs from repression/policing to public health, distinguished between occasional, regular and problematic consumers; and recognised that in...