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Mexico passed a controversial law on Aug. 20, 2009, decriminalizing people's personal use of drugs. Under the new law, the maximum amount of marijuana that can be considered for personal use is 5 grams - the equivalent of about four marijuana cigarettes. Other limits are half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

Anyone caught with possession of drug amounts below and up to the allowed limit for their personal use will be encouraged to seek treatment. For those caught a third time, treatment is mandatory - although there are no specified penalties for noncompliance.

This demand-reduction policy contradicts the supply-reduction policy adopted by the Mexican government. In terms of supply reduction, Mexico uses a traditional approach to national security and transnational crime reduction. The use of police and military forces is chosen by the government to reduce the supply of illicit drugs into Mexico.

Without doubt, the decriminalization policy is a progressive effort to humanize people who use drugs. Addiction in general, including addiction to all kind of drugs, is no longer viewed as a kind of behavior. Through this new policy, it is already being viewed as a kind of disease. Some experts define addiction as a chronic disease similar to other chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Based on this perspective, punitive sanctions for drug users, such as detention, is no longer adopted in Mexico. The government believes that people who use drugs need health treatment. Drug addiction rehabilitation facilities should be established to fulfill their needs for health treatment, care and support for a full recovery.

Mexico's decriminalization program was followed by its neighbors, including Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia. Argentina's Supreme Court decriminalized small-scale use of marijuana on Aug. 25, 2009, opening the way for a shift in the country's drug-fighting policies to focus on traffickers instead of users.

Bolivia was the leading country in the region in the revolution on drug policy. But the Bolivian government did not use any health paradigms such as Mexico did. Bolivia used a cultural paradigm to decriminalize the traditional habit of chewing the coca leaf.

Bolivia President Evo Morales stated in his speech at the United Nations high-level meeting in Vienna on March 11, 2009, that coca leaves were not viewed as a kind of narcotic in Bolivia. Chewing coca leaves is a cultural value that cannot be eradicated from Bolivia.

Morales also urged the UN to revise the single convention on narcotic drugs (1961) as well as to decriminalize the coca leaf and the people who chew it for cultural reasons.

While the Mexican and Bolivian governments criticize the "wrong" international drug policies, the Indonesian government still keeps those international policies as basic standards to define its own drug policy.

Indonesia is one of the countries that has ratified the trio of international drug policies: single convention on narcotic drugs (1961), convention on psychotropic substances (1971), and UN convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (1988).

The Indonesian government has been trying to revise its national policy on narcotic drugs since 2005. Its revision process became a huge issue among members of parliament when discussions led to the criminalization of people who use drugs and the role of a national narcotics board (BNN) in dealing with the illicit trafficking of drugs in Indonesia.

In the development of the revised policy, the government still believes that consuming drugs is a criminal act. In order to deal with that perspective, any person who uses drugs should be punished through the criminal justice system. The aim of this punishment is to provide shock therapy for people who use drugs, with the assumption that they will no longer touch any narcotic drugs.

Based on those facts, it seems the Indonesian government is still unaware of, and does not understand, the concept of addiction - that people who are addicted to any kind of narcotics do not need to be detained by the authorities. What they need as human beings is treatment and support in order for them to fully recover.

An important question for the Indonesian government to consider: Will the government lead a revolution on its drug policy, just like Mexico and Bolivia did, in order to humanize people who use drugs in Indonesia and to protect generations of Indonesians from any illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs?

The writer works with the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association as head of the conflict area division.