A growing number of countries in Latin America are rejecting the U.S.-style “War on Drugs” and are decriminalizing personal drug use in order to focus their resources on traffickers, Reuters reported Jan. 29.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico are among the nations that have eased penalties for drug possession and personal use. The Obama administration has not objected to allies in the drug war abandoning so-called ’zero-tolerance’ policies.

Mexico and Latin America have seen rising drug-related violence, but even in places where such incidents are rare, change is happening. “The courts were overwhelmed with cases of small consumers. We have a real drug consumption problem in Argentina and we cannot fix it just by punishing,” said Argentine federal judge Horacio Cattani.

Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez, is expected to propose legislation to send drug offenders to treatment rather than prison, and Ecuador recently freed 2,000 low-level drug traffickers from prison.

“The U.S. is retreating from imposing a model,” said drug policy expert John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America. “The White House … is going to be taking a more measured approach to talking about drug policy.”

Ironically, Colombia is taking the opposite tack, with its Congress recently voting to undo a 1994 Constitutional amendment that decriminalized personal use of drugs.