In March 2011, Carter traveled to Cuba, where they were received by Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. The Carter Center described the trip as "a non-governmental mission at the invitation of the Cuban government" while some thought Carter's visit was meant to aid in securing the release of American contractor Alan Gross. Carter met with Gross, calling him "a man whom I believe to be innocent of any serious threat to the Cuban government or to the Cuban people". At the same conference, Carter stated his support for the US releasing the Cuban Five, opining that "the original circumstances of their trial" were dubious, and ending the United States's economic embargo on Cuba. On June 16, the 40th anniversary of Richard Nixon's official declaration of America's War on Drugs, Carter wrote an op-ed in The New York Times urging the United States and the rest of the world to "Call Off the Global War on Drugs", explicitly endorsing the initiative released by the Global Commission on Drug Policy earlier that month and quoting a message he gave to Congress in 1977 saying that "[p]enalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."
