Former Mexican president Vicente Fox backs the legalisation of drugs, saying prohibition has failed to curb violence.
Mr Fox said legalisation did not mean that drugs were good.
But he said it was a strategy that could reduce the power of the cartels.
The current Mexican president, Felipe Calderon last week called for a debate on legalisation, but he said he personally opposed the idea.
More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence since Mr Calderon took office and deployed the army to fight the cartels
- Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has called for the legalisation of drugs, arguing that prohibition has
One Comment
In theory, through legalization the Mexican government would tax and regulate the drug trade and use the money generated from this to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addicts.
In theory, legalization would push prices down as drugs would become easily available and because reputable pharmaceutical companies would get involved in the development and distribution of safe and cheap alternatives.
Ha ha ha. What I would like to see is the implementation process of this theory.
Let’s say that Mexico decides to legalize drugs and by definition the drug trade. Then what? Mr. Drug Baron, who is already paying hefty bribes on both sides of the border to run his business and has a complicated network that goes all the way from producing to distributing and pushing, agrees with this ‘wonderful’ idea and goes legal?
So he registers “Fumate Un Churro S.A.” in Mexico and “Fly High Inc.” in the U.S.A. Enrolls his gangsters in the IMSS (social security), exchanges their guns for business cards, starts raising invoices, paying taxes and allowing the government to regulate the selling price of this produce? All these to see his revenues and profits plummet because the demand is not there anymore as Pfizer and Novartis are producing safer and cheaper alternatives to good’ol coke and marihuana?
Ha ha ha. Wake up and smell the coffee! Legalizing drugs without getting rid of the drug cartels first will only give users a cheaper ride to lah-lah-land and will increase the violence exponentially.
So, how about having the Americans commit to selling to someone else the top-notch weapons that have been empowering the drug cartels? Hey! How about giving those weapons to the Mexican drug squads instead so that they can fight on equal grounds with the gangsters? … and how about if the Americans lend Mexican authorities their international agents, specialized in finding the really bad guys (the ones that found Sadam Hussein, please, not the ones that are still looking for Osama Bin Laden) to locate the drug barons? This way you leave the ‘little bad guys’ headless and under-armed and easier to control … and then, we can all take a ride on those 3 Black Hawks that the USA so kindly suggested to donate to fight the drug war, and we can all can take some lovely aerial pictures of a safer Mexico.