America to the rescue. . . I mean blackmail.
I salute the Mexican government for being brave enough to publicly reconsider a ridiculous policy. I only wish the US Congress had the prerequisite cojones.
Mexico’s Congress opened a three-day debate Monday on the merits of legalizing marijuana for personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working. Although President Felipe Calderon has opposed the idea, the unprecedented forum shows legalizing marijuana is gaining support in Mexico amid brutal drug violence.
Such a measure would be sure to strain relations with the United States at a time when the two countries are stepping up cooperation in the fight against drug trafficking. The congressional debate — open to academics, experts and government officials — ends a day before President Barack Obama arrives in Mexico for talks on the drug war.
Sadly, even if Mexico does come out in favor of legalization, the US will likely blackmail it with a cutoff of various funds to prevent such a move, the same way they violate the sovereignty of their own states. Nevertheless, Mexico would be in a good position to defy the US as even with the legalization of marijuana, it would be a tough sell domestically for the US to cut off aid to Mexico at a time when drug violence is all over the news.
In the short term, yes. But in the long term American drug policy does seem to be getting more rational, particularly regarding marijuana. We now have over a dozen states that have approved medical marijuana and Obama has ordered the DEA to respect those state laws and halt the Bush era raids on duly licenses medical marijuana dispensaries. NY State is working on rolling back the draconian Rockefeller drug sentencing laws. Senator Webb’s recent speech on the fundamentally broken prison-industrial complex received a fair amount of attention, and these issues are simply being more discussed and have a more prominent place in the public consciousness, in no small part due to people like David Simon (creator of The Wire). California is now even having a serious, if yet small-scale, debate on legalizing and gaining revenue from their largest agricultural product.
Check out this chart showing the population distribution of American who have personally tried marijuana at some point: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/04/why-marijuana-legalization-is-gaining.html
The personal knowledge that the drug’s effects (and it is a drug, much like alcohol, nicotine, caffeine) are far milder than opponents say combined with the observational evidence that the drug war has been not just a failure but actively damaging to society, makes it very likely that we will see a major shift in policy in the future. Like gay marriage it is only a matter of time, as the younger voters replace the older ones. However, looking at the rate of progress (particularly the past two weeks) I would not be surprised to see gay marriage become legal at a federal level a full decade before marijuana.
Pingback: tdaxp » Blog Archive » Some cool links
As I argue today, there’s no point in Mexico changing their policy as long as they’re the sole conduit to the U.S. drugs market. The U.S. has invested too heavily, including $400 million just in the last few months, not to see this pay off for them. The shame is that Calderon is using the swine flu scare to curtail the country’s midterm campaign and to bolster his, and his party’s, support. He wants authoritarian powers and the U.S. is willing to help him as long as it means they shut down the cartels. It’s a shame they’re being used in such a way when changes to health care delivery in both countries, for viruses in Mexico and for drugs in the United States, would have rendered the last few months moot. Now, though, Calderon has established the precedent of emergency powers and a Congress with a PAN majority is sure to hand it to him. The States want a strong man in Mexico and they’re likely to get one.
My post on the subject is here: http://www.anarchistoutpost.com/2009/05/whos-interested-in-mexicos-failure.html. Sorry.