What happens to U.S. if Mexico legalizes illegal drugs?
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, strode onto a St. Louis stage Tuesday night wearing a conservative business suit and pedestrian black loafers. The cowboy boots and “Fox” belt buckle that were his trademarks while in office until late 2006 were gone.
The serious attire gave hint to the serious message he delivered: Mexico should consider legalizing some illicit drugs.
The towering man with a baritone voice spoke to a jammed house at the Busch Student Center at Saint Louis University. A few hours later in Mexico City, his successor, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, kicked off his country’s Independence Day celebration at the traditional mass gathering in El Zócalo plaza.
As Mexico celebrates the 199th anniversary of the cry for independence from Spain, it is reeling from drug violence sown by feuding cartels. In St. Louis, Mr. Fox suggested there needs to be a new uproar, one that surely would reverberate north of the border.
“We need a public debate whether to legalize drug consumption,” he said.
That topic might be unthinkable in U.S. political circles, but it’s gaining traction in Mexico as drug violence worsens.
An estimated 10,000 people have been slain in drug-related killings in Mexico since early 2007. By way of perspective, in all of the United States, with a population three times larger than Mexico’s, 15,000 people died from murder or manslaughter in 2007.
Mr. Fox said he initially opposed Mr. Calderón’s decision to mobilize the military against cartels, but said, “Now Calderón has to continue the war and win.”
“I had not envisioned that it would go this far,” Mr. Fox said.
In August, Mexico decriminalized “personal use” amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other illicit drugs. The idea was to allow law enforcement to concentrate on fighting organized crime. Now, authorities are encouraging drug abusers to seek treatment rather than face prosecution.
The United States, predictably, reacted negatively to decriminalizations that define personal use of marijuana, for example, as 5 grams or less (about four cigarettes). Now Mr. Fox is suggesting that Mexico consider taking the next step: legalizing drug consumption entirely.
Mr. Fox says a thirst for riches propels the street violence. So legalizing drugs — as Holland has done — could have the same effect that ending Prohibition had in the United States in 1933: Removing the incentive for criminals.
But if the domestic market in Mexico collapsed because of legalization, the export market might become even more valuable. Any move toward legalization would work only if done in concert with the United States, Mr. Fox said.
“The whole problem in Mexico derives from the huge consumer market here in the United States,” he said in an interview before his speech.
More than 1,600 persons have been killed so far this year in Ciudad Juàrez. Across the border in El Paso, Texas, which bills itself as the nation’s “third safest city,” officials worry that the violence will cross the border.
Mexico imports $250 billion in U.S. goods each year; economics alone dictate that the United States must do whatever it can to help solve the its neighbor’s crisis.
Mexico’s challenge, Mr. Fox said, is to preserve the gains made before the drug violence escalated and a worldwide recession took root. That will require a willingness on both sides of the border to think radically.
Gilbert Bailon has been editor of the P-D editorial pages since November 2007. Previously, he worked as a reporter, editor and executive editor for The Dallas Morning News and its daily Spanish-language newspaper, Al Dia. He still harbors a passion for all things Tex-Mex: food, music, language, boots and border culture. And yes he has found some of that in the Midwest. 
As one who used to think the war on drugs was a good idea, I have to admit that after seeing the wreckage of its failed policy and the horrible results, I am all for legalizing marijuana. Especially considering the fact that marijuana hasn’t ever killed anybody and doesn’t seem to cause any health problems. It’s very sad that alcohol and tobacco products are legal but kill nearly millions of people a year and from what I understand, marijuana has never ever killed a single soul.
From a conservative Christian perspective, it seems to me that the right thing to do is legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana, if not all illegal drugs. If we don’t, we may find drug cartels running our government before too long.
Legalize it. Not “medical marijuana.” Not “decriminalization.” Just plain old legalize it. Let people grow it in their basement, just like they can now brew beer. Prohibit sale to minors and regulate public use, just like you do with cigarettes and alcohol.
Right now, responsible people like myself, who own homes and cars and other things the government could seize, and who don’t relish the idea of having a criminal record, keep away from it. At the same time, criminal enterprises import it by the ton and sell it on street corners. I’ve even seen people smoking blunts on the Metrolink platform.
I won’t buy the stuff, because I won’t consume products of unknown origin. Under Missouri law, growing a single plant is a felony. How totally stupid. Just legalize it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Every thorough, objective study done by various countries (including the US) over the last 100 years has concluded that the prohibition of a drug (any drug, alcohol, pot, cocaine, meth) causes more harm to the individual and to society than the use of the drug itself. In the case of Mexico this becomes very obvious. The violence, murder and mayhem is not a result of people being stoned on drugs and going out and killing. It is a direct result of the enormous black market profits that are created by prohibition. Remove the excessive profits by legalizing and you’ve solved the problem of gangs and cartels. I would think that all conservatives would support legalization since prohibition is an infringement on a persons right to choose, it distorts the free market, and it leads to more and more govt intervention. Addiction to the now-illicit drugs should be treated the same as addiction to prescription drugs (Rush), by the medical community, not law enforcement. Jail has never cured an addiction.
Legalize it??? NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. Way way too much money funneled into law enforcement all in the name of War on Drugs. As already stated. Growing something that could easily be found growing on the side of the raod is a felony. INSANE. Do I want kids smoking pot? No. If Joe Shoe Salesman works all day and want to go home inside his own house and smoke weed, he should not have to worry about loosing his House, Job and do 20 years in prison. The money being thrown at this is staggering for what? Keep pot smokers in jail and let child molester and murdurers go free cause jails are over crowded.
> Addiction to the now-illicit drugs should be treated the same as addiction to
> prescription drugs (Rush), by the medical community, not law enforcement.
And those who harmlessly use them should be treated the same as those who harmlessly drink beer - not at all.
Hello The biggest drug companies in the world, check the days ending share prices on the big board, do run our government. Man achieved domain over all the plants I read somewhere. The only thing marijuana will kill is the paper processing and Agricultural chemical sales maybe even cotton growing interests. Wait no the farmers can sell hemp fiber, it was once used to make paper as well as clothing. The decreased demand for chemical treatment for the crop as opposed to cotton would even help the environment! When considered along with the higher than cotton yields that hemp brings to the equation it is a no-brainer, but then again I don’t have my assets tied up in an industry so deeply that I count on lobbyists and “constituant dependant guidance” to ensure such socially derrogatory practices keep the money flowing either.
Legalize marijuana use in the US. Make it a cash crop that can be farmed on regular farmlands. Tax and license its’ sales in the same way as alcohol and cigarettes. Also, enforce the same penalties for smoking it in public and driving under the influence as apply for alcohol.
Buy shares in a pizza chain.
At least this may get the drug gangs out of our national forests so that hikers can safely go there again and not fear that they will be shot because they happened upon someone’s crop.
Read “Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People To Drink?” Fox, Armentano, and Tvert.
We keep alcohol in our society as acceptable which fuels drunken rages which can lead to violence, rape, and abuse. Marijuana acts in the brain so much differently than alcohol… there isn’t a valid argument why marijuana should remain legal is you look at alcohol and tobacco.
Legalize, regulate, and control cannabis finally. Let farmers grown cannabis and industrial hemp. This is the 21st century not ruled in racism and yellow journalism. Mexico is making leaps and bounds ahead of America, while we sit here with Big Phrama and industries who line our politicians pocket books!
Like it or not… we have been lied to for over 70 years!!!
Holland didn’t legalize drugs. They’ve just deprioritized prosecuting use/sale of some of the less dangerous ones.
brian, there’s one drug that’s fully legal in Holland, it’s alcohol. Alcohol and drugs is a bogus phrase, and alcohol supremacism over cannabis is a bogus law, messing with or ruining people’s lives for preferring a less dangerous drug instead of a more dangerous one.