Mexico President-Elect Wants Drug Legalization Talks

[marmar]

Mexico President-Elect Wants Drug Legalization Talks


Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, said in a PBS Newsmaker interview that aired Tuesday evening that Mexico should discuss legalizing drugs and regulating their sale, and that the US and other countries should be part of the discussion as well. But he also said that he wasn't calling for legalization and that he would continue using the military in Mexico's battle against its powerful drug trafficking organizations, the so-called cartels.

"I'm in favor of opening a new debate in the strategy in the way we fight drug trafficking. It is quite clear that after several years of this fight against drug trafficking, we have more drug consumption, drug use and drug trafficking. That means we are not moving in the right direction. Things are not working," he told PBS's Margaret Warner in Mexico City. "I'm not saying we should legalize," he repeated. "But we should debate in Congress, in the hemisphere and especially the U.S. should participate in this broad debate."

"So let the debate begin, but you're not taking a position yet?" Warner asked.

"That's right," he said.

Peña Nieto joins an ever growing list of Latin American leaders calling for frank discussions on alternatives to US-style drug war policies. The incipient rebellion has been brewing for years, but broke into the open on the hemispheric diplomatic this spring at the Organization of American States's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1019433/mexico_president-elect_wants_drug_legalization_talks/

[banned from Kos]

1. Good for him and good for Mexico.

They could change the USA and Canada someday.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Talk is cheap.

In the same interview, he says he's going to continue to use the military to fight the cartels, and he wants to create a 40,000 strong paramilitary force, too. It looks like he's aiming at continuing Calderon's bloody drug war.