The Mexican Legalization Movement
Drug Policy Reform Goes Mainstream South of the BorderBy Dan Feder
Special to The Narco News BulletinJanuary 20, 2003�The war on drugs is a
lost war,� says Mexican Congressman Gregorio Urias of the Northern State of
Sinaloa, a region that has long suffered more than its share of the
violence and corruption related to narco-trafficking. Sinaloa is often
called �the cradle of Mexican narco-trafficking,� and Congressman Urias has
had enough.
�Narco-trafficking has increased, controlled more capital, moved a greater
volume of drugs, consumption has gone up, the consequences have gone up,
the violence engendered by trafficking has gone up each year,� says Urias.
The cause of all this trouble, says the Congressman, of the center-left PRD
(Democratic Revolution Party), is not the drugs, but their illegality, and
the current policy of prohibition is only making the problems worse.
In other words, Urias favors the legalization of drugs, and last year
authored legislation in the national Congress to begin that process with
the decriminalization of marijuana.
Congressman Gregorio Urias
All photos D.R. Dan Feder 2003
The Congressman wants to debate the effectiveness of the current policy of
drug prohibition, but, he says, �This debate almost never happens in
Mexico. Information should no longer be manipulated. The official
information is distorted information. What I have proposed in the Latin
American Parliament, and here in Mexico, is that there should be a debate.�
The other options on the table, he says, should include the legalization or
decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs.
Urias is not the first political leader to openly challenge the US-imposed
policy of prohibition. In 1998, then-Senator Maria del Carmen Bolado del
Real, of the competing PAN (National Action Party) proposed a bill to
legalize and regulate all drugs in Mexico. In fact, leaders from almost
every one of Mexico�s political parties have advocated this solution at one
time or another � including President Vicente Fox, who, in 2001, predicted
that decriminalization of drugs would be inevitable as a global solution ...
MORE ON...
http://www.narconews.com/Issue27/article592.html
