Mexico President Pena Nieto Says He's Against Legal Marijuana Sales Eric Martin and Erik Schatzker - Bloomberg News
go to original September 24, 2014

“I’m in agreement that we need to have a large debate in the hemisphere about the policies for this area, whether it’s to tolerate or to legalize or to simply take a hemispherical definition,” Pena Nieto said. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said that he’s against the legalization of marijuana as Latin American leaders debate drug policies, saying it would open the door to increased harm from narcotics.

The Western hemisphere needs a broad debate regarding the legality of marijuana, Pena Nieto said in a television interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. Cannabis is legal for recreational use in Washington and Colorado and allowed for medicinal purposes in 23 U.S. states and the nation’s capital. Uruguay last year legalized marijuana sales.

“I personally am against the legalization,” the 48-year-old president said. Legalizing marijuana would be “opening the door to a large intrusion of drugs that is very damaging to the population.”

Uruguay last year made sales of marijuana legal and leaders or former leaders in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador and Belize have said legalization should be debated. Officials from the 35 members of the Organization of American States met in Guatemala City last week to discuss counter-narcotics policies in the region.

Read the rest at Bloomberg News

Related: State of Jalisco Likely to Change Marijuana Law This Year, Says Ex-President Fox

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