Will the Government Sidetrack Mexico's Marijuana Legalization Debate? Jorge Carrillo Olea - La Jornada
go to original December 5, 2015

Mikel Arriola, of Cofepris; Mercedes Juan, Secretary of Health; Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Secretary of Government Relations; Humberto Castillejos, legal counsel to the President, and Roberto Campa, Undersecretary of Human Rights, issue the call for the debate over marijuana consumption. (Xinhua)

The tragedy in Paris abruptly interrupted the open discussion about the legalization of the production and consumption of marijuana. These times are characterized by how, as someone said, “nothing is older than yesterday’s news.” A month ago we were debating, with opinions and retractions, the First Chamber of the Supreme Court’s decision [granting four individuals the right to grow marijuana for their personal consumption]. And a month later, we are only beginning to react. [This week, the government announced its plan for a national debate on marijuana.]

It seems that we had forgotten the Supreme Court’s decision that requires engaged reflection on three of its determinaing forces: an informed but limited society that applauds the ruling, a large traditionalist sector that will be motivated to oppose it, and a president personally adverse to it. This triangle, and especially the excessive presidential attitude, render inevitable the assessment that we may achieve only limited success in this historic decision.

We may be facing a path similar to the movement for abortion, which was approved in the Federal District [Mexico City] but dissolved in the state legislatures, or that of gay marriage, which has traversed the same route despite the Supreme Court’s rulings. Mexican society as a whole is a conservative community, reactionary when faced with change and even more so when the changes invite questions of morality. Society will resume the discussion opened about marijuana, because such is unavoidable, but each day that passes increases the risks we face. The President is playing with time. This past Wednesday he mounted a multifaceted debate to investigate the subject, so convoluted that one can guess how it will end up.

The president would only need to insist that marijuana is a drug harmful to our health, and although less so than tobacco and alcohol, it should, like those substances, be regulated by the State, such that the principles of protection of human health, the persecution of crime, and international cooperation continue to prevail. This the vanguard approach, highly applicable now, was made official in 1992 through the National Program for the Control of Drugs but later abandoned by the governments of Ernesto Zedillo and those that followed. They returned to the exclusivity of repression, with much moralistic duplicity.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Related: Mexico Government Opens National Marijuana Debate (Mexico Voices)

Translated by Leila English

Mexico Voices is a blogging endeavor aimed at raising the awareness of U.S. citizens regarding the destructive impact of the U.S. economic policy and the War on Drugs on Mexico — on its people, their economic and physical security and their human rights, on the nation’s dysfunctional justice system, and on the rule of law and Mexico’s fragile democracy. Visit the website at MexicoVoices.blogspot.mx

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