Former Mexican President Vicente Fox Pushing for Pot Legalization Catherine E. Shoichet - CNN
go to original May 31, 2013

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and ex-Microsoft manager Jamen Shively discuss legalizing and branding marijuana. (CNN)

A former Mexican president who once led a military crackdown on drug cartels now has a new pitch: creating a legal system to produce, distribute and tax marijuana.

Vicente Fox is joining a group of entrepreneurs in Seattle this week to discuss that possibility, six months after voters in Washington state approved a ballot measure allowing recreational marijuana use.

As president, Fox launched Operation Safe Mexico, which sent soldiers and federal police to eight cities across the country in 2005 as drug cartels expanded their reach.

But since leaving office in 2006, he's taken a significantly softer stance. For years, he's pushed for drug legalization. Using military force to fight cartels doesn't work, he argues, but legalization would.

"With this we will avoid the violence," Fox told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Thursday. "We will control the criminals and reduce their income, and at the same time it would become a transparent, accountable business in the hands of businessmen."

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