Lopez Obrador’s New Government to Consider Legalization of Drugs DW.com
go to original July 18, 2018

Illegal guns from the US fuel Mexico's drug cartel violence (Al Jazeera)

Update: Andrés Manuel López Obrador Was Elected to ‘Transform’ Mexico. Can He Do It? (The Conversation)

Mexico's new government is set explore the possibility of legalizing drugs, as part of a policy to tackle the violent crime that grips the nation, incoming Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero said on Tuesday.

Sanchez Cordero, a former Supreme Court judge, made the remark at a university seminar on the nation's cartel-fueled violence. Mexico's drug traffickers are the biggest suppliers of cocaine, heroin and other narcotics to the US.

"On the subject of decriminalizing drugs, Andres Manuel told me, and I quote: 'Carte blanche. Whatever is necessary to restore peace in this country. Let's open up the debate,'" Sanchez Cordero said.

Read more: Mexico fighting endless war against cartels

Since Mexico deployed its army to fight drug trafficking in 2006, the country has been engulfed in a wave of violence that has seen more than 200,000 murders. The incoming interior minister said that this militarization policy was in violation of the constitutional statute that public safety should be in the responsibility of civilian authorities.

"What no one can deny with hard data is that, at least in the past 10 years, the Mexican government has been incapable of stopping violence and responding to it with institutional mechanisms," Sanchez Cordero said, in a clear rebuke to previous administrations.

Read the rest at DW.com

Related: Latin America Should Consider Legalizing Drugs, United Nations Official Says (The Fix)