An article “Mexican Ex-President’s Drug Proposal Stirs Debate” reports:
“A former Mexican president’s proposal to legalize drugs to reduce cartel-related violence is stoking an increasingly desperate policy debate within Mexico and in Washington.
“Writing on his blog Sunday, Vicente Fox, who was president from 2000 to 2006, criticized the current administration’s military-led, U.S.-backed campaign to topple the cartels. The battle against and among the traffickers has left more than 28,000 people dead since December 2006.
“’We should consider legalizing the production, distribution and sale of drugs,” Fox wrote. “Legalizing in this sense doesn’t mean that drugs are good or don’t hurt those who consume. Rather, we have to see it as a strategy to strike and break the economic structure that allows the mafias to generate huge profits in their business.’”…
WATCHDOG: It is about time! The War on Drugs, founded on ambitions and myths, has been the other Viet-Nam war of the past fifty years. Smoking, alcohol and drugs are public health problems and should be treated as such, as we have done so successfully with smoking.
Prohibition enriches the worst elements of our society and is a manifestation of Jim Crow-ism, a perpetuation of discrimination against African-Americans. Just note the contrast between the higher percentage of Whites who use drugs and the greater percentage of blacks that are jailed for it! Three wags of the tail for Fox (the former president, not the network!)
