DRUG WAR CHRONICLE: Mexico’s likely president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, said in a PBS Newsmaker interview that aired Tuesday evening that Mexico should discuss legalizing drugs and regulating their sale, and that the US and other countries should be part of the discussion as well. But he also said that he wasn’t calling for legalization and that he would continue using the military in Mexico’s battle against its powerful drug trafficking organizations, the so-called cartels.
While Peña Nieto is virtually certain to be Mexico’s next president, it’s not quite official yet. Mexico election officials are recounting half the ballot boxes because of inconsistencies in the tallies and expect to release final results Sunday. But with Peña Nieto holding a five-point lead over second place finisher Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador, the recount is unlikely to change the outcome.
“I’m in favor of opening a new debate in the strategy in the way we fight drug trafficking. It is quite clear that after several years of this fight against drug trafficking, we have more drug consumption, drug use and drug trafficking. That means we are not moving in the right direction. Things are not working,” he told PBS’s Margaret Warner in Mexico City. “I’m not saying we should legalize,” he repeated. “But we should debate in Congress, in the hemisphere and especially the US should participate in this broad debate.”
“So let the debate begin, but you’re not taking a position yet?” Warner asked.
“That’s right,” he said.
Peña Nieto joins an ever growing list of Latin American leaders calling for frank discussions on alternatives to US-style drug war policies. The incipient rebellion has been brewing for years, but broke into the open on the hemispheric diplomatic this spring at the Organization of American States’ Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia.
Although US media coverage of the summit was devoted almost entirely to the bright shiny object that was the Secret Service prostitution scandal, the summit saw Latin American leaders, including Colombian President Santos and Guatemalan President Perez Molina urge that formal discussions take place. And just days ago, Uruguayan President Mujica joined the ranks of the drug war dissenters, as his government put forth plans to establish a state monopoly on marijuana sales.
While Peña Nieto’s comments on debating legalization won’t be welcomed with open arms in Washington, his affirmation that he will largely continue the policies of his predecessor, President Felipe Calderon, will reassure politicians and policymakers worried that he was going to go soft on the cartels. While he would shift the focus from going after gang capos to reducing the violence, the Mexican state would continue to battle organized crime, he said.
“I know there is a concern around this issue, in terms of assuming this adjustment means not going after drug cartels involved in drug trafficking. No, absolutely not,” he insisted.
“I will maintain the presence of a Mexican Army, and the Navy and police in the states of the Mexican Republic, where the problem of crime has increased,” the telegenic former governor of Mexico state emphasized. “We will adjust the strategy so that we can focus on certain type of crimes, like kidnapping, homicide, extortion, which today, unfortunately, have worsened or increased, because we have a lot of impunity in some areas. The state’s task is to achieve more efficiency, and to go back to the rule of law and enforce laws strictly in our country.”
And while he said he wanted to intensify cooperation with the US, he made clear that he felt the US had failed to do enough to stop gun-running into Mexico. That has been a complaint of Calderon’s as well.
“We have been insisting on getting the US more involved in arms control,” Peña Nieto said bluntly. “Unfortunately, it has had no impact.”
The cracks in the wall of global drug prohibition keep getting bigger, and that bleeding fissure opened up by Mexico’s wave of prohibition-related violence has created yet another stress point on the prohibitionist consensus. We may not be there quite yet, but the time when that wall finally collapses is coming.
Mexico City
Mexico
