President Enrique Pena Nieto Could Take Mexico's Drug War in a New Direction Eduardo R. Huchim - Reforma
go to original June 21, 2014

The strategy of fighting drug trafficking with blood and fire involves a variety of irrationalities that have been pointed out by many. Within this context we can place the declarations made by the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions of the United Nations, Christof Heyns, who urged Mexico to leave behind the militaristic focus on security, since it puts the right to life at risk, and recalled the numbers from the Mexican drama: more than 100,000 executions since 2006, 70% related to drug trafficking (Reforma, 6/12/14).

Although it is already commonplace to point out that the drug war is a failure, in Mexico the possibility of changing to a strategy that considers the problem from the health perspective and puts in place regulation and effective rehabilitation and prevention programs is still being rejected.

Nevertheless, a window seems to be opening for the possibility of changing strategies, if we accept the declarations that President Enrique Peña Nieto made last week to journalist Javier Moreno (El País, 6/9/14), which came from one question: Does the legalization of marijuana in about twenty states in the USA not complicate the discourse both for you and for President Obama in the fight against drug trafficking?

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Sally Seward

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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