Lawmakers Join Specialists to Call for Debate on Mexico Marijuana Legalization Doris Gomora, Marcos Muedano and Liliana Alcantara - El Universal
go to original November 10, 2014

Fernando Belaunzarán, representative of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) said that the strategy to fight illegal drugs has failed and that the next step should be regulating drugs like marijuana, at first for medical use.

Specialists and lawmakers agreed that prohibiting marijuana criminalizes consumers and benefits criminal groups, so they recommended to discuss its legalization or regulation.

Edgardo Buscaglia, professor at Columbia University, said that efforts to regulate marijuana have to be implemented as a public policy, as marijuana "can not be prohibited because it is used and produced anyway and it causes social damages such as more addictions, public health problems, common and organized crime. When the state prohibits (marijuana) it leaves the market to criminal groups."

He added that Mexican criminal groups are heavily diversified to a point that field studies have concluded that regulating illicit drugs would not affect the financial situation of Mexican criminal groups.  

"If the production and consumption of illicit drugs is regulated it would have enormous benefits in terms of public health policy, but it will not affect organized crime," Buscaglia explained.

Gerardo Sánchez Lara, specialist of the organization Colectivo de Análisis para la Seguridad con Democracia (Casede) concurred, and said that legalizing marijuana "does not solve the problem of organized crime, because crime has diversified into more lucrative activities such as extortion, kidnapping, car and mobile theft, among others."

He added that it is necessary to debate the legalization of marijuana and that the discussion should include the views of all the states of the Republic as well as scientific facts.

Read the rest at El Universal

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!