Academician Calls for Rethink on Drug Strategy in Mexico Prensa Latina
go to original April 28, 2012

From the farmers to the traders, the cartels to the consumers, we assess the effectiveness and the economics of the 'war on drugs.' (video by Al Jazeera)

The strategy against drug trafficking and drug consumption in Mexico is a failure, so it is necessary to reformulate public policy to bring down a problem with huge magnitudes, an academician warned.

Jose Narro, Rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said the government should change the mechanisms that are used today to combat drug consumption, production and distribution, because the ones currently implemented have not yielded the desired results.

At the closure on Friday of the International Forum on Regulatory Policy on Drug Abuse, organized by the UNAM, Narro said that the presentations made at the forum will be used to develop proposals to design policies against the illegal market of drugs and its social effects.

"Pretending to ignore the seriousness of this matter is a mistake. Trying to silence those who have something to say is nonsense", said Narro to researchers, students and officials, according to the newspaper Excelsior.

In the event, held throughout the week in college, there were 19 working groups.

The speakers agreed that drug use is not yet a public health problem in Mexico, so that strict regulation is necessary rather than continuing with a prohibitionist policy that increased the power of drug trafficking.

Jorge Javier Romero, a researcher at the Department of Politics and Culture of the Autonomous Metropolitan University, said the violence generated by the clandestine market of hallucinogens is not due to consumption, but the transfer of these to the United States.

Romero called for decriminalizing drugs because in his view this will slow down the enrichment of drug traffickers.

The struggle for control of territories in Mexico between the cartels and the implementation of a government strategy to combat the scourge has caused some 60 000 deaths in the country in recent years, according to reports from human rights defenders.

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!