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And here’s one more former politician advocating for legalization of drugs!

It seems that quite a few of them can have a totally different speech once they retire. This double-sided view doesn’t reassure much when you realize these guys have the power, or better to say, they serve it. The organised crime in Mexico has indeed more power than it’s own government when it comes to war.

Maybe that is the lesson Vincente Fox, former president of Mexico, learned since he left his office. Not even a week after the current president Calderon opened the door for discussions about the legalization of drugs, Fox’s comment on his blog shows his support to such initiative.

“We should consider legalizing the production, distribution and sale of drugs,” said Fox, who served as president from 2000 to 2006 and is a member of President Calderon’s conservative National Action Party. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.”

“Legalizing in this sense does not mean drugs are good and don’t harm those who consume then,” he wrote. “Rather we should look at it as a strategy to strike at and break the economic structure that allows gangs to generate huge profits in their trade, which feeds corruption and increases their areas of power.”

According to Fox, the government could tax legalized drug sales to finance programs for reducing addiction and rehabilitating users.

Fox, who left office with low approval ratings, came under criticism for starting an anti-cartel crackdown aimed at arresting the gangs’ leaders.
The approach led to power vacuums that fed brutal fighting among rival cartels, bringing violence that has killed more than 28,000 people since Calderon took office.

Drug violence has damaged “the perception and image of the country, and economic activity, particularly in tourism and foreign investment,” Fox said.
Mexico already eliminated jail time for possessing small amounts of cannabis, cocaine, heroin, LSD and methamphetamine in 2009, giving it some of the world’s most liberal drug laws.

Several Latin American countries have decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, but legalization has been slower in coming.

In his blog, Fox harshly criticized widespread drug violence. “The first responsibility of a government is to provide security for the people and their possessions… today, we find that, unfortunately, the Mexican government is not complying with that responsibility.”

He has a point. It seems that their government provided more for the cartels by wasting money on a lost war rather than for the rest of their population.

No wonder why the organised crime is known as the octopus, cut a tentacle and it will grow again! Best way is to starve it to death…

Source: Toke of the Town

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