Vicente Fox, President of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, said today "It's time to open the debate on legalizing marijuana." Fox pointed out that ending Prohibition in the U.S. in 1933 brought down organized crime violence. Fox called for decriminalizing marijuana, because the current policy "is clearly not working." Here's the CNN link:
http://www.cnn.com/...
It's time for the U.S. government to get on board.
Here are some highlights from the CNN article reporting ex-President Fox's remarks:
(CNN) -- Former Mexican President Vicente Fox has joined three other ex-leaders of Latin American nations calling for the decriminalization of marijuana. . . .Fox, who was Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006, said the current policy is clearly not working.
[snip]
Fox was mirroring a position adopted earlier this year by his predecessor as president of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, and the former heads of Colombia and Brazil. The three former chief executives are members of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
At a February meeting in Brazil, the commission called for the decriminalization of marijuana for personal use and a change in tactics in the war on drugs.
"The problem is that current policies are based on prejudices and fears and not on results," former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria said at a news conference in which the 17-member commission's recommendations were presented.
[snip]
Fox said any change in drug laws must be accompanied by an education campaign in schools and homes. And because the United States is a large consumer of marijuana that comes from Latin America, any steps toward legalization must be supported in Washington, he said.
Gaviria said in February that the time is right to start a debate on the subject, particularly with the pragmatic openings provided by the election of President Obama.
"In many states in the United States, as is the case in California, they have begun to change federal policies with regard to tolerating marijuana for therapeutic purposes. And in Washington there's some consensus that the current policy is failing," Gaviria said.
[snip]
Fox's comparison of the current battle to Prohibition in the United States in the 1920s was recently touted by Robert Pastor, who was a Latin America national security adviser for President Carter in the late 1970s. He called the problem in Mexico "even worse than Chicago during the Prohibition era."
Pastor said a solution similar to what ended that violence is needed now.
"What worked in the U.S. was not Eliot Ness," he said, referring to the federal agent famous for fighting gangsters in the 1920s and 19'30s. "It was the repeal of Prohibition."
Let's keep raising this issue. Maybe it's time take a page from the "Single Payer" advocates, who are successfully raising the consciousness of the politicians through their demonstrations the past two weeks (or at least, they are getting a lot of MSNBC air time). How's this for a combination of causes: give us Single-Payer Health Insurance, and have our health insurance cover medicinal marijuana!