The Cannabis Conspiracy

On Nov. 2, Californians will vote on Proposition 19 to decide whether to legalize the production, sale and use of marijuana. If the initiative is approved, it will change the core of the debate about the production of drugs in the world and will offer many countries, among them Mexico in particular, an alternative to the violence — which to this point has been futile — from the war against drugs.

For Mexico, the costs of this war have reached very high levels: more than 28,000 dead since the end of 2006, $10 billion spent annually in security, damage to the international image of Mexico and growing numbers of cases of human rights violations by army and security forces. And crime, far from having decreased, grows in quantity and brutality.

For a time it was believed that Mexico should legalize marijuana and other drugs, establishing distinct regulations about the medical and social risks of each one of the varieties. The argument has failed until now because it hardly makes sense to do this if the United States is not included, for they are the leader of the world prohibitionist consensus and a demanding neighbor in the matter. The problem with drugs in Mexico and the problem with drugs in the United States are two sides of the same coin: that which is consumed and trafficked in our country is what is consumed and distributed by Americans. As such, the debate about legalization must include both countries. Proposition 19 opens a way to an unprecedented path.

California is dominant in the relationship of the two countries, not only because it is one of the largest states of the U.S., but because it is the state with the highest integration of its economy and people with Mexico. Our exchange is enormous: a great number of Californians are Mexicans, or of Mexican descent, and a great part of American tourists come from California. The approval of Proposition 19 would establish a before and an after of the debate, of the problem and of the solution. If California legalizes marijuana north of the border, could Mexico continue to chase mafia bosses and confiscate marijuana shipments in the south?

The possibility that California legalizes marijuana coincides with the increasingly lively debate about legalization in Mexico. This summer our magazine, Nexos, asked six of the main presidential contenders whether Mexico should legalize some drugs after California does it first. Four of them said yes, to varying degrees. At the beginning of August, in a public forum headed by President Felipe Calderón, one of the writers of this article asked the question of whether the time had come to seriously open this discussion. Calderón’s answer was surprisingly open and encouraging: “It’s a fundamental debate,” he said. “We have to carefully analyze the pros and cons, and the arguments of both sides.”

A growing number of distinguished Mexicans support some form of legalization of drugs. Former presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox, novelists Carlos Fuentes and Angeles Mastretta, the winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry Mario Molina and actor Gael García Bernal, among others, have expressed this. Polls show that Mexicans are increasingly willing to consider legalization as an option.

During the past months, to promote the discussion of a book about a desirable future for Mexico, the authors of this article have visited more than 25 cities in 32 states and held discussions with students, businessmen, professors, local politicians and journalists. We can attest to a substantial change in public attitudes toward the subject. We are no longer in the conservative, Catholic, introverted Mexico of our forefathers. Each time that we take a vote on the idea of legalizing drugs, in auditoriums full of students and professors, the answer has almost always been overwhelmingly favorable, at least to the decriminalization of marijuana.

In its upcoming October issue, the magazine Nexos will take a position in favor of drug legalization, backed by a comprehensive and thorough report on the state of the global discussion, with a view toward the apparent failure of the prophetic, punitive consensus. Mexico’s problem is, for starters, a problem of public health, as in all countries. The ban prevents a comprehensive health policy on drugs because it rejects reality: it is impossible to imagine a world without drugs; we think only of a world able to control its use freely and fairly.

But Mexico’s problem is also, with special urgency, a problem of security. The ban started from the persecution of the drug trade. It provides a high income to crime. For countries like Mexico, the security challenge certainly comes from the institutional weakness of their rule of law. But one would do anything for the incomes that drug traffickers obtain from the black market. These incomes are what allow organized crime to corrupt, recruit and arm excessively.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy of the White House says that 60 percent of the income of Mexican cartels comes from marijuana. Although some question this figure and calculate it as lower, cannabis is without a doubt a crucial element of the Mexican business, and its legalization will get rid of a significant part of the illegal business.

“The ban,” says Nexos’ October editorial, “is what makes a kilo of marijuana in Mexico worth $80 while this same kilo is worth $2,000 in California; that a kilo of cocaine in any city south of the border is worth $12,500 and $26,500 in a neighboring city in the United States; that a kilo of heroin is worth $35,000 in Mexico and $71,000 in the United States. To end the ban, to legalize the drugs, is a sure path to the reduction of the exuberant incomes of traffickers and thus of their criminal power.”

The legalization of marijuana would free up both human and financial resources for the Mexican government to control and pursue other crimes that, due to drug traffickers, are what really spoil the daily lives of most Mexicans: kidnappings, extortion, car thefts, home robberies, highway robberies and shootings in the streets that leave more innocent people dead or injured every time. Freed from the demands of the war on drugs, Mexico would be able to refocus its energy on reducing violent crime.

In theory, the arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana can be applied to all drugs. We believe that these benefits can also be applied to cocaine powder (which cannot be produced in Mexico, but is sent from the rest of Latin America to the United States through our territory), heroine (produced from the poppy harvested in the mountains of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango) and methamphetamine (locally made with pseudoephedrine imported from China).

But being realists, we should think about gradual changes. It would be more intelligent and practical to go step by step toward a broad legislation, starting with marijuana, until at some moment arriving at heroin (a lesser market in Mexico and manageable from the state) and dealing later, when Washington and others are ready, with cocaine and synthetic drugs.

For now we settle for the vote in California. If our neighbors to the north decide to approve Proposition 19, our government will have two options: to move forward unilaterally with legislation — with California but without Washington — or to wait, using California to make a strong lobby toward the U.S. government and achieve a broader change in drug policy. In either case, the approval of the initiative will strengthen the moral authority of President Calderón to push President Obama.

Our president will be able to say to the United States: “We have paid a great cost for a war that most citizens of your most populated and avant-garde state reject. Why don’t we work together, producing and consuming countries alike, and draw up a path that leads away from the equivalent of the prohibition of alcohol before we repent for our short-sightedness?”