Mexico to legalize marijuana in the next 5 years

It seems like there’s a big favor for marijuana users particularly in Mexico. Recently, former President Vicente Fox detailed the possibility of legalizing marijuana within the upcoming five years, removing cruel drug cartels of a main source of profits.

Fox, who fought the influential cartels during his term 2000 and 2006, has been a resolute advocate of restructuring Mexico’s drug laws, disputing that prohibition has helped establish the criminal enterprise that upholds the gangs.
Under Felipe Calderon, Fox’s successor, Mexico initiated a military offensive to beat the cartels, but unluckily the violence resulted instead, and over 70,000 people have lost their lives in drug-connected bloodletting since the advent of 2007.

During a conference hosted by Fox in Guanajuato his home town in Central Mexico, he positively said that the best way to end the killings of the drug gangs is legalization.

Meanwhile President Enrique Pena Nieto is opposed to legalization of marijuana. However, the president who assumed his office in December, said that the decision made by the Washington DC and Colorado to legitimize recreational marijuana use has brought him a more open and flexible mind.

In an interview by international news Reuters, Fox was asked whether Mexico could implement legal marijuana by the time Pena Nieto’s tenure ends in 2018. The staunch leader confidently said that it’s going to take place much sooner. He continued that once California “enters the scene” Mexico is going to be compelled to expedite its decision process.

Previous bills to authorize the use of cannabis in Mexico have fallen short to press forward and a throng of Mexicans are against the measure.

In 2010, California rejected a move to legalize marijuana, although medical marijuana is lawful.

Plans are still in progress to decriminalize recreational use of marijuana and the state was expected to cast their vote again by 2016. This was the statement of Tom Angell, a spokesman for US-based organization Marijuana Majority based advocating for cannabis reform.

Former President Fox’s view impresses a broader movement in Latin America where several past and present leaders, including President Otto Perez of Guatemala, are supporting alternative ways to US-backed strategies of abolition and prohibition.

The 71-year-old leader worked strongly with the United States during his tenure of office to battle Mexican drug gangs. Elected in 2000 for the old school National Action Party (PAN), the former president covered seven decades of single-party rule in Mexico.

But after departing his office, he became a passionate critic of the strategy followed by Calderon his party colleague.

This situation infuriated many in the PAN, and Fox ignited more uproar during the campaign for presidential elections last year. Fox persuaded the Mexicans to back up Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000.

This year, Fox have initiated a series of marijuana legalization campaigns in the US and Mexico. In fact, the former executive officer of Microsoft James Shively, who aims to launch the first national marijuana brand in the U.S., together with different academics and activists joined him on Friday. Former health minister of Mexico Julio Frenk also took part in the said movement.