Pubdate: Mon, 09 Nov 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Jorge Castaneda
Note: Jorge Castaneda served as foreign minister of Mexico under 
President Vicente Fox. He is a professor of politics and Latin 
American and Caribbean studies at New York University.

MEXICO'S POT TRIAL

Mexico may soon enter an elite club composed of Holland, Portugal, 
Uruguay and Colorado, Oregon and Washington state: It's on the verge 
of excluding marijuana from the destructive war on drugs. But will 
the United States stand in its way?

On Nov. 4, Mexico's Supreme Court voted by a wide margin to declare 
unconstitutional the country's ban on the production, possession and 
recreational consumption of marijuana. A group of citizens had banded 
together in a so-called cannabis club (named SMART, for the initials 
in Spanish of its full title) and requested permission to grow and 
exchange marijuana among themselves; the government's health agency 
(the equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) denied them 
permission; the group sought a writ of habeas corpus, and went all 
the way to the Supreme Court, which granted them the writ and ordered 
the agency to legalize the club and allow it to function.

This decision does not entail an across-the-board decriminalization 
of recreational marijuana. For the moment, it applies only to the 
group that sought permission. But the court's ruling may eventually 
extend to everyone seeking to grow or consume the drug.

Absent injury to third parties, the court resolved that, under the 
constitution, every individual has the right to enjoy life as he or 
she sees fit, and that secondary legislation - like prohibiting 
marijuana - cannot curtail that right.

The court also ruled that although marijuana may cause some degree of 
harm to some adult users in large quantities, prohibition is an 
excessive antidote to that harm. Other dangerous substances, such as 
alcohol and tobacco, are legal and subject to regulation, so why not marijuana?

Unlike in the U.S., public opinion in Mexico is against legalizing 
pot, which is why SMART chose the judicial road instead of pursuing a 
legislative approach. Recent history has shown that once the courts 
resolve controversial social issues - abortion, same-sex marriage, 
living wills - public opinion shifts and eventually comes around to 
the more progressive view.

The ruling means a great deal for Mexico. Domestically, it probably 
spells the beginning of the end of its bloody, costly, fruitless war 
of choice on marijuana. It will be increasingly awkward for the 
country's armed forces and police to prosecute growers, wholesale 
traffickers and retail dealers of a substance that can be grown and 
consumed legally, if not yet bought and sold freely.

The decision will not immediately affect the country's cartels, or 
the rising (once again) levels of drug-related violence and 
corruption. It will, however, eventually bring down marijuana prices, 
which over time will damage the cartels' business. And if President 
Enrique Pena Nieto wishes to continue the drug war, the decision will 
free him to concentrate on heroin and methamphetamines (produced in 
Mexico) and cocaine (brought from South America).

For the country's always prickly ties with Washington, Mexico's 
Supreme Court ruling could cut either way.

If hard-liners in the U.S. - the Drug Enforcement Administration and 
its supporters in Congress - determine the American response, there 
will be trouble.

Washington can insist on Mexico honoring a strict interpretation of 
United Nations conventions against all drugs, including marijuana. It 
can pressure Mexico, as it has done in the past, to keep intercepting 
marijuana shipments to the U.S., uprooting marijuana plantations, 
searching for tunnels across the border and jailing young people for 
nonviolent drug offenses.

Or, if President Obama as well as the moderates in the State and 
Justice departments run the show, the decision could serve as a 
much-needed excuse to rethink prohibition.

Just as Obama wisely decided not to interfere with statelevel 
legalization in the U.S., he could encourage Pena Nieto not to 
interfere with the court decision. Both governments could unite in 
making clear that the ruling, plus next year's probable legalization 
of recreational use in California, make the war on drugs unmanageable.

Both the U.S. and Mexico would then have no choice but to search for 
alternative solutions, and leave behind the punitive, security-based 
approach Washington has imposed on the world since the early 1970s.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom