Pubdate: Sun, 24 Apr 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Joshua Partlow, Washington Post

THE MOVEMENT TO LEGALIZE POT GAINS SPEED IN THE AMERICAS

MEXICO CITY - With a swipe of his pen last week, Mexican President 
Enrique Pena Nieto proposed that Mexican citizens could legally 
possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

The day before, Canada's health minister stood at a United Nations 
podium and announced that her country would introduce new federal 
legislation to make cannabis legal by next year.

Already, people are free to smoke marijuana in four US states and the 
District of Columbia, and medical marijuana is allowed in almost half 
the country. Uruguay has fully legalized weed for sale. And a large 
chunk of South and Central America, including Brazil, Peru, Chile, 
Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica, has made marijuana more available 
in varying ways, whether it is for medicinal or recreational use.

In the shift toward legalization of marijuana, the Americas have 
emerged as a leader. This is a remarkable shift for a region that 
includes some of the world's leading producers of marijuana, coca, 
and opium poppy, and where the US government has spearheaded a 
decades-long campaign against cultivation of the substances.

"It's undeniable that the terms of the debate about drugs are 
changing in Mexico and in the world," Pena Nieto said during a speech 
Thursday announcing his new legislative proposal. "Fortunately, a new 
world consensus is gradually emerging in favor of reform."

For many Mexicans, the prospect of such reform seemed unimaginable 
just a few years back. Using illegal drugs has long been taboo in 
this conservative, predominantly Catholic country - as is true in 
many other Latin American nations. Drug-trafficking groups have 
inflicted horrific violence on the country, with an estimated 100,000 
people dying in the past decade as the cartels have battled for 
control of shipping lanes to the United States. Polls have shown that 
a majority of Mexicans oppose legalizing drugs, fearing it would 
increase addictions and crime.

To have a Mexican president come out publicly in favor of loosening 
drug laws struck many people as historic.

"This was the breaking point," said Jorge Diaz Cuervo, a Mexican 
economist and politician who recently published a book on the 
prospect of legalizing marijuana. "There is now a before and after."

Pena Nieto's initiative would make it legal for anyone to own up to 
28 grams of marijuana - or one ounce - as long as it was intended for 
personal use. It would also permit the use of marijuana for medicinal 
purposes and make it easier to free prisoners who are being held on 
minor drug charges. The move came after five public forums held 
across Mexico this year to solicit public opinion and expert 
testimony on the prospect of changing drug laws.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom