Mexico Under Siege

MEXICAN PRESIDENT OPPOSES CALIFORNIA BID TO LEGALIZE POT

Prop. 19 Would Undercut His Government's Fight Against Drug Cartels,
Calderon Says.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon strongly opposes the California
ballot measure that would legalize small amounts of marijuana, saying
it reflects softening attitudes toward drug consumption in the U.S.
that are undercutting efforts to control organized crime groups in Mexico.

Calderon, in an interview in Tijuana, said he was disappointed that
the U.S. federal government, which for years has pushed Mexico to
crack down on drug traffickers, has not done more to oppose the measure.

"I think they have very little moral authority to condemn Mexican
farmers who out of hunger are planting marijuana to feed the
insatiable [U.S.] appetite for drugs," he said Thursday.

California's Proposition 19 could have enormous implications for
Mexico. It has triggered sharp debates between advocates who say
passage could help stop the Latin nation's 4-year-old drug war that
has left 30,000 people dead and critics who say cartels will continue
their bloody turf battles over the smuggling of other drugs such as cocaine.

A growing number of Mexican political figures, including some in
Calderon's conservative National Action Party, say it is time to end
- -- or at least consider ending -- what they describe as a failed
prohibitionist strategy against narcotics.

Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, has made headlines by calling
for legalization and regulation of all drugs as the best way to
cripple the drug cartels economically. Fox recently said passage of
Proposition 19 would be a "great step forward" and could "open the
door to these ideas for us."

The drug issue has for decades been a source of bilateral tensions,
with U.S. counternarcotics officials calling for tougher actions
against traffickers and Mexico casting blame on users in the United
States, which is also a leading source of cartel weapons.

Mexico decriminalized possession of small quantities of narcotics
last year, but the sale and cultivation of marijuana are still
prohibited. California's proposed law would not only legalize small
amounts of marijuana, but also make it possible for cities and
counties to approve commercial growing and sales of the drug.

Legalization advocates say passage of the California measure could
pave the way for a peaceful end to Mexico's drug violence by
depriving its cartels of billions of dollars in profits and the
weapons that that kind of money buys. They say California's share of
the overall U.S. marijuana market is big enough to affect overall
exports of Mexican pot, though past estimates of the size of the
underground market are unreliable.

If Californians have ready access to legal marijuana, legalization
advocates argue, it also would be difficult to justify a bloody
government crackdown on traffickers.

"People in California will be in their supermarkets and their
Walmarts with their legal pot, and down here we'll be killing each
other," said Ruben Aguilar, a former government spokesman under Fox.
"Things will have to change here. It makes no sense for us to keep killing."

But the legalization measure would not, for now, affect the status of
Mexico's other leading exports to the United States: cocaine, heroin
and methamphetamine.

Skeptics say that the violent jostling between rival traffickers over
turf would continue, even if marijuana is legal in California. Much
of the bloodiest fighting has been over cocaine-trafficking corridors
into the United States and control over local drug markets, such as
in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Critics also argue that even if legalization north of the border
crimped drug profits, that wouldn't hobble Mexican cartels because
they have branched into numerous other criminal enterprises in recent
years, including kidnapping, extortion, migrant smuggling and selling
pirated goods.

"It makes it extremely unlikely that any kind of legalization in
California would have an impact on organized crime's net worth," said
Edgardo Buscaglia, a professor at the Autonomous Technological
Institute of Mexico who studies crime networks. "These organized
crime groups care much less about drugs than before."

It is difficult to gauge the likely effects of the ballot measure on
Mexico because U.S. government figures on the drug trade are rough
and often contradictory. But enormous profits could be at stake.

Booming demand, Calderon and others fear, could further empower the
organized crime groups.

Calderon expressed concern that a shift in public attitudes toward
marijuana is pushing up user rates. Mexican students attending U.S.
universities, he said, tell him that smoking marijuana is considered
"cool" and "trendy " and "healthy."

"There's a current of opinion, I don't know if it's a campaign or
deliberate, positioning the use of marijuana as beneficial. Something
which is totally absurd," Calderon said.

He criticized the U.S. government for not focusing more on treatment
and prevention and said easing drug laws would result in "serious
consequences for American and Mexican society."

"Drugs kill in production. Drugs kill in distribution, as is the case
in the violence in Mexico, and drugs kill in consumption," Calderon said.

The Obama administration disputed Calderon's claims of a softening
stance on drugs. Gil Kerlikowske, the administration's drug czar,
said he and the president have repeatedly expressed their opposition
to legalization.

"We could not be clearer about why we oppose this for a whole host of
really good reasons," Kerlikowske said.

Even some who back sweeping reform of drug laws doubt that voter
approval of the California measure would yield quick results in
Mexico's brutal drug war. But it would probably throw fuel on the
debate south of the border.

Jorge Hernandez Tinajero, president of a Mexico City-based group that
favors drug law reform, said that although polls in Mexico have shown
little support for making drugs legal, that could change if
California votes yes and advocates recast the question into one of safety.

"If you tell them it will reduce violence in Mexico, the vast
majority of people would say yes," he said.