Former Mexican President Fox Urges Legalization

[greenbuddha]

  Former Mexican President Fox Urges Legalization Posted by CN Staff on July 09, 2013 at 05:39:38 PT

By Ronnie Cohen 

Source: Reuters 

 

San Francisco -- Former Mexican President Vicente Fox took his crusade to legalize marijuana to San Francisco on Monday, joining pot advocates to urge the United States and his own country to decriminalize the sale and recreational use of cannabis.

Fox met for three hours with the advocates, including Steve DeAngelo, the Oakland-based executive director of California's largest marijuana dispensary, and former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively, who hopes to create a Seattle-based pot brand now that Washington state has legalized recreational use.

 

Legalization, Fox told reporters after the meeting, is the only way to end the violence of Mexican drug cartels, which he blamed on America's war on drugs.

"The cost of the war is becoming unbearable - too high for Mexico, for Latin America and for the rest of the world," Fox said in English.

Every day, he said, 40 young people are killed in drug-related violence.

Fox's position on legalizing drugs has evolved over time since the days when he cooperated with U.S. efforts to tamp down production in Mexico during his 2000-2006 presidential term. He has been increasingly vocal in his opposition to current policies, backing two prior efforts to legalize marijuana in Mexico.

Mexico's current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has opposed legalization. But he recently said that he would consider world opinion on the matter, particularly in light of recent voter-approved initiatives to legalize marijuana in Washington state and Colorado for recreational use.

In San Francisco on Monday, Fox said he had signed on to attend and help develop an international summit later this month in Mexico to strategize a path to end marijuana prohibition.

Participants scheduled to attend the three-day meeting starting July 18 in San Cristobal include an American surgeon, the dean of Harvard's School of Public Health and a Mexican congressman who plans to introduce a bill to legalize marijuana in Mexico this summer, Fox said.

The bill, which he expects to be introduced by Mexican lawmaker Fernando Belaunzaran, would legalize adult recreational use of marijuana, Fox said.

Support for legalizing marijuana in the United States has been growing. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana laws, according to the pro-legalization National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But the drug remains illegal under federal law.

Lifting the prohibition on cannabis in Mexico, however, appears to face more of an uphill battle. Mexican lawmakers have rejected previous legalization efforts and polls have shown little popular support for the idea.

But Fox promised to wage what he said was a necessary battle.

"We cannot afford more blood and the loss of more young people," Fox said. "We must get out of the trap we are in."

Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Eric Walsh

Source: Reuters (Wire)

Author: Ronnie Cohen

Published: July 8, 2013

Copyright: 2013 Thomson Reuters

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[phaquetoo]

legalizing mex and U.S is not going to stop the cartels, they still have plenty of other illegal drugs and people to smuggle, plus they will monopolize the mj community in possibly both countrys, yes it would be good for the u.s but it is not going to stop the drug war in mexico!

 

We need to build a wall like the great wall of china on the southern border, it needs to be more than a fence and or river, there are u.s citizens that are on the boarder with mexico that find them selves ducking daily from gunshots coming over the border,,,I would think that would be good enough reason for our military to step in and push the boarder line back a lil bit more than we did the first time!

 

 

 

Peace

Jim

 

edit = we could use mexicans and americans to build the wall and create jobs at the same time! We realy need alot more real estate to seperate our country from theirs,  when their problem becomes our problem it is time to fix it,,,not a full out war with mexico, but most def we need to go across there border and fight the cartles and move em way back,,mexico has no armed forces that will fight these guys, they are all on the payroll of the cartels!

Edited July 11, 2013 by phaquetoo

[Chauncy Gardner]

legalizing mex and U.S is not going to stop the cartels, they still have plenty of other illegal drugs and people to smuggle, plus they will monopolize the mj community in possibly both countrys, yes it would be good for the u.s but it is not going to stop the drug war in mexico!

 

We need to build a wall like the great wall of china on the southern border, it needs to be more than a fence and or river, there are u.s citizens that are on the boarder with mexico that find them selves ducking daily from gunshots coming over the border,,,I would think that would be good enough reason for our military to step in and push the boarder line back a lil bit more than we did the first time!

 

 

 

Peace

Jim

 

edit = we could use mexicans and americans to build the wall and create jobs at the same time! We realy need alot more real estate to seperate our country from theirs,  when their problem becomes our problem it is time to fix it,,,not a full out war with mexico, but most def we need to go across there border and fight the cartles and move em way back,,mexico has no armed forces that will fight these guys, they are all on the payroll of the cartels!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How will we stop them from coming in via the ocean? There is a very long border on the ocean. Maybe we could build a fence around the entire United States. That would pretty much guarantee that no one could get in - or out.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Chauncy Gardner

[solabeirtan]

"The name Popocatépetl comes from the Nahuatl words popōca [poˈpoːka]

'it smokes' and tepētl [ˈtepeːt͡ɬ] 'mountain', meaning Smoking Mountain."

 

More gaping pie holes, here than S of the border. For sure.  Unfortunatley Mr.Fox never was the most popular  President, even  back in his day. [2000-2006] That was ironically the same era as the Bushter a Yale Cloak‡ man. However, like the Presidents of Chile and Columbia he is Harvard trained. He started out at Coca_Cola in Mx and soon moved up to head of all Coke in Latin America. I think that was about when the Cartels began their Rampage. Freed up from their duties elsewhere in our "Backyard". Of course we are aware that most of the mJ & other "Drugs" that entered this Country were paid for by small_arms sales.

 

*****    "Popoca's torch is still smoking as a reminder of what happened."    *****

 

Don givem any ideas Chauncy....!            ...think   peace, not Guns, peace, not Guns, peaces not  a Gun!   ...peaca nottta ?

[phaquetoo]

How will we stop them from coming in via the ocean? There is a very long border on the ocean. Maybe we could build a fence around the entire United States. That would pretty much guarantee that no one could get in - or out.

 

hey good idea maybe a dome eh? lol   we will never stop the flow of drugs and ilegals coming in, and the northern boarder has become a good entry for illegal to get here, im not aware of much of a fence or anything other than crossings into canada, you can have a cottage or home in port sanilac and skip across to canada real fast, been there done that, I have an american friend who has a cottage in canada, we have gone across and back many times!

 

Peace

Jim

[t-pain]

Every day, he said, 40 young people are killed in drug-related violence.

 

detroit has 400? murders per year?

its said that 80% of murders are drug related in detroit?

thats almost 1 per day for detroit alone.

 

legalize it now!

[solabeirtan]

"  Free Drugs for Guns " new buyback scheme! Whaddaya think? gotta chance?

 

Better yet! Free Shovels for Guns! + lb assort seed ... or seeds for bullets ...