Chabat on Legalization

Jorge Chabat on Calderón's renewel of an old proposal to decriminalize drug use:

In fact, the attempts that have been carried out to criminalize behavior that is propitiated by social conditions have been largely unsuccessful.

The criminalization of religious expressions in public during the era of President Calles only led to the Cristera War, which didn't resolve anything and obviously didn't change the desire on the part of the population to practice its religious beliefs. It's also the same case with abortion. Attempting to criminalize such an act, lamentable as it absolutely is, doesn't solve the problem and generates additional problems.

In that sense, Calderón's proposal to set maximum limits of drug possession for personal use is a show of sensibility in a country used to trying to modify reality by decree. These changes would allow end of the persecution of drug addicts, who are sick people, not criminals, as signaled by President Calderón himself and as dozens of experts on the subject have said over the course of many decades.

The decriminalization of drug consumption absolutely doesn't solve the problem of corruption and drug violence, whose origin in precisely in that prohibition. Nevertheless, it would help to concentrate the forces of the State on combating criminal bands and it would avoid the extorsion of addicts by the authorities.

It's worth mentioning that Chabat, one of the most lucid commentators on the war on drugs, isn't a weak-kneed liberal. He was in favor of the deployment of the army in 2006, and has been generally supportive of Calderón's policies. There are surely plenty of smart people paying close attention who would disagree with Chabat (Ana María Salazar, for one), but there are a couple of reasons that this is more feasible and makes better sense now than when Fox tried it a couple of years ago.

First, Mexican drug use and street killings caused by narcomenudeo disputes are on the rise. Legalizing drugs won't rid Mexico of smuggling cartels so long as the American prohibition remains in place, but it could help nip the growing narcomenudeo problem in the bud. Second, Calderón has earned some goodwill from Washington. I doubt it will be enough to make the proposal workable for Washington, but surely it has a better chance now (with an Obama presidency looking ever more likely) than it did with Fox in 2006.