Legalization and Security Dialogue Polling

Excélsior published some polls from Ulises Beltrán in today's paper related to last week's security dialogues between Calderón and sundry political heavyweights. Regarding the dialogues themselves, 50 percent said that they saw Calderón as ready to revise his government's security policy, while 46 percent saw changes as unlikely. More significant majorities took him at his word for his reasons for calling the dialogues when he said that the government has committed errors that he wants to change (57 percent), that he recognizes that the government hasn't communicated effectively the nature of the problem (62 percent), and that he is willing to give a fair hearing to the many criticisms of the government's policy (65 percent).

On legalization, 27 percent expressed support for full or partial legalization, with 71 percent opposed. As with Mitofsky, those in favor of legalization has been trending downward in recent years (Beltrán found 30 percent in favor in 2009), although the figure was 15 percent in 2000, which would of course seem to indicate a growing openness to such a policy over the long term.

The paper also found a significant majority opting for frontal attack as the best strategy toward organized crime (61 percent), which is basically in keeping with the recent results for that question. In contrast, 17 percent said legalization is the best policy, 10 percent thought a pact with DTOs should be the approach, and 2 percent said that Mexico should focus only on the violent gangs, while leaving the non-violent gangs alone.