Although Mexican President Vicente Fox last year made brief comments suggesting drug
legalization may be the ultimate solution, and his
Foreign Secretary, Jorge Castafieda, made widely-
read calls for ending drug prohibition prior to tak-
ing office, Fox's National Action Party (PAN) gov-
ernmient has remained firmly in the camp of the
U.S. drug war.
Not all Mexican political figures, however, are
marching in lock-step with Washington: Patricio
Martinez Garcia, the Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI) governor of Chihuahua, home of Ciudad
Jubrez and its notorious drug-business murders,
last year called for a study of drug legalization and
announced in June that his administration has
launched a study of marijuana legalization within
the state. At the annual bi-national Border Gover-
nors' Conference, Martinez teamed with New Mexi-
co Governor Gary Johnson to push the cause of
drug reform. Johnson, a Republican, is the highest
elected U.S. official to advocate for radical drug
reform.
Se urge to rethink the drug war is starting to cut across Mexican party lines. Even the left-leaning
Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has at
least one legislator calling for dramatic change:
Gregorio Urias, congressman from the drug-traf-
ficking hotbed of Sinaloa, in June 2001 authored a
report calling for legalization and criticizing U.S.
drug policy as a threat to Latin American sovereign-
ty. Urias has endorsed Martinez' call for marijuana
legalization. Organizations such as the Multiforo
Alicia, a coalition of social and political organiza-
tions, some of which are linked to the Zapatistas,
and the faculty of philosophy and letters at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico
(UNAM) in Mexico City have also endorsed
Martinez's plan.
