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Mexico’s President Elect Does Not Rule Out Medical Opium Sales

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The flag of Mexico flying in the wind.

Mexico’s president-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is not opposed to the idea of selling medical opium for pharmaceutical use, a senior aide said last week. This is a sign of changes that the next government is considering in the war on drugs.

“Why not sell it to pharmaceutical companies?” said Olga Sanchez Cordero, a former Supreme Court judge who is the incoming president’s pick to run the interior ministry. She said the next president supported a public consultation on the possibility of regulating opium and decriminalizing cannabis. Sanchez Cordero cited moves to legalize cannabis elsewhere as a reason that Mexico shouldn’t wait to act.

“Canada already decriminalized, and cannabis is decriminalized in several states of the United States. What are we thinking?” she said in an interview with W Radio. “We are going to try to move forward.”

Lopez Obrador did not take a clear stance on decriminalizing drugs before the election, but says he will try various approaches to tackling Mexico’s violence. In April, he suggested granting amnesty to non-violent drug traffickers in a strategy he named  “Hugs Not Bullets.” The strategy aims to reduce drug-related violence by creating jobs for young people instead of punishing them for their role in the drug trade.

The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic that has led to tens of thousands of overdose deaths. The Drug Enforcement Administration says 93 percent of heroin on the U.S. streets comes from Mexico. The battle for control of heroin production and trafficking in Mexico is held partly responsible for the country’s record violence, which led to 30,000 murders last year.

Medical cannabis has been legal in Mexico in 2017, and former President of Mexico Vicente Fox has called for full legalization of cannabis, claiming that it will not only provide a boost to economic activity but will also decrease criminal activity.

 

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