U.S., MEXICO DRUG POLICIES NEED DEBATE

THE question of whether legalizing drugs would help reduce the
killings in Mexico has made front page news this week and is causing
unprecedented debate around the world.

Last week, former Mexican President Vicente Fox called on his country
"to legalize the production, distribution and sale of drugs" as the
best way to weaken the drug cartels.

Acknowledging that "radical prohibition strategies have never
worked," Fox's recommendation echoes another former president of
Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, as well as past presidents of Colombia and
Brazil, who last year issued a ringing condemnation of the failed war
on drugs, in favor of alternatives that include the removal of legal
penalties for marijuana possession.

This latest endorsement of legalization also comes on the heels of
current Mexican President Felipe Calderon's own announcement that,
while he opposes legalization, he nevertheless supports an open
debate about ending prohibition - the root cause of the violence in
Mexico that has now claimed more than 28,000 lives.

Sadly, however, legalization is not even part of the policy dialogue
in D.C. In fact, the U.S. drug czar has repeatedly said it's not even
part of his or President Obama's "vocabulary."

Yet despite Washington's reticence to engage the topic, the debate
about legalization is taking place in many communities throughout the
U.S. Here in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, like Calderon,
has called for a debate about marijuana legalization, a proposal that
Californians will vote on in November. In 2009, the City Council of
El Paso, Texas - directly across the border from Ciudad Juarez, the
world's deadliest city and ground zero in Mexico's drug war - passed
a resolution "supporting an honest, open national debate on ending
the prohibition on narcotics."

President Calderon's openness to debating legalization comes amid new
recognition that the cartels are not just killing each other, or
members of the government, or innocent civilians - they are openly
challenging the Mexican state and eroding its democratic institutions.

Signs of this bleak reality abound in news reports from Mexico: whole
portions of the country where the cartels' influence exceeds the
government's; the silencing (through intimidation, kidnapping and
murder) of national and international journalists; the assassination
or bribery of local, state and national politicians or law
enforcement officers; a broken criminal justice system that allows
the cartels to operate with impunity; and the widespread violation of
civil and human rights by the army, sent into the streets to fight
the cartels since 2006. These are not the conditions of a stable
democracy - or a successful counternarcotics strategy.

It is heartening that Calderon, the Mexican congress and members of
civil society have begun a serious discussion about changing course
and pursuing legalization - and not just of marijuana, but of all drugs.

Unfortunately, as the AP writes, "Just about everyone agrees Mexico
probably can't or won't legalize on its own." In other words, they
need our help. But in stark contrast to the open discussion going on
to the south, the topic remains taboo in the U.S.

It's time for the Obama administration to follow the lead of Mexico -
and its own citizens - and consider real alternatives to its failed
drug war policies. It is our moral imperative to join Mexico in this
important debate.