MR. JOHNSON GOES TO MEXICO

Legalization on His Agenda for Border Governors Meeting

Governor of New Mexico Seeks Meeting With Mexican President Vicente Fox

Gary Johnson, the conservative Republican governor of New Mexico,
reiterated his call in favor of the legalization of illicit drugs in this
country and suggested that President Vicente Fox and the governors of
border states ought to consider an alternative policy to "the war on drugs"
that includes decriminalization to reduce the social costs of the problem.

In an exclusive interview with La Jornada shortly before the annual meeting
of the governors of U.S. and Mexican border states this week in Tampico,
Governor Johnson said that he has already spoken with various Mexican
political leaders about his legalization ideas and that in the next meeting
he will propose various concrete initiatives to change the focus of the war
on drugs along the border. He says that he feels that the recent comments
by Vicente Fox about legalization are "very, very helpful."

"Two years ago, in the meeting of border governors, I spoke about the idea
that we should be speaking in a different way on the theme of illicit
drugs, since already, in my opinion, the border is militarized and the
problems it has are, to a great degree, due to the way in which we confront
the drug problem," explained Johnson.

A Public Health Issues More Than a Police Matter

"Our goals?" he indicated, "They ought to be to reduce death, illness and
crime related with drugs. Nobody disagrees with that and we can discuss a
different method so that later, and together, Mexico and the United States
will see this problem as public health matter, and not as a police issue."

The conservative Johnson, who is considered to be a friend of President
George W. Bush, believes that the efforts to combat the damages provoked by
drugs through a focus on public security has failed, and that now a more
rational policy must be promoted.

The proof of this failure of the current anti-narcotics policies, he said,
is that the prison population in the United States has doubled in the past
decade, as well as the public cost of combating drugs, but that today the
drugs are cheaper, more pure and available than ever.

"I believe that the people would be surprised to know how many people are
arrested each year accused of drug crimes," Johnson commented to La
Jornada. "More than 1,600,000 are arrested for (crimes connected with)
drugs each year, and half of them are arrested for marijuana." The
statistics of the federal government indicate that two-thirds of those
arrested for marijuana are not accused of selling the drug, but only for
possession. "These laws are terribly discriminatory. Half of those arrested
for marijuana are Hispanics. But Hispanics don't make up half the users."

All the facts, Governor Johnson argued, are convincing more politicians in
this country to consider alternatives to the drug war. This combat, he
said, "is a failure, we need to discuss alternatives, and one of them that
has to be included is legalization."

This year in New Mexico, the governor promoted a project to eliminate
criminal penalties for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana and to
put more resources into treatment programs for drug users. Although the
measure to partially legalize marijuana was not approved this year, various
bills of the same sentiment were approved by the state legislature. Also,
measures to decriminalize marijuana for medical uses have been approved by
nine states.

The governor declared that he has discussed these kinds of solutions with
the politicians of his country (including President Bush) and with his
counterparts in Mexico. "We don't have a militarized border because of
undocumented immigrants. It is the war on drugs that is militarizing the
border," he said.

He stressed that the ideal solution would be to have an open border, and
admitted that the construction of more walls on the border has not stopped
the flow of immigrants nor of drugs.

Johnson commented that he has exchanged these ideas with Patricio Martinez,
governor of Chihuahua, during the last meeting of border governors and that
he recently wrote a letter to Martinez after he expressed the need to
explore alternatives like those proposed by Johnson. "I've been
particularly pleased with the comments by Patricio Martinez, who said that
he would like his state to examine the model that we are adopting in New
Mexico and the option of legalization."

In the interview with La Jornada, Johnson also underlined that he "was very
pleased" by the recent declarations of President Fox, in which he expressed
his interest in drug legalization as an option that could work if it were
adopted by various countries simultaneously.

He Hopes to Meet with Fox

According to the Associated Press, last March 20th, when Fox was asked
whether legalization is the only way to win the drug war, he responded:
"That's true, that's true." But he conditioned it by adding that "when the
day comes to adopt the alternative of suspending punishment for the use of
drugs, it will have to be done by the entire world, because we won't win
anything if Mexico does it alone, and the production and consumption of
drugs continues (in other countries)."Johnson said that he hopes to be able
to speak more about these ideas with Fox, possibly during the governor's
conference, planned for this weekend.

The governor said that the prohibition of drugs is a policy that only
generates a black market, violence, corruption, crime and damages to public
health. He recalls that this was the experience with the prohibition of
alcohol in the United States in the 1920s. By decriminalizing, he argues,
the business of narco-trafficking would end and government resources could
be dedicated to a more effective method than that which is today centered
upon police, jails and militarization, toward treatment and reducing harm
to public health, in order to solve this problem.