MEXICAN PRESIDENT PROPOSES DECRIMINALIZING SOME DRUGS

MEXICO CITY -- President Felipe Calderon, who has made fighting drug
traffickers the centerpiece of his administration, proposed
legislation on Thursday that would decriminalize the possession of
small quantities of cocaine and other drugs for addicts who agreed to
undergo treatment.

Mr. Calderon said that the proposal was intended to attack the
growing problem of drug addiction in Mexico. Still, it will probably
be controversial both at home and abroad. A similar measure two years
ago provoked strong opposition from the United States and was
eventually dropped.

A recent government survey found that the number of drug addicts in
Mexico had almost doubled in the past six years to 307,000, while the
number of those who had tried drugs rose to 4.5 million from 3.5 million.

Drugs used to flow through Mexico to the United States, and they
still do, but an increasing amount of those narcotics now stays in
Mexico to feed the habits of domestic consumers.

Under Mr. Calderon's proposal, Mexican authorities would not
prosecute people found to be carrying small amounts of drugs if they
declared they were addicts and submitted to a treatment program.

Those who are not addicts could avoid prosecution by entering a
prevention program. Fines could be imposed for those who declined to
enter such programs.

The new legislation caps the quantities that would not be subject to
prosecution at 50 milligrams of heroin, 2 grams of marijuana, 500
milligrams of cocaine and 40 milligrams of methamphetamine.

The Mexican attorney general's office has said that it is so
overwhelmed with prosecuting organized crime that it cannot handle
the large number of small-time drug cases.

The measure is reminiscent of a proposal that passed the Mexican
Congress two years ago but never took effect. It decriminalized
possession of small amounts of drugs for people who could convince a
judge that they were addicts.

That law, which did not require treatment for those found with drugs,
provoked an uproar among United States officials, some of whom raised
the image of Americans going to Mexico to enjoy legal drugs.

Under intense lobbying from the United States, Vicente Fox, the
president at the time, asked Congress to amend the law and the
measure was dropped.

Responding to Mr. Calderon's plan, American officials said Thursday
that United States policy opposed the legalization of even small
amounts of drugs. "It rewards the drug traffickers and doesn't make
children's lives safer," said an American official, who asked not to
be identified.

United States officials have heaped praise on Mr. Calderon for his
crackdown on Mexico's drug cartels. Since taking office in December
2006, he has sent some 30,000 troops into eight states and cities in
an attempt to quell drug violence. But the violence has only
increased. Almost 3,000 people have been killed in drug violence this year.

In a recent interview, an American counternarcotics official called
Mr. Calderon a partner with the United States in the fight against
illegal drugs and said he had shown no signs of backing down in his fight.

To buttress Mr. Calderon's efforts, the United States Congress has
approved $400 million in antidrug aid for Mexico, part of a larger
three-year package of aid to help Mexico and countries in Central
America and the Caribbean battle drug traffickers.

Mexico's drug cartels are fighting for control of routes to the
United States, which remains the world's primary market for illegal
drugs. Increasingly, they are also fighting over control of the
growing Mexican market for drug consumption, analysts here say.