MEDICAL MARIJUANA PUSH IN U.S. UNDERCUTS DRUG WAR, MEXICAN OFFICIALS SAY

MEXICO CITY - As more U.S. states permit medical marijuana, and
California considers legalizing cannabis sales to adults, Mexico is
voicing irritation at the gap between drug laws north and south of
the border and saying it undercuts the battle against Mexico's
violent drug cartels.

Mexico Secretary of the Interior Fernando Gomez Mont last week called
the U.S. medical marijuana trend "worrisome" and said it "complicates
in a grave way" efforts to resolve Mexico's soaring drug-related violence.

The issue came to the fore earlier this week when Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton led a high-level U.S. delegation to Mexico to
discuss strategies to counter drug trafficking.

Clinton said law enforcement authorities are keeping close tabs on
medical marijuana dispensaries in the 14 states where such sales are
permitted. She added that she doesn't believe that the rising number
of states that allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes was
a major factor in marijuana flows into the United States from Mexico.

"We have not changed our laws, and we do not see this as a major
contributor to the continuing flow of marijuana, the vast, vast
majority of which is used for recreational purposes," Clinton said.

More states are permitting medical marijuana use, and New York may
become the 15th to do so.

California, which pioneered medical marijuana use in 1996, is moving
even faster. Supporters secured enough petition signatures to force a
November vote on a ballot initiative to legalize personal marijuana
possession and allow regulated sales of marijuana to those over age 21.

A Mexican historian and commentator, Lorenzo Meyer Cossio, said the
government of President Felipe Calderon "feels offended" by the
growing trend of U.S. states to allow medical marijuana, or perhaps
go further, as California may do. Mexican laws against marijuana and
narcotics remain tough, the result of U.S. pressure dating back more
than half a century, he said.

Meyer said the California initiative to legalize marijuana sales, if
approved, would ripple to Mexico, underscoring the difference in
legal treatment and giving impetus to decriminalization efforts.

"It is inevitable that if this occurs in California, a neighboring
state that is so important to us, that there will be repercussions
here," Meyer said.

Mexican pot production is soaring, according to a report issued
Thursday by the U.S. Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence
Center. Estimated Mexican marijuana production climbed to 21,500
metric tons in 2008 from 10,100 metric tons in 2005, the report said.
As the military has turned its attention from illicit crop
eradication to combating violence from the cartels, it said,
marijuana eradication efforts have fallen by nearly half.

Even advocates of decriminalizing marijuana in the United States said
they empathize with Mexican leaders, who are deploying troops in a
fierce battle with well-armed drug cartels at Washington's urging.

"They are caught in the middle of realities of U.S. consumer demands
and American political intransigence," said Stephen Gutwillig,
California director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates
alternatives to the drug war.

Gutwillig thinks the U.S. trend toward allowing medical pot, and even
outright decriminalization, eventually would weaken Mexican drug
cartels. "Any sort of authorized regulated market for marijuana in
the United States cannot be good for the bottom line of criminal
cartels," he said.