MEXICO WARY OF MOVES IN U.S. TOWARD LEGALIZING POT

TIJUANA, Mexico -- To embattled authorities here, where heavily armed
soldiers patrol the streets and more than 500 people have been killed
this year, marijuana is a poisonous weed that enriches death-dealing
cartel bosses who earn huge profits smuggling the product north.

"Marijuana arrives in the United States soaked with the blood of
Tijuana residents," said Mayor Jorge Ramos, whose police department
has lost 45 officers to drug violence in the past three years.

But just over the border in California, cannabis is considered by law
a healing herb. After the Obama administration announced that it would
not prosecute the purveyors, about 100 medical marijuana dispensaries
opened in San Diego alone in the past year, selling vast quantities of
Purple Goo, Green Crack and other varieties of super-charged pot to
virtually any adult willing to pay $59 for a doctor's prescription and
$10 for a joint.

The marijuana divide between these sister cities points to major
disparities between the fight against drugs in Mexico and their
acceptance in the United States.

This week, Mexican security forces seized more than 100 tons of
U.S.-bound marijuana in the border city of Tijuana, by far the biggest
drug bust in the country in recent years. As the Obama administration
presses Mexican President Felipe Calderon to stand firm in his costly,
bloody military campaign against drug mafias, Mexican leaders are
increasingly asking why their country should continue to attack
cannabis traffickers and peasant pot farmers if the U.S. government is
barely enforcing federal marijuana laws in the most populous state.

This debate grows more urgent as California prepares to vote in
November on Proposition 19, a game-changing ballot initiative to
legalize the recreational consumption of marijuana.

Weary of spectacular violence and destabilizing corruption stoked by
the prohibition against pot, some of Mexico's most prominent figures
are wondering aloud what legalization would do on their side of the
drug war.

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, a rancher and free-market
conservative, said in August that cannabis should be legal in his
country. "The sales could be taxed, with high taxes, as we do with
tobacco, to be used to fight addiction and reduce consumption," he
said.

Marijuana smuggling and sales represent a roughly $10 billion business
for Mexico's drug mafias, which earn up to 60 percent of their profits
from pot, according to U.S. estimates.

Fox said legalizing marijuana and other drugs "will allow us to hit
and break apart the economic structure that allows the drug mafias to
generate huge profits -- profits they use to corrupt and increase
their power."

U.S. voters have already passed measures allowing the medicinal use of
marijuana in the District of Columbia and 14 states. Proposition 19
would legalize the drug for all adults in California over 21.

Proposition 19 would allow local governments to adopt ordinances
regarding commercial marijuana activities -- including cultivation,
processing, distribution, transportation and retail sales.

For example, local governments could license establishments to sell
marijuana and allow customers to get high on the premises. Oakland's
City Council has already approved giant indoor marijuana farms as
large as two football fields.

But no one knows whether legalization in California would hurt or help
Mexico. Bringing marijuana into California from Mexico would remain
illegal under federal law.

Still, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials fear that
legalization in California could stoke demand that would be met by
Mexican cartels.

Advocates of legalization in the United States and Mexico argue that
California's Proposition 19 would actually hurt the drug cartels.

Given California's agricultural expertise and fertile soils, these
advocates say, domestic marijuana yields would soar. A study released
in July by the Rand Corp. predicted that the price could crash by as
much as 80 percent, a step that could carry with it the potential to
displace Mexican supplies and deal a major financial blow to the
Mexican syndicates.

"The cartels' power would be greatly reduced," said John Kirby, a
former assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego who has prosecuted
cross-border drug cases. "For them, marijuana is an easy crop that
provides a daily infusion of cash. All of that would be gone."

As much as half of the U.S. marijuana supply is now domestically
produced, according to Drug Enforcement Administration estimates, and
the homegrown trend has already cut into the earnings of Mexican
cartels. The criminals have responded by setting up indoor operations
in the United States or large outdoor plots on public lands.

In the United States, the Obama administration has largely taken a
hands-off approach to state and local efforts to ease cannabis laws,
saying it would not pursue licensed medical marijuana users.

In Mexico, the governors of the states that grow the most marijuana
and face the most drug violence have warned that no solution is
possible unless Mexico and the United States adopt a single,
coordinated approach to drug use and drug trafficking. Mexico's
president agrees.

"If there is not an international approach, Mexico will pay the costs
and will get none of the benefits," Calderon said in a recent debate.
"The price of drugs is not determined by Mexico. The price of drugs is
determined by the consumers in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago."