Translated by Danielle M. Antonetti
The federal government started its barrage on the debate on marijuana's regulation in poor form after the Supreme Court ruling, which upheld the rights of four people to grow cannabis for personal use based on their right to free development of their personality and the disproportionate application of the total ban of the plant compared to its relative danger. When the national debate over the topic began in earnest, President Peña Nieto, took a position with prejudice against the entire discussion and against a good part of his administration and party, emphatically stating that he opposed introducing the legalization of marijuana.
As if that weren’t enough, the debates organized by the government were designed to skew the discussion toward forums on the use of cannabis rather than on its regulation, which is the issue that really must be on the table and which was discussed during the public hearings that were convened jointly by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Thus, they resulted in poor participation …and again presented arguments that have been rehashed over and over again, instead of opening the door to outlining the course of action necessary to replace the substance's failed prohibition in order to regulate it based on evidence that protects the rights of consumers, stops criminalizing them, and reduce the business that is currently controlled by organized crime.
Peña Nieto's conservative position doesn't seem to take into consideration that the need for State regulation of marijuana is the result of a drug policy that completely bans the substance and that the debate is not about whether marijuana is good or bad. It's about how the State should manage the risks arising from consumption, which is a fact, and which is now controlled by organizations with specialized knowledge of clandestine markets that do not care about the well-being of their consumers and that use a lot of violence in their transactions.
Faced with his superior's bias, Secretary of Government Relations Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, at the opening of the second forum to debate the use of marijuana, which focused on ethics and human rights, gave a speech that laid out the important foundation for beginning to dismantle the model of a drug policy that has prevailed over the last thirty years and centered on using the criminal justice system as the principal instrument to contain both supply and demand. The ban, as recognized by Secretary Osorio, has most especially harmed the consumers of psychoactive substances, criminalizing and defaming them.
Osorio's speech recognizes the failure of the supposed decriminalization of consumers that the Mexican law intended. Since 1994, consumption had ceased to be a crime, as the Secretary of Government Relations says, and in 2007, with reforms of the so-called law of drug-traffickers, a threshold table was established under which the prosecutors office must not take criminal action for possession that is considered for personal use. The fact is that, in reality, the vast majority of those imprisoned for drug crimes are convicted of simple possession, a crime often attributed to consumers detained and jailed for carrying more than what the threshold tables allow or used to conceal prosecutors’ inefficiency at prosecuting real crimes, says Catalina Pérez Correa.
Osorio was correct to draw attention the need to decriminalize consumers and to note legislation has been ineffective in efforts to do that. The reference to the threshold table for personal use established by the General Health Act is relevant, recognizing that it is inconsistent with respect to possessing and actual transporting for personal use. The Secretary’s statements must be translated into the government's willingness to modify a table that sets absurd quantities for the possession of substances and that do not take into account consumer practices or actual market conditions. Five grams [.2 oz] of marijuana does not correspond to what is actually purchased for personal use, and the same goes for all other substances listed in the table.
Putting an end to the criminalization of consumers is not a matter of simply changing the table and increasing the amounts so that penal action isn’t taken. It is imperative that the offense of simple possession be removed altogether so that the prosecutor’s office must prove the intention to sell in cases concerning higher quantities and within the framework of what today is considering drug-trafficking. Eliminating simple possession as a crime would free from jail thousands of people who today are imprisoned for non-violent crimes, many of them, as Osorio said, are "mothers, first-time offenders, unarmed and carrying small amounts (who) are serving disproportionate sentences, with high costs not only to economics, but also primarily to social matters."
That Secretary Osorio used his speech to highlight the need to effectively decriminalize consumers of psychoactive substances is a good sign and shows that the government wants to be willing to undertake changes in its drug policy, although it remains short-sighted in its approach and does not fully recognize the absurdity of the ban on marijuana, on which there is already sufficient evidence for sensible regulation.
The change in drug policy is imperative and must follow the guidelines set by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, who several days ago precisely identified the central points of the current discussion:
- First, we should decriminalize the personal use of drugs.
- Second, we must accept that a world free of drugs, which a special session of the General Assembly on Drugs (UNGASS) affirmed in 1998, is an unrealizable reality.
- Third, we must focus on regulation and public education rather than suppressing drugs, which we know does not work.
- The fourth and final step is to recognize that drugs should be regulated precisely because they are risky, but they are infinitely more dangerous if they are simply left in the hands of unscrupulous criminals who have unceremoniously disregarded health and safety. Legal regulation protects health.
*Jorge Javier Romero Vadillo is a political scientist, professor and researcher in the Department of Politics and Culture at the Autonomous Metropolitan University, Xochimilco Campus. He holds a master's in Political Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a doctorate from the Faculty of Political Science and Sociology at the University Complutense of Madrid. He is a regular contributing columnist for Sinembargo. @Giorgioromero