Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has said his country would legalize all drugs within 10 years. This was back in November of 2015.
Eventually, this would include methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine; with marijuana the first step in the process. This was said after the Mexican Supreme Court ruled favorably for marijuana farmers.
While many feel that this is the beginning of the legalization process, current president Enrique Peña Nieto remains against it, though he is taking time to discuss possible reform.
Many feel as though this may be an important step to take in order to oust the violent and ever-fighting drug cartels, who now operate beyond the borders of Mexico.
While legalization may certainly help combat cartels, it will not have the far sweeping influence that some may believe it will.
The United States is one of the biggest illegal drug-using countries around. There will continue to be a demand for marijuana, cocaine, and other illicit drugs.
Marijuana and other drugs are trafficked into the United States, sold through a chain of dispersement, then eventually reaching the user. Unfortunately, along this process, people are injured and killed as cartels, gangs, and dealers take their business out to the streets of Mexico and the United States in ongoing turf battles.
More importantly, without marijuana, cartels still continue to have other sources of revenue. In addition to marijuana, cartels are known to traffic heroin and cocaine.
In the past, cartels were involved in extortion via kidnapping, oil theft, and piracy.
More recently, Mexican officials have confirmed rumors that cartels are now doing business with illegal ore mining and logging. The ore and wood are then sold internationally. These operations are guarded heavily. Authorities have been ambushed while trying to get close.
With these kinds of activities bringing in a large and steady source of income, legalizing marijuana may make a dent in the organizations. It will not be significant, and more importantly, it will not bring down the criminal syndicates.
What continues to be more of a pressing concern than the money cartels are bringing in is the ammunition these cartels have. It is more than the Mexican authorities can combat.
In the past, Mexican military and police have arrested or killed cartel members, seizing the drugs themselves. In response to this, cartels seem to replace the lost members with fresh meat, all while obtaining more drugs to sell.
Instead, the new strategy has been to attack the financial sources. A prime example of this was in 2014 in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan. At the Mexican port, with a combination of 400 soldiers and federal police officers, seized tons of undocumented minerals. The Mexican government announced that in addition to the 119,000 tons of seized unknown undocumented minerals, the authorities had also seized heavy machinery, and had arrested six Chinese citizens who were part of the process to bring the illegal minerals to China.
The raid highlights Mexican attempts to take the down the cartels by taking away the sale item (in this case the minerals), and arresting involved people. Most importantly, the authorities took away a prime financial access point, the port itself. The port had been used by the large cartel, the Knights Templar, to export iron ore to China where it is used in steelworks. By shutting it down, the Knights Templar no longer have a port to ship out the ore, which means that the cartel could not get any revenue from Lazaro Cardenas.
Taking out the money of a cartel does more damage because it means that a cartel cannot bribe officials, pay associates, and buy weapons.
The biggest dent will not come from the drugs or taking out the financial sources. It will come when there are no consumers for the cartels to supply drugs to.
Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the United States is one of the biggest buyers of the cartels’ drugs. In order to really affect the cartels, the United States must figure out a way to cut the demand for drugs.