By
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Struggling with the corruption and violence caused by drug trafficking, President Vicente Fox says the solution might be to eventually legalize drug use.
In an interview published by two newspapers Sunday, Fox said he agreed with a police official who suggested last week that the only way to win the war on drugs was to legalize drugs - eliminating the profits and violence caused by illegal trafficking.
"That's right, that's true, that's true," the newspaper Unomasuno quoted Fox as saying.
But the president quickly qualified that statement, saying Mexico could not move alone and indicating he did not expect such a step soon.
"When the day comes that it is time to adopt the alternative of lifting punishment for consumption of drugs, it would have to come all over the world, because we would gain nothing if Mexico did it but the production and traffic of drugs ... continued here," he said.
"So humanity some day will see that it is best in that sense," he said in remarks also reported by El Sol de Mexico.
Yesterday, Fox spokeswoman Martha Sahagun was asked to elaborate.
"The president was very clear in what he said, that drugs and drug smuggling is a serious affair not only for Mexico, it is an affair that affects many countries in the world," she said. "...We have to follow this problem closely, in a joint and global manner, taking solutions at the appropriate times."
Fox has vowed to cooperate closely with the United States against traffickers who have used Mexico both as a transit route and production site for narcotics.
On Jan. 24, the new president announced a "great crusade" against drugs, saying, "I pledge a war without mercy."
Fox promised to overhaul the nation's corrupt prison system and to follow a Mexican Supreme Court ruling last week that removed barriers to extradition of Mexicans for trial in the United States.
His government has announced record seizures of drugs since Fox took office on Dec. 1.
Yet some Mexican experts - including Fox's Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda - have long suggested that the drug war is being lost and that some drugs should be decriminalized.
"One thing is his (Fox's) personal attitude and another is pragmatism faced with the United States," said Luis Astorga, a sociologist at the National Autonomous University who studies the drug trade.
He said, "Fox has gone further than previous governments" in accepting U.S. demands to fight drugs - a battle which Astorga said has gone on for almost a century.
Astorga said he hoped the comments might encourage a debate on the problem. But he said that with the United States set against legalization, "the probability that this could have repercussions in practical terms is zero."
A U.S. expert, Frank Cilluffo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that suggesting legalizing drugs "sends the wrong message to our children."
"While some of the gang violence may be mitigated, the bad consequences of drug use would not," said Cilluffo, who heads a task force on the narcotics industry for the center.
