In 1904, Stanley, an Anglo-American journalist, went to Africa in search of a Scottish scientist and missionary about whom nothing had been known for some time. The legend goes that Stanley, on finding the Scotsman and without even asking first, affirmed “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”, after which there followed tea at five, so characteristic of the English culture. The interesting part is the latter: it doesn’t matter where two Englishmen are found, at five they having afternoon tea. The culture runs in their veins and, more importantly, everything that this conveys with it: customs, practices, behaviors. It is within that context that the matter of the legalization of drugs in Mexico should be analyzed.
Legalization as a mechanism to eradicate violence is elegant, attractive and analytically sustainable. As the liberal that I am, I reject the notion that the government should assume the role of nanny and deciding what a person can eat, smoke or consume: each person is the one responsible for his or her actions and decisions and there is no reason for the government to meddle in these matters, all of this whensoever third parties are not affected. And that’s the problem of legalization in our context: if we don’t want to end up with another of the many disillusions and unfulfilled promises that has characterized the country for so long, we first have to understand well the factors that would make the legislation viable because nothing’s more powerful than an idea but there’s also nothing riskier than an idea that is not upheld or one without the platform necessary for it to be successful.
Beyond ideological preferences, the notion of legalization makes all the sense in the world as a means of reducing the profitability of the mafias, eliminating with that the prime incentive prompting the business. If the drug is legal (and if the practical problems of how to produce it, distribute it and regulate it have been worked out), the mafias that proliferate due to its being an illicit market would cease to exist. The economic reasoning is robust and impeccable.
However, for there to exist a legalization strategy in our context (and here yes, geography makes us distinct from remote climes such as Uruguay or Portugal), at least three key matters would have to be settled. First, that legalization would involve the relevant market. Second, that it would include all of the significant items, in this case the various drugs. And, third, that a perfectly established, real and effective, capacity of regulation of the respective markets for the entire loop ranging from production to consumption be in place; that is to say, so that no leaks and children would not have access to the substance. If one observes the cases existing in the world, typically it is in these latter issues that things get sticky.
According to the National Addictions Survey, drug consumption in Mexico is exceedingly small, concentrated in certain sufficiently specific localities and, although growing rapidly, the base is so small that, with the exception of some neighborhoods or social groups, there is not so to speak a severe drug addiction problem. This being the case, it is obvious that the violence in the country cannot be explained by the consumption of drugs. The violence occurs due to two circumstances: one, the main one, Mexico’s geography that positions it as the means of access to the market of the U.S., the world’s greatest consumer. The remaining factor, and not the lesser of the two, is that Mexico is the locus-of-choice for the transit of much of this drug because there are no real and effective barriers to its production or transport, that is, because we don’t have police and judicial institutions devoted to enforcing the law maintaining order (the essence and minimal responsibility of any State). Drugs pass through Mexico because nothing stops them from passing or, in any case, regulates their passing through.
In this sense, the first key matter that would have to be resolved for legalization to be effective would of necessity be that it encompasses the relevant market. That market is not the Mexican one but rather the U.S. one. To rephrase this: nothing would change if drug consumption were legalized in Mexico if this were not to occur in the U.S., from whence the profits derive that make them relevant. For legalization to exert the desired effect in Mexico, the country would have to move to the Atlantic, that is separate itself from the border, or convince the Americans to legalize it also so that Mexico would cease to be the conduit of access to its market. If Mexico liberalizes consumption but the Americans stay the same everything would stay the same.
The second key matter is for legalization to embrace all of the relevant drugs. Supposing that the U.S., by some miracle, were to abandon its prohibitionist strategy, the question becomes: are all the drugs in play or only some of them. In terms of profitability and impact, the really significant drug is not marijuana (which is produced in Mexico), but cocaine and methamphetamines. If these are not included in the legalization package, the effort would remain incomplete and would be, to a good degree, to no avail. I don’t know of a sole proposal to legalize these other drugs. In this a smidgen of an advance implies no advance at all.
Finally, the idea of legalizing stands on the assumption that a legal market can be regulated and that this isn’t going to negatively affect the population, above all that which chooses not to consume drugs or to participate in the market. This is the crucial point and the one that from some time ago leads me to be reluctant with respect to legalization. Given that Mexico’s problem is not one of consumption but of the absence of State or, i.e., of “law and order”, what Stanley and Livingstone took for granted, legalizing drugs without strong institutions would not reduce the violence: the criminal activities would increase of unemployed narcos who would go on to other criminal businesses. Also, eliminating the illegality of the drug would increase availability and its social acceptance, raising health costs. As in Guatemala, the government could ignore the narco, but its situation would not improve because the problem is not one of drugs but of the weakness of its own system of government. The reality of extortion, kidnapping and narcotrafficking would have changed not one iota.
All things considered, the relevant market for legalization to be fruitful is the American one. If they liberalize their market, things could change fast. However, whether they legalize or not, criminality, abuse, extortion and kidnapping in Mexico would continue exactly the same with legalization or without it because that’s not the problem. What Mexico urgently requires is a government that acts the part and honors its mission.
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