Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has called for the legalisation of drugs, arguing that prohibition has failed to curb rising drug-related violence and corruption.

Mr Fox said legalisation did not mean that drugs were good.

But he said it was a strategy that could reduce the power of the cartels.

The current Mexican president, Felipe Calderon last week called for a debate on legalisation, but he said he personally opposed the idea.

More than 28,000 people have died in drug-related violence since Mr Calderon took office and deployed the army to fight the cartels.

Only the scale of the violence makes me even consider legalisation there, and I'm still not sure if it's a good idea

I hate even thinking it, but your only other real option is true firepower and/or effectively removing personal freedoms and liberties...

Yes but they get a huge amount of support from the US so firepower is not the problem except that the cartels can afford the same firepower.

When you take away civil liberties then you become a police state. The drugs policy does not work. It needs a change of direction. Legalise it and tax it. When its price is so high that it creates a problem funding it creates crime to fund that habit.

I'm talking about blowing these people up where possible, shoot on sight, active assassinations etc as options since the stakes are so high anyway. No matter what way you colour it, if the decision is to tackle these scumbags head on, you're gonna wind up having immediate 'escalation' in every possible way, during and for a long time after.

If it was legalised, I'd fully expect them to start shipping more pure coke and heroin than they do anyway. Then the US would really have a problem...

If they did that, then the cartels would retaliate with killings against any police officer, even traffic or desk cops. They might stretch the definition to include families of policemen as well. Then assuming that they only targeted the policemen the impact would be for better widows provisions, or a serious drop in active police numbers. Over the longer term the impact would be for a serious drop in recruitment. You might only join if you already had a terminal illness and wanted to provide for the family.

Then they could target politicians, and that would cause anarchy. They would all demand better protection, so more guards bomb proof BMW's for everyone.


It might not happen that way. Trafficking could still be illegal. Look at Netherlands they have legalised small quantities but they still target smuggling.

Yes but a deliberate shoot to kill policy will backfire. We need to cut the demand here as well. I think that decriminalising it here would be beneficial. There can be still greater efforts against smuggling.