Legalize Drugs, Says Former Mexican President

Reuters reports:

“Legalization does not mean that drugs are good … but we have to see (legalization of the production, sale and distribution of drugs) as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits,” Fox wrote in a posting over the weekend. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.”

Newsweek adds:

Fox, a member of the same conservative National Action Party as Calderón, was president between 2000 and 2006 and was a staunch U.S. ally in the war against drugs. But he says he now favors legalizing drugs.

Fox also backs critics who say it was a bad idea to send the Mexican Army to support police as they battle the cartels that smuggle cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamines, among other substances, across Mexico and into the United States. “They are not prepared for police work,” he said, in apparent response to allegations of Army brutality. “They should return to the barracks.”

Too bad Fox didn’t wise up when he was still president. I guess you get wiser when you’re no longer on the DEA’s payroll.