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11/19/2012—Outgoing Mexican president Felipe Calderón recently expressed his distress over the new marijuana legalization laws passed in Colorado and Washington. Rather than taking a stance on the “adequacy” of the laws as a tool for reducing drug-related crime, he urged world leaders to engage in “discussion” and “debate” on this major change in global drug … Read more

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Calderon is blaming the US Gov't for the law, and they don't support it. If what he is saying is US citizens have no right to decide these issues at the state-level ballot box, he would apparently be wrong.

I think he is complaining about the fact that the US is pushing Mexico to fight drug traffic south of the border (which is largely marijuana) while legalizing it north of the border. My son-in-law works in LE and runs a narcotics unit - he complains about the same thing. The US needs to come up with a comprehensive and consistent drug policy.

If American voters want to set USA drug policy at this point, it's fine with me. There is no denying Mexico is largely on the take at every level- too much money to ignore (or threats if you don't take the drug money). Mexico can't solve a problem that it embraced. They fed the monster and now the monster is eating them and some 60,000 people during Calderon's term. Mexico is too corrupt at every level to fix this mess and I'm not convinced anyone here really wants to fix it- they just don't want the violence that has ruined the tourist industry. Sadly, the Mexican people are the most impacted by a loss of security and trust in the police. I don't think the evil genie can be put back into the bottle- Mexico needs a new bottle.

Originally Posted by Woooosh

I don't think the evil genie can be put back into the bottle- Mexico needs a new bottle.

My wife (who is Mexican) has said numerous times.

"The only way to change Mexico is to get rid of all the Mexicans and start over"

My response is typically.

"That is fine but there is a problem, There are way more GOOD Mexican's than there are bad! Now what do we do with all the GOOD Mexican's?"

"The US needs to come up with a comprehensive and consistent ________ "

Want to make up a list

I agree with Gringo that Mexico is concerned about inconsistent policies, but I doubt legalization in Washington and Colorado is going to increase Mexican weed imports. On the contrary, both the Rand Corp. and the the Mexican Competitiveness Institute found that it should decrease demand for Mexican weed as people are able to legally grow their own.

Cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are much bigger problems, because the first two cannot be produced in the U.S. and the last is much harder to produce after OTC precursers were tightly regulated. Legalizing those drugs would be a much harder sell to the voters and no doubt trigger a more aggressive federal response if it did happen.