Health, Ethics and Human Rights, Regulation and Economic Aspects as wells as Citizen Security are some of the themes in the debate tables of the Fifth Forum on the National Debate over the Use of Marijuana at the Palacio de Minería.
Specialists, academics and officials participate in the meeting.
In former Interior Secretary Gómez Mont’s opinion, the prohibitionist policies on drugs have had a negative effect, especially for Mexico’s armed forces.
“That is to say that a theme such as the prohibition of cannabis, putting our armed forces to support a prohibition that has no social or political backing, is something that affects the ethic of our armed forces, that puts in them in grey areas where many risk being corrupted”, he stated.
For his part, former presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar assured that the current policy increased consumption and deaths.
“It is not possible to keep on sustaining this punitive and prohibitionist paradigm that has proved to be a resounding failure for 50 years, producing only more violence.”
Luis Astorga, a specialist on themes of security spoke of the risks of only approving marijuana for medical purposes.
“In a country like ours, a limited measure on only one substance would leave many problems pending, such as the cultivation of poppy, meth labs and cocaine traffic. It would be necessary to go further and think of proposals for the regulation of markets of other psychoactive substances not legalized today”, he pointed out.
The table dedicated to health featured mothers that support the therapeutic legalization of marijuana in order to help their children that suffer from different types of epilepsy.
“We are in favor of the use of cannabidol, because it has proved its efficiency on refractory epilepsy leading in the worst case scenarios only 40% of the seizures, which for us is huge”, said Margarita Garfías, mother of Carlos Antonio who suffers from refractory epilepsy.
She added that in case of legalization importation costs would be avoided. “In some cases the customs officers open it, just imagine the lack of trust with which you give it to your child, when it comes opened or only half is left”, she said.
It is not possible to keep on sustaining this punitive and prohibitionist paradigm that has proved to be a resounding failure for 50 years, producing only more violence.”
-Rubén Aguilar, former presidential spokesman.