There’s an old saying south of the border that describes the relationship between the United States and Mexico.
"¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!” said Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, who served in office from 1884 to 1911. The saying translates to, “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States,” which refers to Mexico’s willingness to live by doctrine set forth by the U.S. despite whatever detriment it might bring to Mexico itself.
The American-led drug war has been the most consequential of those doctrines in modern times, as it has brought death, instability and waves of people displaced by its violence — not just in Mexico — but in much of the Latin America that caters to our insatiable appetite for drugs.
Here at home, states are cutting out the middle man and legalizing the least dangerous of them all, which really should have never been lumped next to the likes of heroin or bath salts in the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of Schedule 1 drugs — marijuana.
While our next-door neighbors in Ohio voted against legalizing marijuana in their state last week, several thousand miles away the Mexican Supreme Court opened the door to legalizing it in Mexico, according to Bloomberg News.
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of four individuals aligned with a legalization advocacy group, known as Mexican Society for Responsible and Tolerant Consumption (Smart), that argued domestic drug policy in Mexico as ineffective, regressive and, most importantly, infringing on the private lives of individuals.
In an 88-page opinion, Justice Arturo Zaldívar agreed, arguing the state cannot interfere with an individual’s freedom to pursue recreational activities that do not harm others through “an excessive, intrusive and unnecessary prohibition,” according to CNN.
Though the ruling only applies to the four individuals who sought protection from the court to “plant, transport and smoke marijuana for recreational use,” per CNN, the precedent establishes the groundwork for legal action to challenge or completely rewrite Mexico’s strict substance abuse laws.
It also adds the weight of Latin America’s second largest economy to a growing cadre of voices hard-hit by the War on Drugs to reconsider the approach. Mexicans are right to challenge the drug war’s orthodoxy, even if it’s not by challenging the drug war itself.
One of the plaintiffs in the Smart case, Armando Santacruz, put it best: “We are killing ourselves to stop the production of something that is heading to the U.S., where it’s legal.”
Mexico’s Supreme Court ruling is monumental in its potential to transform how marijuana and its consumers are treated inside the country.
And surely, even if it’s completely legalized, Mexico will still find itself “far from God” with all of its other problems. But as Mexico and other Latin American countries slowly wake up, they might not find themselves so close to the U.S. — at least when it comes to our War on Drugs.
edsalas@indiana.edu
