Free trade for marijuana between Mexico and the United States

MEXICO CITY - When Mexican army does allow reporters to see the soldiers in action, often is to see them burn marijuana fields. It's just for show, but it's fun. You can fly in a military helicopter by Sierra Madre, then landing and seeing the troops pose with their rifles as they walk in the green fields of marijuana. And best of all, you see hundreds of kilograms of grass on fire.

Mexican soldiers have carried out this ritual for decades and photographs have come to define the country's war against drugs. However, amid a wave of reforms in policies on drugs, these photographs could soon disappear only to become part of historical archives.

Last month, at the special session on drugs United Nations, President Enrique Peña Nieto said he wanted to relax the country's laws on marijuana. Since then sent a bill to Congress to legalize drugs containing cannabis, which would allow people to carry an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana without being processed, and that some prisoners convicted of charges was freed related with the herb. "The Mexicans know well the scope and limitations of essentially prohibitionist and punitive scheme called drug war that has prevailed for more than 40 years in the international arena," he said.

Peña Nieto just enters the game to reform drug laws. Last year said he was against legalizing marijuana and at one point even mentioned that not attend the UN session.

What happened? Apparently realized (or he was advised) it is better to side with the inevitable change. The proposal comes as a result of rapid easing of laws in the United States: four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical and recreational use, and 20 other states now allow medicinal use. The Mexican president also change comes after, in November, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that says the government has no constitutional right to arrest people for their "civil right" to cultivate cannabis.

In November, Californians could vote for an initiative to legalize marijuana. If the richest US state, one that is on the border, vote for the other, this would have a big impact on Mexico. Why the Mexican government would take action against traffickers carrying marijuana to California if it would be completely legal in that place?

Several Mexican politicians and activists have declared in favor of a broader legalization of marijuana. Among them is the opposition senator Mario Delgado, who has proposed decriminalization and regulation of the cultivation, production and sale in Mexico. The former president Vicente Fox supports this idea.

Peña Nieto's proposals make sense, but there is still much to do. The current law initiative effectively allow cannabis use, but most of the production and sale would be in the black market, which means it would be in the hands of the cartels.

The marijuana reform in the US has already undermined the business of the Mexican cartels. In 2011, a year before Colorado and Washington legalized the US border seized 1.13 million kilograms of cannabis from Mexico. Last year, when marijuana was already legal in four states and the District of Columbia, that number decreased to almost half a million.

However, even the latest figures indicate that a significant amount of marijuana still manages to enter the country illegally north. With the proceeds are paid to the murderers of the posters, as well as police officers and corrupt soldiers who discarded piles of corpses throughout Mexico.

Amid these dynamics of change, increasingly less sense than the Mexican soldiers (funded by the US through the Merida Initiative) follow the ritual of burning marijuana fields. What is needed is that both countries overcome the current legal tangle and come to the inevitable conclusion that marijuana legalized product that can be marketed across borders again.

The same market forces that regulate the liquor or snuff are those governing the trade of marijuana. As with these two products, increased profits for the formal economy are created. A research group predicts that the market of legalized marijuana in the United States will be worth more than six billion dollars this year and increase to more than 20 billion dollars by 2020. That will help the economies of Mexico and the United States.

The regulated marijuana market will not end the violence in Mexico in overnight. The posters are still going to smuggle cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. They have also diversified kidnapping, extortion and oil theft, crimes that can only be reduced with better police forces.

However, the reform of marijuana help immensely. For many people in the ranks of the Mexican cartels, the first step in the criminal world is growing, trafficking or selling marijuana. That tie would be broken, and legal jobs would be created. Mexican security forces could finally leave the problem of marijuana aside to focus on the real problems.

The UN special session on drugs was full of empty talk, but several positive things came out of the meeting. One was that there is no interest in doing that countries abide by UN treaties, which prohibit the legalization of marijuana. Another was that many voices in the world calling for a new approach to drug policy. The growth of a binational and legalized marijuana market would be a big step to convert these calls into a reality.