Mexico Dabbling With Drug Courts

Mexico’s federal government opened its second
drug court, a “Court for Treatment of Addictions,” in the state
of Morelo. (The first opened in Nuevo Leon in 2009.) These
kind of courts are seen as an alternative that treats drug use as a
public health issue but stop well. short of
legalization. 

 Supporters tout the initiative as a
money-saver, claiming that sending an inmate through rehab requires
a tenth of the cost of jailing them. One government official, a
director of a citizen crime prevention program, admitted to the
Pan Am Post that the results promised when the first drug
court opened, like lower crime rates, haven’t been seen yet, but he
insisted the new government intends on opening many more. Other
critics of the government’s drug policies aren’t sure that’s
wise. The Pan Am Post
reports:

The Association
for a Fundamental Drug Policy (CUPIHD) also dismissed the
initiative’s potential benefits, based on the experience
with Mexico’s first drug court….”In the case of Monterrey
city, there hasn’t been a significant decrease in the crime
rate. From the first 103 people admitted [into the drug court],
only 18 finished their treatment, despite the strict admission
criteria.”…

For Marcelo Arteaga Mata, coordinator of Students For Liberty (SFL) in
Mexico, this new drug approach “won’t affect in a substantial
way the basic drug problem in Mexico.”

Regarding the effect of the hoped-for decrease to drug use on
crime rates in Mexico, Arteaga believes the impact will be very
low. The majority of crimes committed in Mexico are related to
drug trafficking, he points out, not as a consequence of substance
abuse.

In a 2012
article for Reason, Mike Riggs surveyed the many
pitfalls of drug court system in the U.S. and pointed out how they
could undermine
legalization efforts. And how are those legalization efforts
faring in Mexico? Former Mexican president Vicente Fox, who
pushed for decriminalization while in office, later came out
in
support of legalization. But Fox’s successor Felipe Calderon,
who took offie in 2006, escalated his country’s war on drugs.
His successor, Enrique Nieto, who took office in 2006 (Mexican
presidents serve one six-year term), has said he welcomes a
“broad
debate” on legalization, and legislators in Mexico City are

still moving toward trying to legalize marijuana in the
nation’s capital. Only the country’s left-wing party, the third
largest and in control of the capital, currently appears
to be willing to push for more liberal marijuana laws in
Mexico. Fox was a member of the center-right National Action Party
and so was the drug warrior Calderon.