I don't know how popular that would be with Mexican voters, even if it drastically reduced the money flowing to cartels.

Probably more important than domestic sentiment is the inevitable retaliation that would follow from the United States government if Mexico just legalized all drugs. I wouldn't be surprised if the US government cut off trade with Mexico and started running overt and covert operations to ensure Mexican prohibitionist politicians take power again. In the worst case the US government might even deploy armed forces across the border, to ensure that American law is enforced in Mexico, like it did with Panama in 1989.

They should legalize the raw materials, unprocessed coca leaves, which people could chew. Unprocessed poppies, unprocessed Marijuana, meaning that hash, hash oil, etc would be illegal.

Canada legalized marijuana, the US did not react.

Mexico could legalize marijuana with little US recourse.

Heroin and Cocaine might be problematic.

I don't think that the US government would react drastically if Mexico legalized cannabis. I think that it would react drastically if Mexico legalized "hard" drugs, as ttul suggested.

On further consideration, I don't know if legalizing all drugs in Mexico would really hurt drug smuggling profits. The value of the product would still be much higher on the US side of the border. Legalization would just decrease the costs to source the drugs in Mexico. Lower barriers-to-entry into the smuggling business might reduce profit margins for smugglers as a group, depending on how violent the competition is. For a historical parallel, I guess I should read up on how Canada's economy and violent crime rates were affected by US Prohibition, when alcohol became much more valuable on the US side of the border than the Canadian side.

Since production of alcohol in Canada was legal during the US prohibition, presumably all of that production was done by legitimate businesses. Then licorice macularis would be on the right side of the law until they cross the border. Thus there would be no need for criminal activity until you reached the border. Right?

That's the null hypothesis. It seems to make intuitive sense. I still need to read up before I find out if that is how it actually worked.

The United States heavily punishes countries that legalize drugs, if not by direct sanctions, then by pulling aid.

See how US threatened UN with pulling aid, and Pakistan.

Would you mind elaborating how the US heavily punished Portugal for its actions around drugs?

Or for that matter, what crippling sanctions the US placed on Canada for legalizing pot?

The peaks days of the drug war are long over. The US has no real capacity to do anything to nations for such decisions, that has become very clear. As more nations and US states legalize and decriminalize, the pro war on drugs group will be and or is being shown to have very little actual power. At this point even the Republicans are increasingly coming around to the drug war being an absurdity. Jeff Sessions & Co. are dinosaurs on the way out rather rapidly, the US will probably have a majority of states legalized re pot within the next decade.

Don't know why you get downvoted. I also think that states legalising drugs with a sound plan won't face retaliation. Dutch laws on consumption of weed also haven't hurt their relationship to the US.

Marijuana has never been legal in the Netherlands. Laws against cultivation are quite strictly enforced. Only sale and consumption are tolerated, but still technically illegal.

I'll guess that Portugal does not have a strong relationship with the US, which limits the level of sanctions that could be used. And the European Union would protect one of its member, I think.

It's simply that Portugal hasn't legalised anything, so they're not in conflict with their treaty obligations. The same as the Netherlands, use is simply decriminalised, not legalised.

None of those countries legalised - they merely decriminalised usage, avoiding having to break their treaty obligations.

Because the US would destroy Mexico. Remember Panama?

Hell my own country tried to fully legalise cannabis in the 90s and it did not go down well.

> Why doesn't Mexico just legalize heroin and cocaine distribution?

Well, aside from treaty obligations and public opinion, because...

> Wouldn't this put an end to the cartels?

Maybe, and the cartels own a lot of the politicians, and can kill a lot of the rest on a whim. And Mexican legalization would weaken the cartels over the long term by enabling new entrants, but wouldn't destroy their power overnight, before they were able to inflict punishment.

And legalizing would also weaken the government, as a lot of US aid is dependent on anti-drug cooperation. And that impact would be a lot quicker than the impact to the cartels.

They will just kidnap us, the people, and ask for ransoms. They are already doing for many years.

It would still be a problem, because its illegal in the US, where the market is. The U.S. having it illegal actually does a lot of damage to drug producing countries.