Search Results: calderon/ (2)

World Economic Forum
President Felipe Calderon scolded “political forces” that don’t have the “vision” to support his Drug War

​President Felipe Calderon of Mexico admitted on Sunday that despite five years of all-out war against the drug cartels in his country, the organizations continue to pose “an open threat” to democracy in Mexico. He must have lost the part of his speech that would have detailed how his own Drug War has done exactly the same thing.

In a frankly worded speech marking the start of his sixth and last year in office, Calderon said interference in elections by drug gangs “is a new fact, a worrisome fact,” reports Tracy Wilkinson at the Los Angeles Times. “It is a threat to everyone,” Calderon said.
President Calderon was probably thinking about last month’s local elections in Michoacan, his home state, where drug traffickers intimidated voters and told people how to vote.

Photo: Alejandro Bringas/Reuters
Mexican soldiers stand guard, pretending they don’t have a buzz as bales of marijuana go up in smoke

​It seems that top Mexican officials, weary of their bloody and protracted drug war, have been been subtly pushing the U.S. for some time to seriously consider marijuana legalization. Now, with the sitting president calling for a debate, it’s not so subtle anymore.

Responding to out-of-control violence related to the illegal drug trade, Mexican President Calderon on Tuesday said he is open to a debate on the legalization of marijuana and other drugs.
​Calderon called the increasingly widespread public discussion of legalization “a fundamental debate.”