Mexico City Floats Idea of Legal Drug Clinics in Prisons

"The mother of all battles?"

Really?

An even older saying goes that "victory has a thousand fathers." Here in the land of the virgin mother of Guadalupe, doesn't it seem unfair that mothers, then, are getting tagged with the maternity for... defeats?

A quiz, kind reader (you, too, Mister Fox!): Who was the last head of state to get international press attention for calling one of his lost causes "the mother of all battles"?

It was... well... Saddam Hussein.

Fox would do better to go back to his true views about drug policy, which he voiced in frustration and as a message to Washington back in 2001. Fox called for legalizing drugs. In a moment I'll explain the context of his statements then and now.

Those who have followed the ebb and flow of legalization debates in Mexico recall that it used to take a series of heavy-handed abuses by the U.S. government toward Mexico to provoke "legalization talk" as a warning to Washington to back off.

This past week, however, largely in response to a single boneheaded "travel advisory" against Mexico by the U.S. State Department, the L-word - la legalización - began rolling off tongues again from distinct corners of the Mexican Republic, and the debate begins anew.

It is a modest and realistic "harm reduction" proposal out of Mexico City's government that is sparking much of the debate... The legalization of drugs has many proponents in Mexico, from all major political parties, significant swathes of Civil Society, social movements, and media commentators. Beyond President Fox's true opinion in favor of legalization, his first secretary of state, his first public safety czar, the chief of a national police agency, the governor of a border state, various political party platforms and major daily newspapers have all voiced their position, at one moment or another during the past five years, in favor of drug decriminalization or legalization. Narco News is filled with hundreds of reports documenting each of those statements as they happened.

The debate flows anew whenever U.S. authorities go too far in their abuse of the drug war doctrine to meddle to heavily in Mexican affairs that have little to do with drugs. But then it ebbs again into media-created silence. At least that's been the pattern in recent years.

This dynamic is not new to the Fox administration in Mexico. In the autumn of 1998, when Mexico was in the seventh decade of single party rule by the PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party), and Washington was threatening to "decertify" Mexico as a trusted drug war ally, the then-Secretary of State said aloud, in a moment of candor, and to the press, that if the U.S. decertified Mexico (thus cutting off foreign aid), Mexico would have little choice but to legalize drugs. Well... that shut up the drug war hawks in Washington for a spell.

This time, though, it only took one little "travel advisory" - and not a long series of abuses over a short period of time, as in the past - and this is an indication of a positively changing political landscape.

The latest round is interesting, because it orbits not around a legalization proposal, but a rather modest "harm reduction" proposal by the District Attorney of Mexico City - Bernardo Batíz - a proposal that is already a year old, to administer some drugs to addicts in prison, in a clinical setting, as part of a program to get them off the drugs before they are released back into society, and to remove the power that drug traffickers (and their dealers, known as prison guards, same as in all U.S. prisons) have inside the walls of the three prisons in the hemisphere's largest city.

Batiz, as we reported a year ago is also philosophically in favor of the decriminalization of drugs outside of prison walls, too. But that never got much attention.

What is getting plenty of attention now is his more modest proposal for the program inside the prisons.

Mexico City's Secretary of Public Health, Asa Christina Laurell, told the daily El Universal that "the possibility of administering drugs, under medical control in the clinics of prisons to prisoners who suffer an addiction in order to treat it is being studied, as well as a means to combat against trafficking and corruption that is generated in these places in order to meet the demand."

"It's not about legalizing the business," she said," but, to the contrary, to have medical control over those who need the drugs but who fall into the hands of the dealers in this terrible black market."

Miguel Ontiveros Alonso, of the National Institute of Criminal Science, told the Mexico City TV station Channel 11 this week, that if Batiz's plan is implemented, "the guards now won't look for drug money because the drugs will already be inside." He complained that the guards would still be able to traffic in cell phones, weapons or any other prohibited object (Ed Note: just like their U.S. counterparts), but still had to admit that it would defeat the narco-traffickers.

The debate over the harm reduction proposal, of course, is rarified by politics.

Even one of our favorite journalism colleagues, Carlos Ramírez, can't always be right: In his nationally-syndicated column yesterday - headlined with the claim that Mexico City Governor (and top-polling presidential candidate) Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador "seeks to legalize drug use" - Ramirez lambasted the proposal, claiming that to give some prisoners some drugs would eventually "idiotize" the entire society.

Well, that's politics. Ramírez's columns have long expressed a colorful opposition to Lopez Obrador and his presidential ambitions. It's unfortunate that the merits of Batiz's proposal seem to be obscured by passions over the upcoming presidential contest. But, hey, that, too, is part of the debate, and at least down here, unlike in the United States, the debate is really happening.

Here's where it gets more interesting: At his Tuesday morning press conference in Mexico City (Lopez Obrador wakes the reporter caste up at six a.m. each morning to take questions and tends to dominate the morning newscasts nationwide even as President Fox and other rivals are still asleep), Lopez Obrador was asked about Batiz's proposal. And instead of offering the standard knee-jerk politician's cry of being deathly opposed to drug law reforms, Lopez Obrador ducked the question, with a famous Mexican saying: "On a Tuesday, do not get married or launch ships."

Translation: He's letting his District Attorney and his Health Secretary float the trial balloon.

According to the daily El Universal:

City prosecutor Bernardo Batiz said that the proposal to medicate addicted prisoners with drugs was just an idea and has not been formally presented to Governor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He also mentioned that the proposal has been discussed with Health Secretary Asa Cristina Laurell, city chief of staff Alejandro Encinas and prisons director Azael Rodriguez...

The District Attorney clarified that it's not about legalizing drugs but rather helping the rehabilitation of the convicts and also to combat the black market of drug distribution that exists inside the prisons.

An example of that is yesterday's arrest of a social worker in the Eastern City Prison who tried to enter with a kilo of cocaine to deliver it to a prisoner dedicated with distributing the alkaloid...

In other words, while President Fox contradicts his own stated pro-legalization views with his "mother of all battles" rhetoric, and as his national prison system is under seige with the government having lost much control to drug dealers and corruption, Mexico City officials are trying to pound out a realistic approach to keeping control over its prison system, to rehabilitating prisoners, and to fighting the corruption of the guards (and apparently the social workers too).

The trial balloon is gutsy, especially considering the Mexico City governor's upcoming presidential race (and his lead in all the polls so far toward the July 2006 presidential election). It's going to take some hard work, in that context, to get the proposal looked at outside of electoral context... but perhaps the moment will come when the electoral context could play in its favor, too, in the opportunity to provide a contrast to the failed policies of the national government regarding its increasingly criticized management of a Mexican prison system that has been destroyed by the nation's acquiescence to U.S.-imposed drug policies.