During a recent debate in Guadalajara concerning, among other things, the proposed legalization of marijuana in tourist areas around Mexico, Jalisco governor Aristoteles Sandoval stated that “what’s killing our youth is the [illegal] traffic in drugs, not the consumption of marijuana.”
His statement was made in direct opposition to that of Alfonso Navarrete Prida, Mexico’s Secretary of the Interior, who asserted at the same meeting that marijuana is, in fact, damaging to one’s health, and that therefore its illegality should be preserved.
The debate came about after Secretary of Tourism Enrique de la Madrid put forward the proposal concerning the sale of marijuana in tourist zones such as Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo.
Sandoval reminded those assembled at the event that several studies have been done in the United States which found that marijuana legalization in many states has led to a 13-percent drop in crime rates along the country’s border with Mexico.