A governor of Mexico expressed his concern for poor farmers, suggesting the legalization of opium production for medical use to be proposed in national debate.
Gov. Hector Astudillo of Guerrero, who is also a member of Presiden Enrique Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, said in Daily Mail, that he was simply thinking out loud when he raised the issue on legal opiums in the debate. He suggested that farmers, especially in Guerrero, should be allowed to legally grow opium "poppies" for medical advantage.
The State of Guerrero, located in Mexico's Pacific Coastal region, is among the poorest and most violent, yet it became biggest opium producers in the country. In its many remote mountain communities, the state is able to supply about half the heroin used in the United Sates.
According to the Governor, the legalization of these poppies is an option for the local farmers, especially in the remote mountain areas. Lots of farmers there already depend on growing this drug crop on small hectars - a plot or less - for their main source of living. The children also help in the farming by extracting opium gum, which is purchased by a drug cartel. The other crops that they grow, such as corn, are the ones they leave for their consumption, the Governor stated in Mexico News Daily.
Lisa Sanchez, in charge of the drug policy for the NGO Mexico United Against Crime, supported Governor Astudillo's angle. She said in CBS news report, "The debate has to be oriented toward legal routes for growing poppies, because any orderly market would take power away from the cartels and reduce the violence, even though that is not a magic solution, nor the only one."
Those against the legal production of opium, like Antoni Mazzitelli, Mexico's representation for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, disagreed that such option would not be viable because there is no sufficient demand for opium to justify the increase of productivity. Mazzitelli suggested that the country should instead focus on "long-term development alternatives" such as roads, infrastructure and crop substitution that would permit farmers to grow non-drug crops.
That aside, there is already the International Narcotics Control Board of the U.N. that oversees the global legal market of opium. They are the ones in charge of manage the securty and transactions among nations like Australia, France, Hungary, India, Spain and Turkey, to keep the opium away from the black market.
