Kidnap victims freed in Tlajomulco
Agents from the Jalisco Prosecutor General’s Office (FGE) freed two abductees and detained nine suspects in a raid in Tlajomulco’s El Palomar neighborhood on Monday.
Investigating a kidnapping in the vicinity, officers identified the suspects leaving a property aboard a Hummer. When told to stop, the suspects opened fire. The state agents wounded one of the assailants and learned upon arresting them the location of another safe house.
Upon reaching the house the agents came under fire again, but managed to detain the suspects as they attempted to escape out back. Two kidnap victims were found and released, while nine suspects were arrested in total. The agents decommissioned several vehicles and five firearms at the two properties.
The detainees are believed to have been behind a number of kidnappings and homicides, while one is suspected of involvement in the massacre of 26 people whose dismembered corpses were left in a van beside Guadalajara’s iconic Millennium Arches in November 2011.
40 percent of Jalisco lives in poverty
The number of poor people rose from 52.8 million in 2010 to 53.3 million (45.5 percent of the population) in 2012, while according to Coneval, 11.5 million people (9.8 percent of the population) live in extreme poverty and lack basic services such as health, food, education and housing. The number of people without social security also rose from 69.6 million in 2010 to 71.4 million in 2012.
Children and young people are the worst affected, with 53.8 percent living in poverty across Mexico, while the indigenous population and those living in remote rural areas also remain disproportionately affected by poverty. The poorest states in Mexico are Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca, while those that saw a significant rise in poverty levels are Nayarit, Quintana Roo, Nuevo Leon and Jalisco.
According to Coneval, the number of poor people in Jalisco grew by 10.3 percent from 2.7 million in 2010 to 3.5 million (39.8 percent of the population) in 2012. The number of those living in extreme poverty also rose by 13.7 percent from 392,000 in 2010 to 446,000 (5.8 percent of the population) in 2012.
Former officials call for decriminalization of marijuana
Jorge Castañeda, foreign minister under President Vicente Fox, and Fernando Gomez Mont, interior minister under President Felipe Calderon, cited the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington last year as reason for Mexico to abandon its costly and futile war on pot and follow the two states’ lead toward a more relaxed drug policy.
While Mexicans are already legally permitted to possess five grams of marijuana, the capital’s city council, which has the authority to pass health and law enforcement legislation, is contemplating a measure that would allow the regulated possession and use of marijuana in Mexico City. This would be preferable to continuing to follow the well-trodden “path that provokes violence, generates human rights violations, erodes the country’s image abroad and costs a fortune,” argue Castañeda and Gomez, with the support of other former cabinet secretaries – Pedro Aspe, finance minister to Carlos Salinas, and Juan Ramon de la Fuente, health minister to Ernesto Zedillo.
“Mexico is a highly conservative country whose population remains largely opposed to legalizing marijuana. But an increasing number of business, political and academic leaders are shifting their views,” Castañeda and Gomez noted. These figures include former Presidents Fox and Zedillo, both of whom fought vigorously against drug consumption and trafficking in office, but have since reconsidered their positions and concluded that decriminalizing marijuana use and commerce would be a more sensible approach.
Castañeda and Gomez believe that Mexico City would be the best place to begin the push for change, given the capital’s more liberal attitudes to hot-button issues such as gay marriage.
“For practical and political reasons, our effort is limited to decriminalizing the use of marijuana in the federal district, though some believe that the same case can be easily made for other drugs in the whole country,” the pair wrote in the Washington Post.
“Mexicans have paid a high cost in the struggle against drugs,” they concluded. “We know that this war cannot be won. This fight should be waged by physicians rather than armed forces. Decriminalization of marijuana is not a silver bullet, but it would be a major step away from a failed approach.”
The Tequila Files 