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Fox: I would legalise all drugs - Former Mexican president says mankind should be free to choose

Published:Monday | October 1, 2018 | 12:00 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
Former President of Mexico, Vicente Fox (centre) and his wife Marta (right) is greeted on arrival in Montego Bay by Douglas Gordon (left), founder and organsor of Canex Jamaica; T'Shura Gibbs (second left), chief executive officer of Zimmer & Co; and Delano Seiveright, senior advisor and strategist, Ministry of Tourism. Fox was in the island for Canex 2018, an international cannabis business conference at the Montego Bay Convention Centre last week.

WESTERN BUREAU:

If he had the power and the authority, Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, said he would legalise every drug in the world, returning to mankind to the freedom of choice with which they were created.

Fox, who ruled drug-ravaged Mexico between the years 2000 and 2006 as the country's 55th president, was addressing local and international medical cannabis business leaders, farmers and processors of medical marijuana at the third staging of CanEx Jamaica Business Conference and Expo in Montego Bay, St James, last weekend.

"I am for legalising each and every single drug in this world," said Fox. "Why? Because we were created free. Each one of us, we were created free by God or whoever. We were created to take our own free decisions and this free decision includes to use whatever products I want to use or consume."

 

Free to decide on taking risks

 

In speaking to lifestyles that are not being penalised by law, Fox said just as he is free to make choices in regards to sexual matters, he should be free to make choices in other matters.

"It's free to decide what I do with my body for women. It's free to decide what choices I have and what choices and risk I want to take," noted Fox.

"That's ... freedom and that's what we all were created with, but we must exercise freedom with responsibility."

The most commonly used drugs in the world - which are all fairly popular across North America, South America and the Caribbean - are: heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, cocaine, ganja, opium, Ecstasy, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and phencyclidine (PCP).

It should be interesting to note that, between 2006 and 2012, the official death toll of the Mexican drug war was at least 60,000. Estimates set the death toll above 120,000 persons killed by 2013, not including the 27,000 missing.