Mexico City. October 30, 2018.- “My activism and work is for the construction of peace and that is why I support the legalization of marijuana. We are on the right track. If drugs are legalized, we can create a culture of peace in San Luis Potosí, which today is a war zone. We are going to go for the legalization and this way we are going to lower the violence “, indicated the deputy Pedro Cesar Carrizales (” The Mijis “).

* Necessary to build a path of peace.

* People in the region recognize discrimination and permanent violations of human rights as the constant prohibitionist policy.

During his participation in the panel Requirements and Challenges in the Drug Policy of Latin America in the framework of the VII Latin American Conference and II Mexican Conference on Drug Policies, “El Mijis” explained that marijuana is a drug that has helped and the users of other very harmful substances – like crystal – to leave them.

“I am not in favor of glass, we are losing many young people and there are femicides, but in favor of the legalization of marijuana because it helps kids to leave other drugs.”

He reiterated that it is necessary to trace the path of the culture of peace with public policies that include the points of view of consumers.

This panel was also attended by Andrea James, executive director of the National Counsel for Incarcerated and formerly Incarcerated Woman and Girls, from the United States; Juliana Miranda, researcher in the Legal and Security Area of ​​the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) of Argentina; Daniel Gómez Mazo, lawyer of ILEX – Acción Jurídica de Colombia and María Angélica de Castro Comís, general coordinator of Convivencia É de Lei.

All participants agreed that indifference, discrimination based on gender, race, class, excessive use of prison, lack of preventive actions and apathy before the voices of groups affected by drug policies in the The region is what has led to its failure and has permanently violated the human rights of thousands of people, situations that represent the main challenges in the region.

Andrea James, from the United States, said that in that country there is an excessive imprisonment of women that has grown up to 700 percent and stressed that this is not a solution to the problem. “The stories of all the women related to drug crimes are the same, the causes are in the deep discrimination that women living in environments of poverty and with limited opportunities live in,” he said.

For his part, Daniel Gómez Mazo from Colombia: focused his participation on the impact on Afro-descendant populations in that country, who have been dragged into coca cultivation due to lack of opportunities and said that the war on drugs is fought mainly in territories of Afro-Colombian people, when consumers are abroad. “Only last year there were 190 violent deaths last year.”

In Argentina, there is the problem of militarization. In this regard, Juliana Miranda Researcher in the Justice and Security Area of ​​the Center for Legal and Social Studies Argentina (CELS) explained that the idea of ​​”new threats” such as drug trafficking, leads to a militarization of internal security, which implies the expansion of the capacities of the States to perform intelligence tasks or to exchange information between agencies of different States. The “new threats” are presented as justification for investigative techniques and forms of surveillance supposedly aimed at criminal groups, but, which are often used against political opponents or other social actors impact on the rights to the organization, participation , protest and privacy.