Obama Misses the Point in Mexico

President Barack Obama spent the afternoon with Mexican President Felipe Calderon talking about drugs, guns and money (and immigration). The realities of drug-related violence right now in Mexico forced the two to focus on the issue, and it's surely a reason Obama chose to make a stop in the D.F. But they're both missing a huge opportunity by failing to discuss a solution that should be on the table - legalization.

U.S. rhetoric on drugs has taken steps forward and back in recent weeks. While I considered Obama's laugh at marijuana legalization a step backwards, both he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have pointed to the responsibility of our country's insatiable demand for drugs in Mexico's violence.

"I will not pretend that this is Mexico's responsibility alone. Demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business," Obama said at a press conference today in Mexico City.

It's a huge step to hear words demand and drugs in the same sentence from an American president. But there's another factor fueling cartels - criminalization. If drugs were available legally, would we have thousands of drug-related murders on both sides of the border every year?

Mexico's U.S. Ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan, said Sunday on Face the Nation that the debate around the legalization of marijuana "needs to be taken seriously, that we have to engage in on both sides of the border: both in producing, in trafficking, and in consumption countries." In February, the former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia urged Obama to decriminalize pot. He's likely to hear more of the same from heads of state like Bolivia's Evo Morales at the Summit of the Americas this weekend. Let's hope he's listening. He seems like a good listener, right?

It's true that legalization of drugs won't happen overnight, and that Mexico needs assistance from the U.S. to prevent murders today and tomorrow and next week. But some signs of openness to legalizaton or decriminalization from the top would go a long way, and we're not getting those signs right now.

In related news today, Obama also said he doesn't plan to pursue permanent status for the expired assault weapons ban. Obama has said he supports making the ban permanent and Calderon has pushed him to throw some weight behind the issue. But he's not going to go for it right now.

At a joint press conference with President Calderon, President Obama just now said that he has not backed "off at all from my belief that the assault weapons ban made sense...Having said that, none of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

"What we've focused on how we can improve our enforcement under existing laws," Mr. Obama said.

He's got four years and a few things on his plate, but we're not going to let this issue drop.