LEGALIZE IT –
June 20, 2023 – But harm reduction is far from a new idea. While we frequently hear U.S. politicians and media outlets cast blame on Mexico for the rising number of drug-related deaths in the United States, Mexico has long been a model for harm reduction. In fact, more than 80 years ago, Mexico decriminalized drugs and opened a state-run morphine dispensary in the nation’s capital. Although the Mexican government was forced to end this experiment after only five months, this moment in history demonstrates how Latin American countries — in contrast to how they are frequently depicted in U.S. media — have often been at the forefront of thinking about alternatives to drug prohibition.
In 1939, a Mexican doctor named Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra proposed an audacious plan to treat drug addiction that he claimed would also eliminate the illegal drug trade. At the time, he was leading the government’s Campaign Against Alcoholism and Other Drug Addictions and teaching medical courses at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He also served as the director of the federal Psychiatric Hospital in Mexico City, where he researched drug use and addiction.
