Mexico explores regulating opium to fight drug violence

Mexico's government has explored regulating poppy production to make pharmaceutical opiates like morphine in an effort to weaken heroin-smuggling gangs, according to two sources with knowledge of the government's thinking.

Amid a government review of drugs policy, Interior Minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong asked policy experts late last year whether Mexico could win authorization from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a United Nations body, to grow and export opium poppies for painkillers.

"It's a legitimate question," said one of the sources with direct knowledge of the talks, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "States have to ask themselves questions and have to discuss their policies."

It is not clear how seriously the government is considering the regulation of poppy production and it has not yet approached the INCB directly but the discussion illustrates how concerned it is about heroin-related violence.

Mexico's interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

On Thursday, Peña Nieto proposed legalizing marijuana-based medicines, substantially raising the amount of pot that users can carry and freeing inmates on minor marijuana charges.

With its shift, Mexico has joined a growing group of Latin American countries openly questioning the prohibitionist policies at the heart of the war on drugs.

"The terms of the drugs debate are changing in Mexico and the rest of the world," Peña Nieto said.

Peña Nieto made no mention of poppy regulation on Thursday, but in a speech on drugs at the U.N. General Assembly this week he said, "we should create productive alternatives in those areas where drugs are grown".

A heroin epidemic has killed tens of thousands of people in the United States in recent years and led to a surge in demand for Mexican heroin.

Regulating poppy production would in theory make it more difficult for Mexico's drug gangs to produce heroin, although some drug experts say Mexico's unique mix of extreme gang violence and weak institutions render the idea a non-starter.

More than 100,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico in the last decade.