President Obama has yet to deliver a clear response to the November decision by Colorado and Washington to legalize recreational marijuana use — asked whether the government would enforce Federal laws that override the verdict of those states’ referenda, he answered simply that he has “bigger fish to fry”. But leaders from across Latin America responded within days of the Colorado and Washington vote, demanding a review of drug-war policies that have mired the region in violence. Latin American decision-makers are now openly questioning why they should continue to sacrifice police andsoldiers to enforce drug laws when legal markets for marijuana now exist in the United States.via U.S. Marijuana Laws Ricochet Through Latin America |...

Forgive the Mexicans for trying to get this straight:So now the United States, which has spent decades battling Mexican marijuana, is on a legalization bender?The same United States that long viewed cannabis as a menace, funding crop-poisoning programs, tearing up auto bodies at the border, and deploying sniffer dogs, fiber-optic scopes and backscatter X-ray machines to detect the lowly weed?The success of legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington in November has sparked a new conversation in a nation that is one of the world’s top marijuana growers: Should Mexico, which has suffered mightily in its war against the deadly drug cartels, follow the Western states’ lead?via Mexico considers marijuana legalization after ballot wins in U.S. –...