Taboo or pragmatism? Lopez Obrador’s dilemma over drug trafficking

Abstract

During his election campaign, the new president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, proposed to grant an amnesty to those involved in drug production and trafficking in order to end the war on drugs, thus moving between taboo and pragmatism. Undoubtedly, this initiative is a radical change in the state approach to this conflict, as it involves typical tools of a peace process, such as demobilization, reintegration and transitional justice. But what are the main risks of this offer? This reflection paper aims to answer this question, analyzing, from a qualitative approach, the main constraints of this proposal. The main conclusion is that an amnesty is only a damage limitation strategy since it does not seek to de-escalate the illicit market, but to model its behavior—low profile, with no open confrontation position, and moderate mortality rates.