translated from Spanish: The internal conflict in narváez’s command over the legalization of marijuana

Moments of tension are those that are lived in the command of Paula Narváez. One of the proposals of the government program of the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), is the legalization of marijuana with strict regulation, in addition to a new drug policy. “We will advance the strict regulation (legalization) of cannabis to take control over the market, public health and safety that illegality has today; this under a strict model of state regulation that defines limits and regulatory frameworks.”
However, not everyone within the command agrees with this proposal. This is the case of the psychiatrist Mariano Montenegro, former director of Senda, who in a Letter to the Director published in the newspaper El Mercurio expressed his unfavorable position to the legalization of marijuana, generating a conflict within the command.
In the letter entitled “No to legalization, yes to prevention,” Montenegro states the following: “How important it is to reframe the discussion by the media, which is an elite discussion. If we take it to the territory and to ordinary people, the first thing is that marijuana does wrong, it is harmful to public health, especially to personal and collective mental health, and that is what our people live and feel in their reality. The majority of the population, by far, does not use marijuana. Mothers of teenagers are deeply afraid that their children will enter consumption, as they know that this would detract from the ability to thrive.”
Montenegro argues that “if we are responsible, what we must push is to restrict as much as possible the supply of marijuana and other risk factors and maximize protective factors, such as family skills, prevention in schools, prevention in the workplace, in community organizations, in the media.”
Finally, the psychiatrist argues that “the legalization of marijuana is harmful, increases access, increases consumption and thus all the consequences; drug trafficking does not go down, violence does not go down, that is, it is a very bad idea that only worsens the health of our people. Only those behind the business win.”
An internal source acknowledged to El Mostrador that this situation has turned into a conflict, especially considering that Dr. Montenegro is part of the command of a candidate whose government program indicates the opposite of her position. They also accuse that it is disloyalty.
The same source said that this issue had already been discussed with the health and safety groups, of which Montenegro is a member, who reportedly made known their position on marijuana before Narvaez’s program was publicly announced. His position was the same as that defended by the Senda, based on prevention focused on children and adolescents.

Original source in Spanish