By The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY - Struggling with the corruption and violence caused by drug trafficking, President Vicente Fox says the solution might be to eventually legalize drug use.

In an interview published by two newspapers Sunday, Fox said he agreed with a police official who suggested last week that the only way to win the war on drugs was to legalize drugs - eliminating the profits and violence caused by illegal trafficking.

"That's right, that's true, that's true," the newspaper Unomasuno quoted Fox as saying.

But the president quickly qualified that statement, saying Mexico could not move alone and indicating he did not expect such a step soon.

"When the day comes that it is time to adopt the alternative of lifting punishment for consumption of drugs, it would have to come all over the world, because we would gain nothing if Mexico did it but the production and traffic of drugs ... continued here," he said.

"So humanity some day will see that it is best in that sense," he said in remarks also reported by El Sol de Mexico.

Yesterday, Fox spokeswoman Martha Sahagun was asked to elaborate.

"The president was very clear in what he said, that drugs and drug smuggling is a serious affair not only for Mexico, it is an affair that affects many countries in the world," she said. "...We have to follow this problem closely, in a joint and global manner, taking solutions at the appropriate times."

Fox has vowed to cooperate closely with the United States against traffickers who have used Mexico both as a transit route and production site for narcotics.

On Jan. 24, the new president announced a "great crusade" against drugs, saying, "I pledge a war without mercy."

Fox promised to overhaul the nation's corrupt prison system and to follow a Mexican Supreme Court ruling last week that removed barriers to extradition of Mexicans for trial in the United States.

His government has announced record seizures of drugs since Fox took office on Dec. 1.

Yet some Mexican experts - including Fox's Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda - have long suggested that the drug war is being lost and that some drugs should be decriminalized.

"One thing is his (Fox's) personal attitude and another is pragmatism faced with the United States," said Luis Astorga, a sociologist at the National Autonomous University who studies the drug trade.

He said, "Fox has gone further than previous governments" in accepting U.S. demands to fight drugs - a battle which Astorga said has gone on for almost a century.

Astorga said he hoped the comments might encourage a debate on the problem. But he said that with the United States set against legalization, "the probability that this could have repercussions in practical terms is zero."

A U.S. expert, Frank Cilluffo of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that suggesting legalizing drugs "sends the wrong message to our children."

"While some of the gang violence may be mitigated, the bad consequences of drug use would not," said Cilluffo, who heads a task force on the narcotics industry for the center.

What if an elected president of an American nation called for the legalization of drugs and nobody in the English language press reported it?

That's what happened twice in the past month when Uruguay President Jorge Batlle called for other Latin American leaders to join him in opposing US-imposed drug policy.

"If this powder was worth only ten cents, there would not be organizations dedicated to make a billion dollars to fund armies in Colombia," said Batlle, speaking about cocaine policy on November 20th at the 10th Latin American Summit of Heads of State in Panama City.

Batlle (pronounced baht-yuh) said other countries must confront the question of legalization. "How do you create the money that sustains all of this? Do you believe that while this substance has this fantastic market value that there is any mechanism that can impede its trafficking? How do you make this product lose value so that nobody is interested anymore in this business?"

The 72-year-old Uruguay leader, elected in November of 1999 in his fifth run for the presidency, said that the countries of America "must stop playing games and treat the theme of drugs seriously at its root. And if I am wrong, then why are we afraid to ask ourselves the question?" In fact, the legalization proposal of Batlle has been percolating in Uruguay since June of this year.

According to the daily newspaper El Observador in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, the president's chief of staff, Leonarda Costa, floated the trial balloon on June 16th. He said, "a line of discussion will be opened among the Mercosur countries (Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay)" in relation to "the idea of legalizing the consumption of drugs."

"Obviously, Uruguay cannot take unilateral measures on this theme," said the presidential secretary to Latitud magazine, that "the coordination between nations" is necessary.

President Batlle told the weekly Brecha magazine that he is in favor of legalizing drug consumption. "When the president said what he said, he was expressing his personal philosophy," said Costa. "But it is viable to the extent that other countries also do it."

The chief of staff affirmed that there would have to be a "generalized agreement between nations," that, "the countries have to come to an agreement about this problem.... The first thing to do is to make an educational effort."

Then, on December 1st, Batlle traveled to Mexico City to attend the inauguration of President Vicente Fox.

There, according to El Observador in his home country, Batlle made his strongest challenge to US-imposed drug policy yet. "The day that it is legalized in the United States, it will lose value," said the president of Uruguay. "And if it loses value, there will be no profit. But as long as the US citizenry doesn't rise up to do something, they will pass this life fighting and fighting."

Batlle, in Mexico City early this month, compared the drug problem to that caused by alcohol prohibition in the United States (1918-1933), saying that the drug trafficking problem "will be resolved on the day that the consumers announce that this cannot be fixed by any other manner than changing this situation in the same way that was done with the 'Dry Laws'."