The mayor of La Línea de La Concepción (Cádiz), Juan Franco, proposed this Monday that to stop drug trafficking “perhaps the solution is to legalize” the consumption of hashish, like tobacco or alcohol.
“Maybe from there we will cut off drug trafficking,” reflected the mayor of La Línea de La Concepción, where some of the crew members of the drug boat that last Friday rammed a Civil Guard patrol boat, killing two agents.
Juan Franco, who, like other mayors in the area, has gone to Barbate to join the minute of silence, has reflected, in statements to the media, about the problem of drug trafficking in his municipality and in others on the coast of Cádiz.
And he has stated: “If hashish were not consumed in the rest of Spain, we would probably not be talking about what we are talking about. Maybe the solution is to legalize it, since tobacco and alcohol are also consumed, and maybe from there we will cut it off.” drug trafficking.”
“I don’t know. In my opinion, and I could be wrong, the recipes that are being applied are not appropriate,” he stressed. He thus referred to the fact that since 2018, after the implementation of the Campo de Gibraltar Special Security Plan to combat drug trafficking in the area, 1,700 tons of drugs have been seized and 19,900 people have been arrested and investigated.
“You’ll tell me what we do with those people, do we set up a concentration camp and take them to the Chafarinas Islands or something like that? What do we do?” he joked to affirm that “the reintegration measures are not working” because these detainees “They get out of jail and commit crimes again.”
He has also complained that there are crimes in the Penal Code that are changed “in a flash” and that it takes so long to adapt the types of crimes to punish drug trafficking and the activities that cover them.
After the death of the two agents, Franco believes that the situation deserves “reflection” by all administrations “regardless of political color and including the local councils of the areas. Let us all sit down and make a comprehensive strategic plan to confront this problem”.
“Barbate and La Línea have a very similar panorama, unemployment is close to 30%. In two neighborhoods of La Línea general unemployment is at 60% and youth unemployment can be between 75 and 80%. We have a very serious problem in the area” and “specific measures are not coming either.”
He has insisted that “until there is a truly decided response from all administrations, this has no solution.” “Now we tear our clothes, we start to cry and regret what has happened, but unfortunately it is strange that there is not more,” she concluded.
