Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra (December 17, 1898 – September 23, 1957) was a Mexican doctor, psychiatrist, writer and professor whose scientific investigations influenced the legalization of drugs during the Lázaro Cárdenas administration in 1940.
[3] These investigations, detailed in his report "El mito de la marihuana" (English: The Myth About Marijuana), helped Salazar launch into the national public discourse the de-stigmatization of drug addiction and its treatment as a disease, not a crime.
[4] Due to increasing political and economic pressure from the United States government and a U.S. campaign to discredit Salazar, the law was repealed on July 3, 1940.
[1][Note 1] After his elementary studies in Durango, he moved to the capital to begin his university education at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM).
[3] In December 1938, Salazar published a report titled "El mito de la marihuana" (English: The Myth About Marijuana) in the criminal sociology journal Criminalia.
[2] At La Castañeda, Salazar carried out multiple experiments that questioned the basis of prejudices held against cannabis, such as insanity, delirium, hallucinations, and criminality, as scientifically unfounded.
[3] He suggested that drug abuse and addiction ought to be treated humanely as an illness or disease, not as a crime, encouraging a combination of education, pharmacological treatment, and psychiatric support.
[7][2] Salazar viewed drug traffickers and peddlers as part of a crisis harming Mexican society and straining relations with the United States.
[6] In his letter to Lola la Chata, Salazar wrote that she had been more successful with drug abusers than the Mexican government, who were charged with reincorporating them into society.
[3][4][2] The government allocated funds to create a special budget for clinics or dispensaries to open up in order to effectively treat patients by administering controlled doses of low-cost, safe, quality drugs.
[4] The law was in effect for about 5 months when, on July 3, 1940, the Mexican government repealed the Reglamento in a decree published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación.
[2][8] The formal government explanation attributed this decision to a shortage of resources and the inability to purchase drugs from Europe due to World War II.
[4][11] Although the Mexican administration sent diplomats to Washington to discuss the success and efficiency of the new system, the U.S. government maintained their prohibitionist stances and threatened Mexico with economic and political threats of an embargo.
Months later, the Reglamento Federal de Toxicomanía was repealed, and Mexico resumed its prohibitionist stance toward drugs and their abuse, reinstating the previously effective illegal status and criminal punishments over rehabilitation.