Mexico’s former president, Vicente Fox, met with Steve DeAngelo, the Oakland-based executive director of California’s largest marijuana dispensary, and former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively on July 8. After the meeting, Fox told reporters [3] that legalization is the only way to end the violence of Mexican drug cartels, which he said was a result of the U.S. government’s war on drugs.

As a result of illegal drug cartels, 40 people a day die on average in Mexico, and almost 90,000 people have died since 2006. That is almost twice the number [4] of U.S. soldiers killed in the Vietnam War (58,220 casualties). Mexico’s cartels are deriving 40 to 70 percent of their revenue from cannabis, DeAngelo told AlterNet.

‘Fox and other people legitimately concerned about public safety have no real ax to grind as far as cannabis goes. They’ve recognized the cost of prohibition is way too high to tolerate any longer,