President Vicente Fox called on Congress to drop decriminalization from the drug-law overhaul after intense lobbying from the U.S. State Department and mayors of several U.S. border cities, who called it a disaster that would encourage hordes of U.S. youngsters to cross the border for "drug tourism."

Like presidents, the lawmakers are limited to single terms. With the July 2 election looming, any reform could be stalled until after a new Congress takes over in September and a new president is inaugurated in December.

But the issue isn´t going away, and with every new battle over drugs in Mexico City, Acapulco or the violent northern border cities, public pressure grows for reforms to laws that many say have handicapped law enforcement agencies here.

"Consumption and addiction are public health issues while drug dealing is a criminal problem," said Rep. Eliana García, who worked with the federal Attorney General´s Office as well as the health and public safety departments to draft the original bill. "When you mix them you get corruption."

Lawmakers had people like Jair Jiménez in mind when they decided to decriminalize "personal use" amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Jiménez, 28, smoked and sold crack cocaine in Mexico City´s tough Tepito barrio for a decade until a rival dealer showered him with six bullets last July.

"When I woke up in a hospital, I was with God. He gave me the strength to free myself from this disease," Jiménez, now a regular at Narcotics Anonymous, said with a smile as he rubbed the scars on his chest and leg.

Under existing law, drug dealing is a federal crime, and so local police usually avoid taking on armed drug gangs, instead filling arrest quotas by detaining small-time users, García said. The bill Congress passed last month with the support of all major parties would empower local police as well as federal agents to investigate drug pushers.

The president´s spokesman initially said Fox would sign it. He sent it back a day later after an uproar in the United States and criticism from the Roman Catholic Church over the drug possession details.

While increasing penalties for large amounts of drugs, the bill would decriminalize possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about four joints) or 0.5 grams of cocaine - the equivalent of about four lines.

The leading presidential candidates, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador and conservative Felipe Calderón, haven´t taken positions on the bill. But García and other members of López Obrador´s Democratic Revolution Party are among the most outspoken supporters, while Roman Catholics, part of Calderón´s base, are generally against it.

"Mexico, I fear, could become even more violent," said Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the Archbishop of Mexico City.

GROWING LOCAL MARKET

For decades, Mexico was just a pipeline for narcotics going north. That began changing in the 1990s, when increased U.S. border security led to smugglers dumping drugs on Mexico´s streets, creating a burgeoning local market.

Only 5 percent of Mexicans say they have gotten high once in their life, compared to 40 percent of U.S. citizens. However, these numbers hide the gravity of the growing problem of hard drug use among Mexico´s urban youth, nearly 1 million of whom have used crack, heroin or methamphetamines.

Crack, made by cooking cocaine, has caught on most rapidly as a high for the urban poor, selling for as little as US$2 a hit in thousands of so-called "tienditas," or little drug shops, that have sprung up in cities across the country.

"Crack is the No. 1 problem we have in our centers," said Víctor Guisa, head of the government´s 96 drug rehabilitation clinics. "Addicts end up smoking vast quantities of rocks, making them strung out and prone to violence and schizophrenia."

Gang violence surrounding drug consumption now mixes with bloodshed unleashed by the big smuggling cartels, adding up to more than 1,500 drug-related killings last year, with violence plaguing border towns like Nuevo Laredo as well as big cities.

"All these crimes we are seeing, all these executions have more to do with street dealing than with the big narcotics trafficking," said Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca.

The former crack addicts in Tepito´s Narcotics Anonymous group think the solution to the bloodshed is rehabilitation for addicts and investment in poor communities.

"Everyday, the list gets longer," Jiménez said, laying his palm on a mural showing the faces and names of dozens of young men shot dead in drug disputes. "This violence is exterminating our people."