Santo Domingo.- Minority APD party presidential candidate MinouTavarez Mirabal is not only the first woman to bid for Dominican Republic’spresidency, on Sunday became the first one to pledge to decriminalize marijuanaif she wins the May 15 elections.

She said decriminalized marijuana would protect publichealth and reduce drug trafficking, noting that policies around the world havefailed, “that’s why we have to rethink them, differentiating betweenconsumption and traffic.”

"What we want is to reduce consumption throughpolicies on education, public health, but above all, be able to reduce drugtrafficking with investment in investigative agencies," Tavarez said.

She stressed a need to transform State security agencies toensure operability, transparency and efficiency, leading to fulfill its task ofprotecting the population while respecting human rights.