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MEXICO CITY — The issue of drug decriminalization split Mexican politics in strange ways on Saturday, after President Vicente Fox refused to sign a bill that would have eliminated criminal penalties for small amounts of drugs.

About 500 protesters held a marijuana smoke-in in Mexico City, and a presidential candidate who visited the demonstration came out in favor of decriminalization. Mexico City's police chief came out against it, and some Congress members accused Fox of yielding to U.S. pressure to veto the bill.

"Decriminalization does not create more users. … We have to decriminalize the discussion of decriminalization," said candidate Patricia Mercado, of the small Alternative Social-Democratic Party, during a visit to the smoke-in and protest at a park in downtown Mexico City, where youths openly smoked joints and a heavy odor of marijuana hung in the air.

Possession of marijuana is currently a crime, punishable by 10 to 16 months in prison unless a suspect can claim he is an addict or it is a first offense involving a small amount. However, few people are currently prosecuted under the law.

Protest organizers described comments by U.S, officials asking Mexico to reconsider the bill as "an open violation of Mexico's sovereignty."

"The president has declared war on (drug) consumers," said Alfonso Garcia, secretary of the Mexican Association for Cannabis Studies, who described the bill Fox sent back to Congress on Wednesday as "a minor advance."

But Joel Ortega, the police chief of Mexico's capital — like Mercado, a leftist — said Saturday that he supported Fox's decision not to sign the bill.

Many legislators, however — including members of Fox's conservative National Action Party supported the bill. They continued to defend it last week, and accused Fox of bowing to U.S. pressure.

The measure would have dropped criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs. It also proposed rules on whether larger amounts of drugs could be seized by city police or federal agents, depending on quantity.