Mexico legalizes drug possession

[High Plains]

Now, if the backwards US would only follow their lead...

Mexico set to decriminalise pot and cocaine
Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:09 PM BST

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-04-28T181012Z_01_N281836_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-MEXICO-DRUGS.XML&archived=False

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by the Mexican Congress. The measure given final passage by senators late on Thursday allows police to focus on their battle against major drug dealers, the government says, and President Vicente Fox is expected to sign it into law.

"This law provides more judicial tools for authorities to fight crime," presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said on Friday. The measure was approved earlier by the lower house.

Under the legislation, police will not penalise people for possessing up to 5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin or 500 milligrams of cocaine.

People caught with larger quantities of drugs will be treated as narcotics dealers and face increased jail terms under the plan.

The legal changes will also decriminalise the possession of limited quantities of other drugs, including LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, amphetamines and peyote -- a psychotropic cactus found in Mexico's northern deserts.

Hundreds of people, including several police officers, have been killed in the past year as drug cartels battle authorities and compete with each other for control of lucrative cocaine, marijuana and heroin smuggling routes from Mexico into the United States. The violence has raged mostly in northern Mexico but in recent months has spread south to cities like vacation resort Acapulco.


More at link...


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PER DU RULES.

[Saphire]

1. Mexico, mi amigo......

[High Plains]

28. That's right, this won't affect the drug cartels.

Who make an estimated $30 billion a year supplying Americans with what they want. They won't go away until there is no more drug prohibition, until the trade is legal and regulated. When was the last time you saw Al Capone?

On the other hand, this will stop tens of thousands of Mexicans from getting arrested each year.

And, yes, the cartels sell to the domestic market, too. In the big cities, you even see "narcotiendas" if you're in the right neighborhoods, little retail outlets.

[derby378]

2. Farewell, Amsterdam - hello, Tijuana!!

[Initech]

6. Tijuana's a lot closer (to me, anyways) than Amsterdam!

:evilgrin:

[elehhhhna]

9. hola, Cozumel!

[leeroysphitz]

33. The happiest place on Earth just got a LOT happier! nt

[High Plains]

3. I'm gonna fire one up right now in honor of this news. Viva Mexico!

[Disturbed]

5. This is a sensible concept.

Will the US ever adopt this?



Hell....NO!!!

[Cha]

30. ...

:smoke:

Even though I don't toke anymore..this is for the sensible law in Mexico. :toast:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

4. That's Fuckin Awesome.

Hear Hear To That!

:toast:

[dogday]

7. This is great--

People should not be imprisoned for personal use of drugs....

[anarch]

8. a step in the right direction

Unfortunately it won't do much to eliminate the problems with the drug cartels. Only full legalization and regulation is going to do that.

Still, though, good for them!

[lvx35]

13. IF they decriminalize growing of plants it could hurt the cartels.

At least with marijuana. I'm not a fan of heroin/cocaine legalization though. Marijuana is a different beast.

[slackmaster]

10. Any bets on whether it will apply to everyone, or just Mexican citizens?

My money is on foreign tourists with small amounts of drugs being fair game, at least for shakedowns.

[High Plains]

11. The law applies equally to everyone.

Foreign tourists are currently being shaken down for small amounts of drugs. Now, we'll be able to tell those cops with palms extended to fuck off. Of course, it helps if you can say it in Spanish.

[slackmaster]

14. Nothing says "fuck off" like a few nice crisp $50 bills

:eyes:

[B Calm]

12. I wonder if American companies operating in Mexico drug test

their employees....

[Neil Lisst]

15. maybe this will reverse the migration patterns!

holy moly! Even Canada hasn't gone that far.

[Finder]

16. Wonder if we can trade 11 mil drug users for the illegal immigrants. nt

[Neil Lisst]

17. it looks like it was written by the drug cartel

it forces people to buy user quantities or be considered dealers

[don954]

18. legalization = destroy an entire black market in a pen stroke

enough said..

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. I don't know about this

I'm willing to listen to the pro and con. Personally, I think drugs like grass should not be criminalized. But things like heroin or cocaine are different. One way to catch the dealer is to get the possessor to talk. I don't think the person possessing small amounts of even these drugs should be heavily prosecuted in fact, but they should be forced to reveal their sources, on up the chain and that means having the criminal penalties available if they fail to cooperate. If you decriminalize it completely, it seems to me you take away one of the principal arms of prosecutors to go against the big fish who enrich themselves by poisoning society. To me, this law favors the drug cartels. But I'm willing to listen to the other point of view if there is any.

[Asgaya Dihi]

20. The other point of view

Sure thing. There's a fair sized and growing group of current and former law enforcement called LEAP who believe we should legalize and regulate, if you're interested you could get it from their point of view at the following address, but I'll explain it from my point of view best I can. I'm not a member, just someone who agrees with them. http://www.leap.cc/

The problem with prohibition pure and simple is that it doesn't work. Early in the 20th century drugs weren't even regulated let alone illegal, when they had problems with what they sometimes called snake-oil salesmen they simply passed a law that required proper labels on products and abuse of opiates dropped to roughly the same levels as they are today. Much of the hysteria around what followed was based more on racism and politics than need. You can read about that stuff in brief at the first link following, and in detail by an expert at the second.

http://www.dpft.org/history.html
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

Without going into too much detail on the rest we had some problems between then and the 60's but drugs didn't get to be a real "problem" as such till it was associated with the protest movement, again more politics than anything. So we passed the controlled substances act and it all went to hell. I'll skip the social damage and stick to results here. It was supposed to protect our kids, it doesn't. Death rates are up with the harder drugs, by 7 times with cocaine and a similar amount with heroin. Death rates in brief at the following, click on a chart for more info.

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/death/drug-death.htm

Death rates climbed for a combination of reasons. Remember Len Bias? Had a great future in sports and died on the eve of starting it from crack? What most people seem to forget is it wasn't the crack that killed him as such, it was the fact that his friends were afraid to get into trouble so waited too long to call help. He could have been saved. We also have no quality control, the only people who decides what to cut the product with is the supply line, and that's criminal from start to finish. Then there's doubtful purity, and the trend over the years at a street level with small sales amounts has been up. It all contributes and you can source it at the same site as I listed above.

They claim use is down, I'm not convinced though I can't prove it. Problem is we depend on self reporting in surveys, it seems to me that we'd be a lot more willing to say we did it in college than we did it last week, or today. I'd suspect it's closer to the trend in lifetime use, though it may not be. In any case lifetime use is up, not down, even with lower regular use that's still more people who know what drugs feel like now than ever and more who die from it.

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/nsduh/ever-used.htm

Our prison systems have grown about 6 times in size through this losing war, and the racial mix has become ugly. We're the single most imprisoned nation in the world bar none, and the next closest isn't even close. Among nations more similar to us we lock people up at a rate 5 to 8 times higher than they do. It's not pretty.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1044.pdf

A chart showing the growth of the system from 1925 to 2002 can be found in the following document, roughly in line with population growth for decades then explosive growth.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/pub9036.pdf

And the racial distribution, it's pretty ugly. We lock up blacks at a rate several times what South Africa did, no fancy math involved. Safe school zones and such haven't worked out well for them.

http://www.prisonsucks.com/

The real shame of it all is that all we've managed to do is to increase our own death rates, endanger our own kids, reward and arm our enemies and make them rich as we made ourselves the most imprisoned nation in the world. I can't find the successful part of this policy, that being the case maybe we need options.

The guys at LEAP make good sense, we can better protect our kids with regulation than the streets are doing now. Hope that helps explain the other side a bit.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

21. I believe in criminalizing small possession as little as possible

even for drugs like heroin and cocaine. I too deplore the fact that our prisons are full of victims of the drug trade. I agree completely with your point of view in that regard. I'm willing to accept the fact that drug use may not have dramatically increased as much as we might believe and that there may not be as much death or illness due to drugs as we are led to believe. I may even accept the notion, not mentioned in your post, that one of the unrevealed reasons why our government is so adamantly against drugs is that it results in an underground economy and the loss of tax revenue. But whether drug use is increasing or not, it's still there and it represents a major industry worth billions. People are still committing many small and not so small crimes to pay for drugs. Heroin and cocaine, whether or not they necessarily kill you, certainly are harmful to your health. I take it from your post that you question whether drugs are a major societal problem at all and if we ignored it and stopped prosecuting either the user or the big-time dealer, it wouldn't matter to society. I might even be open to see that point of view, but it will take a lot of evidence for me to accept the notion that drugs like heroin and cocaine have little negative impact on society. So far, I haven't seen the clear and convincing evidence that would change my mind, but I'm still open to it. I would even be open to the government experimenting for a few years in suspending all criminal prosecutions to see what affect it would have. Personally, I think that the major drug cartels running wild in our country and without restriction whatsoever would be devastating, but I would be willing to let us see.

To me, therefore, it comes down to whether we see extreme drugs like heroin and cocaine (not marijuana) as major problems.

If we believe, however, that drugs are a major societal problem and if we don't have any threat of criminality for the small-time user, how do we get to the businessmen who are reaping the true fortunes? Why would anyone voluntarily testify in court against the dealers or help law enforcement to root out the big guys if nothing can be done to the mere users (i.e. if they aren't cutting deals)? Besides, the drug users can and do get killed for testifying, so I don't see any incentive for them to talk unless there is at least the threat of prison time. I think we shouldn't put any drug user behind bars at all if they cooperate with law enforcement. Put the major drug dealers behind bars, not the little guy, provided the little guy helps us find the big guy.

[Asgaya Dihi]

25. That's the great thing about regulation

People confuse the two issues often enough, but legalize and regulate don't really amount to the same thing and regulation shows good hope to reduce the damage and control use. I'll give you a convenient example, as we explore the area more and have a better result base we'll have more detail with other drugs but this should work for now.

Right now Heroin is still a large problem, has been since we started this and isn't going anywhere. Death rates are up, and we're actually financing the people we're fighting in Afghanistan.

So what if we just took the market from them, regulate it ourselves? It's not such a crazy idea really, I'll explain it a bit then source it.

First finances, there's no drug widely used in the world that I'm aware of which we can't grow and process right here in the US, we don't need anyone else. We can control it. What we're looking for is a combination of things, to strip our enemies of funding, to strip the streets of dealers who can hook new victims, and to reduce the damage associated with use.

A program that we'd tried a variation of here in the US in the early 1900's and that's getting some current testing today is to just let them have it, don't make them steal for it and don't lock them up with criminals before they've committed a non-drug crime. The best example is Swiss today though new studies are being started, I'll list the main results of the program below but you should read the page for yourself. It's odd, uncomfortable, and counter intuitive, but damned if it doesn't work. Both now and in the past. Well enough that when it came up for a vote to expand or shut it down over 70% said expand it.

* Sharply reduced criminal behavior by participants.

* The ability to stabilize many addicts at a low enough level so they can return to normal work. Legal employment rose sharply.

* No overdose deaths among participants in five years.

* Major financial savings in reduced costs for health care and policing.

* Marked decrease in drug use and a small but significant number who progressed to abstinence.

* Homelessness among participants was virtually eradicated.

* The illegal markets were deprived of a portion of their normal customers and profits. But only wide scale expansion could make this a major blow to the cartels.

* Concerns about doses escalating out of control proved to be unfounded, and most participants achieved stable doses in 2 to 4 months.

http://www.dpft.org/heroin.htm

Those are the results we want, and no terrorist or other criminal makes a dime. As we work on the process it might get better, but even if this is it it's better than what we have now and I'd think a lot easier to control what our kids get with.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

32. I've been advocating that we try that for many years

As a left leaning person with certain libertarian tendencies, I have wondered whether it might not be better to allow the government to distribute drugs to those who want to take them, to try to take the illegal drug industry away from the cartels, provided these drugs are administered in a place and during a specified period of time where the users could not drive automobiles or operate equipment and harm others. There might still be drawbacks, but it might be worth a try and I'm glad to see it is being tried. I think our government should be flexible and open to trying new things, at least on a limited basis at first. If people want to harm themselves, provided the government takes pains to explain the harm inherent in certain drugs, then why stop them? And if it is effective in reducing long-term drug usage, so much the better. But until our government and the public will sets its mind to fully implement this to see if it works, I don't think the complete decrminalization of the user will work, for the reasons I mentioned before. As I stated, I don't believe in the criminalization of the user if he/she cooperates with law enforcement in those cases where the government is pursuing the ultimate dealer. Therefore, what I envision would not require the distinction of criminalization or regulation of drugs, because there would only be criminality for the mere user if a drug dealer were involved and the user was not willing to cooperate with law enforcement in identifying him.

I agree with this last idea of yours. I don't know if this is the approach being taken by Mexico. If Mexico is merely avoiding prosecution of the user and allowing the private drug dealers to go right on dealing, then I don't think it's a sound idea.

[DrBloodmoney]

24. LEAP is a great organization

with a great message

[lildreamer316]

22. What about X?

Need to address one of the most prevelant drugs around.........

[jmowreader]

23. I don't like it. It's the wrong way to go.

They're decriminalizing possession, but increasing penalties for holding more than a small amount?

If it's legal to own marijuana for personal use, but not for resale (and, presumably, marijuana growing will also remain illegal), how are you supposed to get any weed?

Legalizing marijuana is an excellent idea...but if they're going to legalize it, they need to do it right. For this we can use the US tobacco industry before contract growing took over as our template. Give growers a quota of so many pounds and don't allow them to legally sell anything over that. Set up licensed cannabis auction houses to sell the pot at. License pot processors. License pot wholesalers and retailers. Establish nasty penalties for anyone caught selling outside "the system."

Do that shit, and all of a sudden Mexico's got a real nice new tourist industry.

[DrBloodmoney]

26. Reality check folks... this won't affect the drug cartels

they don't exist to provide drugs to the people of Mexico. The money is in a more northernly direction.

But good for the Mexican people. :party: Hopefully some of that sensibility travels up here. Should be easy with our porous borders :sarcasm:

[spanone]

27. Logic prevails somewhere. Here, only pharma drugs are legal.

And we know how they can kill you.

[-..__...]

29. Sales of scales will go up.

While I think this is as step in the right direction, just how do those weight numbers (5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin or 500 milligrams of cocaine), apply to the user?

Does the weight include any materials/compounds used to cut or dilute the drug?

I'm just trying to get a visual idea here of what 500 miligrams of cocaine would look like, and assuming that even at 100% purity, it's nothing more than a quick buzz.

[SammyWinstonJack]

31. We can't do that, after all, the Prison Industrial Complex would suffer

from lack of cheap prison labor, doncha know? :grr: