Breaking: Mexico to allow the use of most drugs

[SteppingRazor]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-53mexicodrugs,0,1855037.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines


MEXICO CITY -- Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign a bill that would legalize the use of nearly every drug and narcotic sold by the same Mexican cartels he's vowed to fight during his five years in office, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The list of illegal drugs approved for personal consumption by Mexico's Congress last week is enough to make one dizzy -- or worse.

Cocaine. Heroin. LSD. Marijuana. PCP. Opium. Synthetic opiates. Mescaline. Peyote. Psilocybin mushrooms. Amphetamines. Methamphetamines.

And the per-person amounts approved for possession by anyone 18 or older could easily turn any college party into an all-nighter: half a gram of coke, a couple of Ecstasy pills, several doses of LSD, a few marijuana joints, a spoonful of heroin, 5 grams of opium and more than 2 pounds of peyote, the hallucinogenic cactus.

<snip>

My own wiseass comments on this found at:

http://blogs.southflorida.com/citylink_dansweeney/2006/05/mexico_to_allow_use_of_most_dr.html

[marmar]

1. Now there's going to be a reverse flow of undocumented immigrants...

Stoners from U.S.A.

:smoke:

[tridim]

2. Well, probably not, but there will be a huge spike in tourism

That's probably one reason he's doing this. Mexico is a lot closer than Amsterdam.

[CottonBear]

3. Will this apply to only Mexican citizens or also to foreign nationals?

If only Mexicans are allowed to posses the small amounts for personal use then I would not reccomend that any tourist risk serving jail time in a Mexican prison.

Smoking weed in Amsterdam is one thing. Droppig acid or doing coke in Mexico is entirely another matter.

edit: I did not know that Colombia allows personal use of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, but not LSD or PCP. Interesting. You never hear the * people talk about that little fact when discussing the GOP War on Drugs in Central America.

[Selatius]

4. Good, it is like ending Prohibition in the US

Take the crime out of it.

[JohnnyRingo]

5. Spring break must have been a little slow this year

Can't wait to see the imaginative tourism commercials next year:

"Catch the buzz" "Come to Tijuana and relax"
"Mexico....Land of enchanting dreams"
"Bring a camera, your memory wont last long enough"

[DinahMoeHum]

6. Legalize 'em, then regulate 'em like hell. . .

Surf's up in Todos Santos!

:thumbsup:

[Asgaya Dihi]

7. I'm not sure what to think

On one hand it's a big step in the right direction, but they have to take the next step as well or it could be a big mistake.

Remember needle park? It crashed and burned, free use didn't work out too well. They replaced that with a system of regulation that's working out great now, but all the drug warriors ever talk about still is needle park. It's hard to get it through to people that it didn't end there, that was just a false start to a system that worked out well in the end.

It can be a good thing if they replace what they had with an intelligent system of regulation, but I'm also wary of some possible bad press if handled wrong. I'll be keeping an eye on it, we'll have to make sure that where there is a success story to be told people hear that side as well. If it does fail, we'd better be ready to explain why.

[sweetheart]

8. Link for FT article on the stupidity

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/995a60ea-de2e-11da-af29-0000779e2340.html

[Asgaya Dihi]

9. Thanks for the link

It was good to see lines like these coming from the Financial Times, this is a part of why I see light at the end of the tunnel with the drug war. Awareness is spreading, all we should need is the truth and to share it with people. Once enough are aware I'm hoping it'll collapse much like the Berlin Wall did, we just have to make it ok to talk about it.

'Mexico did not have a significant drugs consumption or trafficking problem until Washington scored what it still considers a benchmark success in the "war on drugs".

In 1984, then vice-president George H. W. Bush claimed victory for his South Florida Task Force, which had closed down most supply of Colombian cocaine through the Caribbean to America's eastern seaboard. The Colombian cartels then simply switched routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a greater distance to the US border that meant they had to form alliances inside Mexico. By 1988, 11 Mexican states had fallen into the narco-political grip of a drugs industry that is now among the world's most important - right on the US border. If that is a success for drugs policy, what must failure look like?'

[Uppanotch]

10. "Light at the end of the tunnel with the drug war"

With all due respect, don't hold your breath. Too many special interests benefit from (selective) drugs prohibition laws to ever allow Americans to live their lives free from worry that at any moment a jack-booted thug will come crashing thru the front door looking for drugs, and planting them if none are found.

[Asgaya Dihi]

12. Yep

There were a lot of vested interests with racism as well, enough that for nearly a century we sat on our ass and said we couldn't do anything to change it. Things changed anyway, just took enough of us that were willing to fight for it. It doesn't get a lot closer to home than who you'll sit next to in church or let your kids marry and we've changed the world in a lot of ways.

Then we decided we were done and the civil rights movement went behind bars, we lost a lot of ground. Have to stay awake, not just make the effort then quit.

Maybe it'll go on another 100 years, maybe it'll be over in a decade or two. We've got the tools to end it now though. With the internet awareness is better than it's been in decades so all we have to do is to push that, stop allowing the media and prohibitionists to frame the debate. That's pretty much up to us, isn't it? When we stop allowing ourselves to be bullied and stop allowing the conversation to be one of supporting or opposing drugs we're half way there. What we've done simply doesn't work, not on any level, and we've got the results to prove it. When we get that message across alternatives become possible, even required. Right now too many people still think we need to do this and that's reflected in their votes and poll responses. Most of what keeps it going is ignorance, teach them if we want to change things. Wait for someone else to do it and like I said above our kids will still be fighting this.

[Codeblue]

11. Effective

Probably the most effective thing Fox could have done to combat the cartels actually.