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Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession
Professor_Quail notes an AP story that begins, "Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. The law sets out maximum 'personal use' amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday." An official in the attorney general's office said, "This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty... for a practice that was already in place." In 2006, the US criticized a similar bill that had no provisions for mandatory treatment, and the then-president sent it back to Congress for reconsideration.
I'm fine with your proposal as long as all of the supporters of free drug use are forced to live in the druggie parts of town.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Barbarous? For an agent of a foreign power (Libya) to kill civilians of a power they dislike? Really? That's just war.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
This decriminalization may be the first sign that he is accepting the fact that narcotics is an integral part of Mexican culture.
I was with you up until this last sentence. I know you're not trying to be racist...
There is however a definite, long-standing trend in Mexican culture to assert independence from the gringoes, alternating with catering to their vices, mainly through prostitution and smuggling.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
With some positive results. Drug dealers still go to jail, but addicts go to treatment centers.
So all users are addicts? All users get locked up *and* treated against their will. Since when is forced medical (if it is medical) treatment any of the States's business?
A better way would be to make sure that everyone caught with illegal drugs should have to consume them on the spot.
Survive and you are free to go, die and you have the instant penalty.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
wtf? When did the OP say that all users are addicts?
He might not have, but it's implied. Are you saying the courts can make this distinction?
In Portuagal addicts who commit crimes to fund their habits are offered treatment as an alternative to going to prison. Seem like a smart move to me.
Seems like an easy way out for people who commit crimes to avoid actual punishment for their actions ("It's not my fault I have a disease! The devil drugs made me do it!"). I'm all for people who *want* treatment getting it. But they can do that fine from inside jail while thinking about what they've done. I think that all drugs should be legalzed but at the same time drug use should not ever be an excuse for a person's actions.
Yeah, alcohol kills people, so everything else that kills people must be okay too, right?
Back to Thinking 101 for you.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry