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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.
Except our new government (Conservatives) have lost their minds and are pushing mandatory minimum sentences.
The Union discusses the extradition of Marc Emory. At this point and time Marc is going to jail. Further failings of Canadian sovereignty and our failtard government.
We need to take charge as people and raise this issue. It's broader than simply people getting to ingest their drugs. It's about the corrupted War On Drugs mentality that fuels the legal monster which eats hard working and law abiding citizens in the name of meeting a quota.
Ok, all of yours like to legalize drugs. You see this law with the light of US law enforcement, where things are always "perfect". I live in Mexico, and this will be just another excuse for cops avoid to do their work and let people sell drugs on streets, as it happens now. This only will encourage drug groups for sell more and more drugs always under the "dangerous size" and with time to not fear cops or any law enforcement groups . Like happens in Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and the rest of the country.
It's easy for you say "bring me the drugs", you don't fear everyday to end in middle of a gun shooting for drug wars. Or a stoned dude does a silly thing like jump in the subway or harm you for money for get the "personal share" of drugs. You live so far of those troubles and of course is easy to say that, so you need drugs to "spark" your mediocre lifes. Bunch of hypocrites.
I'll surprised if this won't be cut off of the site. :P
For another interesting datapoint, MDMA (aka ecstasy) is FDA approved for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
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I don't know, everything I've read suggests that the average Mexicans don't like the drug cartels. Who would? They just cause violence and problems for normal people. They kill famous Mexican singers (in the case of Zayda Penya they failed the first try, then hunted her down in her hospital bed and did the job right). Who on earth really wants their town to be a battle ground for rival groups of any kind? Narcotics are no more an integral part of Mexican culture than gang warfare is of Los Angeles, or corruption is in Mexico.
Note that Columbia used to have worse problems with drug violence, but it's largely been eliminated (and pushed into Peru and Venezuela, but that's a different story). There will always be drug trafficking as long as it is illegal, but violent powerful drug cartels are not a necessary part of that (there is nowhere in the US that we have drug violence at that level, for example).
Qxe4
Or maybe he thinks that decriminalization will reduce the street prices for the drugs. Decriminalization means that the lower tiers of the distribution network and the using individuals carry less risk, which means easier access, which should mean lower street prices and more competition based on quality. In the end, that's going to mean less money for the cartels.
Decriminalization in Mexico won't help Mexico much, since their main drug business is involved with bringing them to the US. The US doing anything to make it easier for local growers than smugglers would actually help Mexico more, since the cartels would lose their economic incentive to do their business.
I don't know if that still is the case but opium and its derivatives (heroin and morphin, notably) are the main export of Afghanistan and a reason why powerful local warlords do not want to see a democratic government there, fearing it would be subject to international pressure on their traffic.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Not to nitpick, but the cutting accuracy issue is with drugs that have a close effective and lethal dose. LSD's high potency has little to do with it.
Actually, at least in the case of MDMA, the adulterants are, in fact, the issue:
"Testing kits are needed because many pills sold on the illicit market as "ecstasy" are fake and do not actually contain MDMA. Fake pills often contain drugs more dangerous than MDMA, including dangerous drug combinations, or drugs that are especially dangerous when mixed with MDMA (as often happens if someone takes more than one pill in a night)." ----from http://www.dancesafe.org/testingkits/
Both THC and psylocibin are known to NOT cause addiction. Also, users of these drugs do NOT show aggressive behavior (unlike with other drugs, especially alcohol (yep, that's right, that's one of the worst)). In light of this, I think it's high time to completely legalize the production, sale and consumption of these drugs. If that happened, I would expect that the consumption of the "harder" drugs would decrease as well, for two reasons:
1) Some people won't need the harder drugs, if they can access these other two aplenty.
2) By legalizing these drugs, of which marijuana is a very popular one, we reduce the contact between users and illegal dealers, who have a vested interest in encouraging the use of harder drugs such as cocaine, heroine etc.
I was quite depressed a couple of years ago, and the psychiatrist wanted to prescribe me an anti-depressant. Instead of using the prescription, I decided to educate myself on anti-depressants, and what I found was, well, depressing: not a single anti-depressant on sale is safe to use. They all have side effects that are either nasty or very nasty. But psylocibin and THC are both excellent anti-depressants (practically the most effective ones), and have NO side effects. This is when I started to become a supporter of legalization of these drugs.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
In the early part of the 20th Century, you could not corner the market for pain relief. People had access to opiates and cannabis and coca products, which were cheap, natural, and if you weren't an addict, perfectly effective.
Since the prohibition of these drugs, there has been a network of businesses that have profited immensely. Pharmaceuticals, who effectively eliminated competition, profited early on. They get to sell pain relief with products which are still derived from the same natural source, but have the benefits of being riddled with horrible side effects and hundreds of times more expensive for the consumer.
Then the CIA discovered a fantastic way to fund their unconstitutional undercover operations. They could use the US military to transport the drugs they bought for peanuts in Columbia to fund all kinds of insane bullshit around the world, and they wouldn't have to consult any committee because they didn't need their money.
Now, private prisons are all over the country, and all of the sudden we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the known world. (We also have the highest per capita health care cost in the world. Get the picture?) Prison guard unions, manufacturers of certain products, and I'll bet even commercial building lobbyists make damn sure the politicians deliver on promises to "clean up the streets," which is code for throw undesirably poor people in jail. Of course, we do need somewhere to throw our mentally ill citizens, why not mix in the schizophrenics with non-violent drug offenders and murderers and rapists and white collar criminals and see what happens?
So, the winners in the drug war are huge corporations that make a profit when someone is punished, when someone needs pain relief, and also the unconstitutional CIA.
As Plato said, "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
Possession was already defacto legal. But you could get hauled in to pay a bribe. No more bribes with the new law. I think he is trying to reduce police corruption.
Anarchists never rule