Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession 640
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.
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:40mg of methampetamine? (Score:1, Interesting)
Agreed. A gram of street quality speed is probably a good nite for 2 people
Already been tried in Portugal (Score:3, Interesting)
Total decriminalization of drugs has been tried in Portugal since 2001, and by all accounts has been a raging success by just about any metric you care to use. I'm happy to see other countries jumping on board the clue train, not that I expect to see something similar in the US for the foreseeable future.
For more on the Portuguese experience, see: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/ [salon.com]
An opinion from mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Re:Gangs are the root. Legalization is the pestici (Score:5, Interesting)
For another interesting datapoint, MDMA (aka ecstasy) is FDA approved for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
As an aside, my high school physics teacher had a friend who was given a brownie with about 24mg of LSD in it (about 300 effective doses) at a party, as someone needed to dispose of it quickly and was afraid of any other method which might leave traces for the police. Surprisingly, the man survived, but developed terrible schizophrenia and had to be committed.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:0, Interesting)
"Drugs, both legal and illegal are everywhere. From the wild cocaine parties of the rich and famous to the rampant use of pretty damned near everything by the 'middle class' and of course, the 'druggies'."
I think the grandparent was meaning the negative side of the druggies.
I live in the ghetto, and the druggies here are much different than the ones in middle class society...I'm up in the middle of the night because I heard someone prowling around my backyard...a backyard with 7 foot padlocked fences meaning no one just wandered back there 'accidentally'.
No, the druggies in the poorer areas are violent and dangerous, and maybe a little more so because of the fact that the drug trade is illegal, but never the less, I don't think I need to worry about some yuppie with his coke party trying to see which of my basement windows is open and accidentally running into me in my living room in the middle of the night once he does.
Honestly, I've always looked at the drug laws as being irrelevant to anyone with a place in society and not completely stupid. I have never partaken of illegal drugs, but of my middle to upper class friends that do -- I don't know any that have to worry, nor make it a consideration at all. Of my friends that partake who are lower income, no job, look like hoodlums (because half the time they are acting as if they are) -- those folks are ALWAYS worried about getting busted. Makes you wonder? Be an upstanding citizen and you really don't have to worry, while if you can't keep a job (or a very low positional one), or you look like the dregs of society...you need to worry.
Maybe this is classist, but honest to garwd, I have no concern about yuppies having their coke parties are doing...when I was in the entertainment industry, I'd attend parties like this and even cops that stopped by said nothing. Me? Those places bored the hell out of me because, again, I don't do drugs (and of course, people who do them believe everyone does, and if you say you aren't, you are lying...at the time, I liked to drink and that was enough for me...so maybe that was my drug of choice and they are right).
So maybe the laws need to be changed to represent the reality of the situation...with position in society, you get privileges. Have a job and have stayed out of jail for X amount of years? Own a home, respect other peoples property? Yeah...we like you and don't care what the hell you do because you probably keep to yourself and are a functional user. Folks that seem to get arrested for things even when they aren't using or carrying? Yeah...you don't need drugs to get yourself in trouble, but it makes for a nice catch phrase why the man is always keeping you down. Its not your poor choices in life and infringement of others rights, it is the drug laws...that's right. If all the drug cases in prison were suddenly overturned, 95% of those people would be right back in jail in less than a year.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:And California is releasing the "non violent" (Score:3, Interesting)
We the people want our booze and we ultimately don't give a shit what it does to anyone but Number One.
But it only affects number one directly. Alcohol is not itself responsible for people's actions who are under the influence. If it were, you'd have to find murderers innocent because they were drunk at the time and could not control themselves. You'd have to find repeat offenders innocent because alcohol, according to the mindless 12 steppers, makes people "powerless" (without god) to avoid taking another drink. It's just good sense to hold individuals responsible for their actions and to ignore what *might* have contributed to those actions.
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh yeah, right (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:we need to end drug prohibition (Score:4, Interesting)
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/ [dancesafe.org]
Legalize THC/marijuana and psylocibin/mushrooms (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps the key word in there is 'absorb'. If you're just interested in analysing what's around you without contributng at all then it might not help much, but I find that marijuana is a useful tool for stimulating alternatve neural pathways, and can be extremely useful when 'producing' work such as music or code. For some people it can give them a different perspective on things - I've been able to solve programming issues that seemed intractable before taking a 'drug break'.
Taking it just to fit in with other people just makes no sense to me - if you want to get an idea of how it could be a useful tool then you'd be better off using it in alternative conditions, such as finding a coding problem that you're having difficulty with or a piece of music that isn't quite fitting together.
For some people in some situations it can have almost a nootropic effect, and learning different ways to use your brain seems to fit in with the 'nerd' category.
Imagine if Python, Perl, and C++ were made illegal due to their supposed deleterious effects on the psyche and tendency to result in code that scares people...
No. Pfizer, the CIA, and others won the drug war. (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
don't decriminalize it.... legalize it (Score:2, Interesting)
Look I think its great that Mexico will prioritize sending drug addicts to rehab instead of prison. However I don't think that's the real problem at all. The real problem is that drugs are illegal, and criminals with guns make tons of money. Drug abuse is made unnecessarily more unsafe due to lack of regulation (people often die from bad heroin or heroin that is too pure from what is commonly on the street). But the problem affects EVERYONE not just users.
Take California for instance. I was reading about marijuana grow shacks set up in California off-grid using diesel generators to power the grow-lights. (The marijuana was grown in a shack to conceal it from police-airplanes) and someone was just setting these probably very profitable grow shacks all over the place to run themselves and going back to collect the product. The unscrupulous farmers were sloppy and the diesel fuel ended up contaminating nearby waterways. This kind of thing could simply be avoided. Farmers do grow tobacco and tomatoes under the sun on the farms that they live on, and if it is legalized, taxed and sold in stores, production can be regulated.
Also do we really want a world where the most powerful people are drug-dealing crime lords? Drug *illegalization* encourages corruption. Police in Mexico and the USA are routinely bought by big dealers. Who knows how high up the political chain the drug money goes? They say there is more cocaine on bills in Washington, DC than in any other place in the USA. Perhaps coke-addicted politicians are made to do favors to crime lords to get their fix?
I'm not really in favor of drugs. Do Phillip-Morris and Anheuser-Busch bring a net benefit on society? I am sure there are some unknown things about legalization of drugs that would be downright scary. However the known dangers of illegalization are worse than any possible danger I can imagine. These dangers mostly affect non-drug users (shootings, political corruption, increased crime). Good step Mexico, but it's a baby step. Perhaps we can lead the way for our southern brothers and sisters by ending Prohibition in the USA.
Re:An opinion from mexico (Score:1, Interesting)
Hmm, people seem to act like the war on drugs reduces drug use.
Back when Nixon had a commission on marijuana that said it should be legalize,
they had similar study in Netherlands. The US ignored scientific/medical suggestion and
fought it, Netherlands legalize.
Which country has more school age kids use marijuana? USA USA
Thing is, not only does our war on drugs create a massive black market that
results in funding for organize crime, terrorists and such; it also increase
drug use and availability dramatically among school age kids.
Not even counting the irresponsible Ritalin and head drugs being given to the kids.
Or the addictive stimulants in vending machines.
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Absolutely. It is interesting to note that this huge increase in violence in Mexico corresponds pretty well with the federal regulations restricting the purchase of pseudofed in the USA. For those of you haven't had a cold in the last few years if you want to buy pseudofed its now semi-behind-the-counter, you don't need a prescription but you do have to give up all kinds of personal information to the pharmacy who will report it to the feds and stash it away in their own databases for who knows what uses and abuses. The first guy arrested under this program was stocking up on pseudofed for his kid who had allergies...
Pseudofed is the main ingredient in the easiest recipe for crystal meth. Prior to the legislation there were thousands of crystal-meth "moonshiners" -- literally one and two man operations making the shit in a shed out back. The drug warriors trumpet how the pseudofed laws have shut down these onesie-twosie operations. What they don't talk about, but even the FBI admits in their own public analysis, is that the amount of crystal meth usage dipped immediately after the law went into effect but hasn't substantially changed over the long run because the mexican gangs have filled the vacuum.
Instead of a bunch of little guys making the stuff in their backyard or at the local storage facility, most of it now comes from "superlabs" south of the border that are run by the cartels with lots of very violent men hired to protect and enforce their marketshare. And what do we have to show for it? The everyman's loss of privacy to the big drugstore chains anytime we need an effective cold medicine. Gee thanks congress!
The cost of legalization (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:An opinion from mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at America - during prohibition organized crime in the form of the Mafia became rampant. It was a bad time. The solution? Legalize alcohol. This, of course, didn't make the Mafia go away, but stealing their most lucrative trade and giving it to the business world was the first step. Things are worse in Mexico, of course, but the first step remains the same.
Re:It's about goddamn time (Score:3, Interesting)
So we can name a million reasons why it shouldn't be illegal, but until it is actually legal you have to assume that coming out and stating you are for marijuana usage and support this legislation is "social/business suicide". Now imagine you are a politician and throw in the fact that some of your constituents will not want this legislation; the easy way out is to not support legalization of marijuana, no matter your actual opinion.
How do we change that?
Re:Decriminalization in Light of the Drug War (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
By Neruos (Score:1, Interesting)
"Isn't that the point ? if less activities are criminal , you should end up with less criminals"
Cause and Effect, because a law exists or doesn't exist doesn't change the outcome of the effect. People will still steal, rob and murder for drugs no matter if it's legal or not until the cause is cheaper legally then illegally. 90% of people who are caught with possession came about the items thru an illegal activity, it's the chain of events that drugs has on peoples lives, not the drug itself. Think of the bigger picture before saying "legalize it, crime will go away" mentality.