Slog
News & ArtsFriday, August 21, 2009
Drugs And It Is Done
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Mexico has decriminalized the possession of drugs—pretty much all of them:
Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.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; the law goes into effect on Friday.
The laws of physics, nature, and capitalism are all completely different across the border: that is what the drug czar will tell us when people suggest we follow Mexico's lead. But Mexico will be no worse off for decriminalizing drugs. Buses will run, families will grow, students will go to school. Things may even be better in Mexico; that's what has happened in other countries. In Portugal, which decriminalized drugs in 2001, "illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled," Time Magazine reported in April.
So some Americans will audaciously point to Mexico—which is not across the ocean, but a few blocks from some metropolitan centers in the US—as an example of better laws that we can enact here. But our federal government will say it's impossible. They'll stick to the old hackneyed talking points that changing the laws would encourage drug use among young people and wreak havoc on society. Legalization won't be in their vocabulary, even when it's within eyesight.
Any hope for sensible drug policy isn't at the national level (and it never has been), it's at the state level, with folks like the lawmakers who wrote an op-ed today calling to decriminalize marijuana in Washington or voters passing an initiative. Our best hope is that the Obama Administration will stay out of it.
In the meantime, have fun vacationing in Mexico.
Tip from Chris
2
Regardless of their legality, the last thing in the world I want to try when I'm in Mexico is to buy drugs. That sounds like just asking to get your ass mugged.
3
Are you kidding me? In six months and you'll probably be buy weed at any neighborhood Gigante or El Tigre.
5
9
(laughs while the baby lawyers go all scurrying to reread the actual text of the actual document)
10
Don't doubt for a second that the right-wing nuts will spin this as a negative; and their base, with its need to have a moral scapegoat to cover their own failings, will buy it hook, line, and sinker. You can almost hear it now: "Them Mexicans legalized *drugs*! And look what it did to them, it destroyed their country!"
No lie. Several years ago I was at an international conference and was cornered by some Iranian health officials who wanted to know why the US was so completely fucked up on the issue of harm reduction and drug policy reform! They said that our intransigence on the issue was making it very difficult for folks in other country to achieve meaningful reform.
You know you're fucked when Iranians tell you you're too conservative.
14
Awesome, keep up the arguments against statements nobody's been making. You might win one yet!
"Actually, it might lead to more of that drug-lord-drug-war action on this side of the border."
Or it might not.
15
(laughs while the baby lawyers go all scurrying to reread the actual text of the actual document) "
The Ron Paulentologists and Alex Jones obsessives are as much self-ascribed experts on all NAFTA-related materials as they are on the US constitution.
If drugs were decriminalized how could there be ANY illegal drug use among teens?
It's all legal now.
Twice as many addicts is good?
Not to fear-
the homos will pick up the slack...
22
Posted by Really? For Real??"
No, you subhuman moron, decriminalization allows for a much better transition to recovery because the users, the real victims aren't having to do with all the societal costs of addiction. They can reveal their harmful lifestyle without fear of prosecution or further injury. This is more comparable to prostitutes who refuse to reveal rape for fear of being victimized again by law enforcement.
Again, people with your terrible understanding of statistics and social problems are why we still have the War On... pretty much everything going strong. If you can't educate yourself and take a basic statistics/logic class, stay out of things over your head.
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