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Mexico Legalizes Drugs -- All Of Them!

Posted 6 months ago|29 comments|3,539 views
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Written by
Chris D
 Moderator
 Seattle, WA
August 21, 2009 may be a turning point in the drug culture of North America. President Felipe Calderon has signed a bill that effectively legalizes drugs in Mexico. The law affects users of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, and other drugs by legalizing personal possession of the substances.

The law makes Mexico, not British Columbia or California, the most drug-tolerant location in North America.

Why did Mexico legalize drugs? There are several reasons. First, lawmakers hope the new law will help eliminate police corruption, ending the “lunchtime arrest” culture in tourist towns. Before this law, it was no secret that the amount of time spent in jail for drug use was dependent on the size of your bribes, not the severity of your crimes.

Another major goal is to give cops the time to focus on high-level drug dealers. I wonder what the DEA thinks about that?

The law also increases the amount of government money for drug rehabilitation, like counseling and detoxification, allowing many drug users to enter treatment at no cost. By separating casual drug users – like the weekend pot smoker – from honest-to-God drug addicts, Mexico is hoping to attack “the real problem.”

This kind of legislation would be shocking in the United States, but Mexico seems not to be surprised. The New York Times says that the Mexico drug legalization story didn’t even show up on “the front pages of any major Mexico City newspaper.” The news made a bigger splash in Mexico’s northern border towns, where the intense drug war makes headlines every day. (An estimated 11,000 people have been killed in border town gang warfare since 2006.)

Under the new Mexican drug legalization law, a person may possess:

- Five grams of marijuana (about four joints)

- One half-gram of cocaine (about four lines)

- 50 milligrams of heroin (one strong dose)

- 40 milligrams of meth (one normal dose)

- 0.015 milligrams of LSD (one low dose)

[Dosage estimates from Erowid.com]

I'm very interested to see how this law will affect Mexico. It's an experiment in Libertarian drug laws. Will it cause pandemic drug abuse or will it be fairly benign? Time will tell, I suppose.


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COMMENTS
6 months ago: Good for Mexico! The use of drugs for personal recreation, while unwise, is a victimless crime. The real criminal behavior that surrounds it in the United States, such as thefts and gang behavior, stem from the fact that use itself is illegal.

Prohibition has never, and will never, work. It will simply make criminals of those who will use the drug, be it alcohol or amphetamines, regardless.
6 months ago: Wow. I can understand Marijuana but the other drugs? I love the comment by HeyNoninoni...referring to drug use as "victimless"-- really? Who do you think pays to get the user off drugs when their "recreational use" becomes a full fledged addiction? And what about the child who is run over by an addict? Or, what about how your personal insurance costs will increase because that addict had a "few victimless" accidents? Pull your head out!
6 months ago: TheDeb,

By that standard, the production, purchase, and use of alcohol ought to be banned completely. It causes far more deaths every year than all the other drugs. Check your history books to see how well prohibition worked.

Nice straw man, by the way. I said nothing about usage regulation - I think it ought to be as illegal to shoot up and drive as it is to drink and drive.

Prohibition doesn't work. It just plain doesn't. The "war on drugs" is a complete, abysmal failure. We treat addicts as criminals when we should be treating them as sick people. We throw them in jail instead of getting them treatment. It's time to stop throwing good money after bad, accept that our drug policy has been the opposite of effective, and fix it.
Rudi Stettner
Rudi Stettner
 Moderator
6 months ago: I can see it now. Doper tourists headed to Mexico. Drug dealers outside the major resorts, selling a "night on the town package. I'm sure the law is being examined already for ways to break it and how to make a buck under the new criminal code. Stay tuned
6 months ago: I disagree HeyNoninoni. Husband is in law enforcement and the war on drugs is working (on the US side) but the liberal media doesn't cover this perspective. Just ask the dealer who is no longer making the US profit he used to...
6 months ago: Do you have any statistics on that? As near as I've been able to find, drug use hasn't been deterred by law enforcement.

But that's beside the point. There would be no drug "dealers" if drugs were legal, taxed, and regulated.
6 months ago: Hey you guys. Regulate and tax the air you breath. Sorry, we have with Cap and Tax. Maybe regulate and tax health care. Yeah that's the ticket. Then we can sell drugs to those that won't buy in to healthcare to force them into the system. Let's get them anyway we can.
6 months ago: Siempre, there's also the forbidden fruit factor. I can tell you, the idea of getting drunk lost almost all appeal after I turned 21...
6 months ago: Thedeb hey what due you think your local goverment state government, or even federal government could due with say 130 mil per state. well that is the average state to state payout a year for the housing of criminals of which 82%( anyway in NH) are there for yes victimless crime. most of which go to jail for using, they probably have a job and family. throw them into a school of higher learning. they come out worse than they were to begin with. now they have nothing and are more likely to get out and actually start commiting crimes like stealing ,robbing, and selling all of which they didnt due because they had a job before. the typical drug user is not the homeless or unemployed its you and your cop hubby and your next door neighbor. so when you live life on one side gain experiance and perspective on the other side before you put your narrow view up as an educated opinion. so as Noni said it doesnt work, hasnt and never will.
I cant say that legalizing it is the best way but I think regulation and taxation bears more fruit than incarceration.
6 months ago: In my opinion, if the Mexican law was intended to reduce gang activity, it addressed the wrong end of the drug business. The casual user still has to buy his "product" from someone, and the cartels and gangs are still going to fight over "turf". The new laws do nothing to bring the prices down, so the so called "casual user" is still going to steal, mug, and possibly even sell drugs to get his "casual" fix. There aren't many long term "weekend" heroin or meth users.
If the Mexican government is serious about ending the violence and corruption, they should make possession in any quantity legal, tax and regulate the drugs, same as alcohol, and put the billions saved into education and rehabilitation.
Weak minded people are going to use drugs regardless of any laws trying to prevent it, and have been doing so for at least 3000 years. It's time to accept that you aren't going to change human nature through legislation, and figure out other ways of dealing with it.
6 months ago: If anything, the new lenient laws will only increase the violence problem, because now countless new customers will be streaming across the border, to get high without fear of going to jail. Somebody has to step in and service that demand, namely, drug cartels and gangs.
6 months ago: OOTB, that's an interesting perspective on the matter, but I don't think it plays out that way in places that have lenient drug laws. Amsterdam, for instance, isn't a crime-ridden hellhole, and both drug use and prostitution are legal there.
6 months ago: Noni, please don't take this question wrong.

Do you live in a border state that has to deal with the influx of (i'll be nice) all contraband? Including the human factors.
6 months ago: Well, I'm not directly in a border state, but we do get our fair share of Canadians coming down here, and they seem like nice enough people. You'd think, what with medical marijuana being so popular up there, they'd be drug-crazed monsters, just like we all saw in Reefer Madness, but nope.

There's also a sizable Mexican immigrant population, especially around the north side of the city, but there isn't a serious drug problem there. Actually, that area has some of the best restaurants and a vibrant arts atmosphere.

But there is a real drug problem here. It's meth. Most of the users and dealers here are white locals.

Now I'll ask you a question: Have you ever lived in a place where drugs were legal, like Amsterdam?
6 months ago: Fair enough. I don't think I have seen any news account of Canadian Drug Cartels. The migration you see is far different than what is the rule on southern border states. Funny you mention Mexicans like a side note stating they are across the tracks in the north of the city. I'm guessing you live in the south of the city. We have Mexicans, Hondurans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguians and Costa Ricans. Not to mention South Americans. I guess you lump all of them into the Mexican package which is OK if you just trying to paint a picture. The point is, with all of these "WORKERS" that are allowed to stand on corners and literally beg for work, how many might be here without documentation how many might not have any benifits how many are included in the government statistics when it favors the government but left out of the government statistics when it does not favor the government. The drug lords don't stand on corners. They are ruthless and will attack without warning. They also are "coyotes". They deal in illegal transport of humans.

You might need to move to a border state and city within 50 miles of Mexico for a few years before you become an trafficing expert.
6 months ago: The answer to your Euro Amsterdam question is no.
6 months ago: Proponents of legalization almost certainly would cite Amsterdam as the drug Mecca of the Western world. Anyone may go into the restaurants in this city and order marijuana and hashish from a menu; further, heroin and cocaine have been decriminalized for all practical purposes. The police simply leave the users alone. Consequently, health officials estimate that Amsterdam has 7,000 addicts, 20% of whom are foreigners.58 These addicts are responsible for 80% of all property crime in the city, thus necessitating that Amsterdam maintain a police presence far greater than those of cities of comparable size in the United States.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/DEBATE/myths/myths4.htm
6 months ago: Noni, Can I ask if your state has Truck drivers? Do you suggest that Federal DOT regulations regarding drugs and alcohol be relaxed? Your answer I'm sure will be NO! Trucks and heavy equipment operators that are on the road need to be regulated for public safety. What other line will there be between the haves and have nots?
6 months ago: Netherlands has a high anti-drug related public expenditure, the second highest drug related public expenditure per capita of all countries in EU (after Sweden). 75% is law enforcement expenditures including police, army, law courts, prisons, customs and finance guards. 25% is health and social care expenditures including treatment, harm reduction, health research and educational including prevention and social affairs interventions.

Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fine. Coffee shops are also technically illegal according to the statutes but, as has been said, are flourishing nonetheless. However, a policy of non-enforcement has led to a situation where reliance upon non-enforcement has become common, and because of this the courts have ruled against the government when individual cases were prosecuted.

In 2004, an average of 290 drug couriers per month were arrested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands
6 months ago: Reuters
December 6, 2008 at 8:42 AM EST

AMSTERDAM — Amsterdam authorities said on Saturday they would halve the number of brothels and marijuana shops in the city’s “red light” district and surrounding area.

The city announced plans to clean up the area a year ago and since then 109 sex “windows“, from which prostitutes attract customers, have been closed. The new measures aim to reduce the number of windows to 243 from 482 last year, a city spokesman said.

Amsterdam also wants to close half of the 76 cannabis shops in the city centre.

“Money laundering, extortion and human trafficking are things you do not see on the surface but they are hurting people and the city. We want to fight this,” deputy mayor of Amsterdam Lodewijk Asscher told Reuters./
J Lee Kenser
J Lee Kenser
Hartford, MI
6 months ago: I smell a governmental profit..Can't get new American Companies to move there, they need income from something...In my humble, poorly educated opinion that is...J>
6 months ago: Quite a few posts, I'll try to answer each in order.

@TCG

I never claimed to be a trafficking expert. I'm pretty good at looking up statistics, and I can tell you my experiences here are not of the stereotypical variety.

And actually "lumping" all immigrants from Latin America together is not "OK" in my book, because each country has its own rich cultural heritage. When I said "Mexican," I meant it. Most of the immigrants who live in that neighborhood are from Mexico. Not Nicaragua, not Guatemala. Mexico.

Please, don't put words in my mouth. I never said where I live, or whether that neighborhood is on the other "side of the tracks." Truth be told, the biggest poor neighborhood in the area isn't even in this city. It's our sister city, over the Willamette river (anyone who knows Oregon now has a good idea where I live), where meth is the major illegal drug. The neighborhood with a high density of Mexican immigrants is doing fine, thank you.

@OOTB
7,000? That's hardly anything for a city with a population of 2,220,000. I wonder how that compares to addiction rates in comparably sized cities of the United States?

@TCG
I thought I'd already stated quite clearly "I think it ought to be as illegal to shoot up and drive as it is to drink and drive."

@OOTB
I actually applaud Amsterdam's cleanup efforts. They're not trying to drive out all the brohels or coffee shops, they're trying to reduce crimes related to the bad ones. Good for them.
6 months ago: Does anyone see this as a direct result of conferences held recently between us and our two neighboring countries?

Noni, you only addressed half, the other half read:

"These addicts are responsible for 80% of all property crime in the city, thus necessitating that Amsterdam maintain a police presence far greater than those of cities of comparable size in the United States."
6 months ago: I agree with HeyNoniNoni...he/she seems to be the only one that is speaking from a rational viewpoint and not relying on the fear-mongering and myths perpetrated by the powers that be.

To Out Of the Box: your argument stems from statistics from a manual for proponents of keeping drugs illegal. Clearly, these points are biased from the outset, and the statistics all come from one newspaper article that was written over twenty years ago. Just because you read something on the internet, doesn't make it true. In fact, most of the contemporary reports and studies have come to some conclusions that are quite different than the one you presented.

Additionally, no one seems to mention Portugal in this thread.
This is perhaps the most relevant case study. They legalized all drugs in 2001 and critics of the decision expressed most of the same fears expressed by the posters in this forum.

According to a recent article in Time Magazine, "rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well."
6 months ago: Joroyo,
Siempre Solo also stated above that drugs should be legalized, and regulated.

Theywork4me also expressed similar views.

Which article are you referring to?
Maybe this one is recent enough for you.

http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/162-amsterdam-livability

"Safety

Amsterdam does have a high crime rate. Poverty amongst a relatively large percentage of the population likely plays a role. So does the presence of tourists. Pickpockets and other thieves have their hands full, so to speak.
Much crime in Amsterdam is of a different nature, though. In recent years, a revenge-war amongst top criminals has resulted in a number of assassinations — with hits often taking place in public."

IN 2007, Amsterdam was ranked 49th out of 50 in safety, 43rd in poverty, 49th in percentage of welfare recipients, and 50th in privately owned homes.
6 months ago: "IN 2007, Amsterdam was ranked 49th out of 50 in safety, 43rd in poverty, 49th in percentage of welfare recipients, and 50th in privately owned homes."

On what list? If it's a list of the cities in the world, then they're doing fantastic! They're in the top 50!

Heh... See how context makes a difference?
6 months ago: Well, It's a list of only 50 cities, so I would assume that it's not a list of all cities in the world. The list is inclusive of Netherlands cities.

The top fifty you refer to is, I believe, "most livable cities", due to the museums, public attractions, and cultural heritage. Kind of like our New Orleans. It's a nice place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there.
6 months ago: OOTB, I guess I should be more specific. I was poking fun at you because you didn't provide any context or details about the list, and frankly, you still haven't. So I still have no idea whether the list is representative, or what it's representative of. Could you please link to it or tell me where you got it and what, precisely, it's a list of? Cities in the Netherlands? Cities in Europe? A random sampling of big cities throughout the world?
Cody W
Cody W
Lisle, IL
3 months ago: why not...

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