The U.S.-financed War on Drugs has had savage results in Mexico, and now its president wants to decriminalize pot, cocaine and heroin possession.
The details: If passed, Calderón’s legislation would decriminalize up to 2 grams of marijuana, 500 milligrams of cocaine, 40 milligrams of meth, and 50 milligrams of heroin. To qualify, any individual arrested with those drugs would have to agree to a drug treatment program to address admitted addiction or enter a prevention program designed for recreational users. Those who refused to attend one of these kinds of programs would be subject to a fine.
It is no longer unusual for the Mexican news media to report on yet another, freshly decapitated head stuck atop a fencepost or a metal spike, or a garbage bag filled with body parts, usually with a hand-scrawled note or placard attached. That amounts to a cartel’s calling card, and it’s usually delivered in the form of a warning to a rival cartel, or for the Mexican authorities to stay away and stop seizing their drugs. Other times, it’s just a chilling placard intended to strike terror into the hearts of the people who come across the gory scene and the text: “Ha Ha Ha.” To be sure that their message is heard, cartels are known to send regular text messages to newspaper reporters, place newspaper advertisements, or to even upload their own killing videos (sometimes accompanied by narco-corridos as background music) to YouTube.
Mexican drug cartels are, rather effectively, fighting the government’s War on Drugs with their own War of Terror, often swelling their ranks (and combat/terror tactics) with former members of law enforcement. The Zetas, for instance, are members of former Mexican counter-narcotics squads (some with U.S.-assisted training under their belts), who have become the self-proclaimed and much-feared hit men of the Gulf cartel. So far this year, roughly 3,500 murders have been directly attributed to the drug war in Mexico, surpassing last year’s estimate of 2,500. (These numbers include the murders of at least 500 soldiers, cops, judges, politicians — and their family members — in nearly two years. Reports of attacks are rolling in daily, sometimes several times a day. This Sunday, unidentified gunmen shot up the United States consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.
It should be of note that much of the worst drug war violence is happening right at the border: Tijuana, adjacent to San Diego, saw nearly 40 people murdered in the last week of September alone, in addition to nearly 25 deaths of male and female prisoners the previous week due to two major riots at the vastly overcrowded Tijuana State Prison. (Prisoners alleged frequent incidents of torture and sexual violence, sometimes leading to death, at the hands of guards.) This past June, Bush struck a deal with Calderón to approve $400 million toward additional drug war assistance (representing a 20% increase in the Mexican anti-narcotics budget) — for still more helicopters, military training, ion scanners, canine units, and surveillance technology.
Considering their close ties, President Calderón’s announcement earlier this month must have come as a bit of an unwanted surprise to the Bush Administration.
I don’t see how this will stop the violence, drugs will still have to be obtained from the black market. But maybe it’s a step in the right direction.
An all out legalization would better serve the goal, but hey, it’s a start!
Hey! Who’s including pot in a list of “hard drugs”??
And they’re decriminalizing 2g? 0.075 ounces? ONE THIRTEENTH OF AN OUNCE?
Come on, Calderón. Give us something to cheer about!
geez thanks for that pic on the front page while im eating breakfast john!
Another step in the right direction would be to find out who is selling automatic weapons to the mob, south of the border.
Idiocracy.
#7 – Why? How would it be effective to try and stop illegal weapons trade? It’s not about the gun or the joint, it is about how these things are used. History has shown over and over that prohibition creates black markets which drive up prices and pave the way for organized crime and its associated violence.
Should’ve been directed to #4.
#2 – Thanks for doing the math for me Mustard. It looks like I should be able to carry a joint or two in Cozumel.
On another note, I got pulled over twice for speeding in Mexico recently. I got to pay the nice police officers on the spot, the price was negotiable and I never had to go to court. Those asshole cops here in the U.S. should take note. They could get a few extra bucks and not have to sit in court on their day off.
The Mexican drug cartels are getting rich by supplying drugs to the US market, not the Mexican market. Their core business is smuggling narcotics to the US from other Latin American producers.
legalizing small amount of hard drugs for Mexican citizens isn’t going to change a thing since that is a different, and much smaller, market.
And another thing. Legalizing the possession of drugs for your own consumption doesn’t address the problem of criminal enterprises getting rich. Unless they also make it legal for real businesses to produce and sell these drugs, and to be taxes on it, then it does nothing to change the situation.
All they are doing is raising the standard needed for prosecution and incarceration of citizens for possession in order to ease the burden the the justice system.
I never knew Calderon did hard drugs!
The drug war is a joke ! A bad one !
#8 thats funny because last year I paid off the policia in Encenada.$62 and a $10 neclace for doing 110 in a supposed 55mph zone(no sign for miles) and high as hell. Its definitely every man for himself nowadays.
Though I like the idea of legalized drugs, this will do nothing to curb the violence the cartels are creating over the smuggling of insane amounts of drugs, all of which are destined for the U.S.. only legalizing it here would stop the violence.And I’m not sure even that would do it since someone would still need to make it and I don;t think anybody would allow the wholesale manufacturing of meth ,herion ,or coke.
#9 & #12 got it right.
The war on drugs was doomed from the start. Mexico is suffering from America’s addiction. Since the stuff is so profitable to sell, it will always be a war we cannot win until the profit margin is gone.
So I wonder, could Calderón’s plan work here in the US? What can we do to either eliminate the profit, reduce the demand, or both?
#8, I too got pulled over in Mexico for speeding. Was rather a classic situation… thankfully, the rental car guy said “they can’t take your plates.”
Guy knocked on my window after pulling me over, said “you were speeding”, to which I responded, “If you say I was speeding, then I must have been… I was just trying to drive safely” (Hurrican had hit and it was pitch black even in the city). He pulled out his ticket booklet which I instantly recognized as a mini receipt booklet for invoices that you buy at Staples (poor guy was just scribbling).
I looked for his gun, saw only an empty holster (which looked like a kid’s holster, very worn out). Other than that, he looked legit and was very nice, I figured he was just a traffic / tourist cop… trying to make a buck. Unfortuantely, it was late and I did not want to be seen as having money to be taken advantage of.
He said he’d have to give me a ticket. I said okay… Where do I go to pay it? He said at the courthouse. I said okay I will be there first thing in the morning. He hummed and asked how long I would be in Mexico. I said, oh another three weeks (I was leaving in 2 days) and it would be no trouble to go pay the ticket, even if it wouldn’t be til next week. I also knew that the courthouse was badly damaged in the hurricane, no electricity… no way it would be open.
He asked me to get out of the car, I did and he asked me to go to the cop car, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind turning the light on in the cop car before I walked in the dark to something that looked like a regular car… he did, so I walked to the car. His supervisor was there.
They spoke some spanish (I can’t speak or understand what they said). The superior said that they have to take my plates from the car. I said, okay no troubles. I guess that means I have to park the car then… I will call the hotel to have someone come pick us up at the restaurant (grabbed my cell phone).
They looked at each other, spoke more spanish. I caught a few words (the latin/italian sounding ones and their body language). They didn’t know what to do… I said, I’m italian, I understand that you don’t know what to do, but it’s no trouble for me to go to the courthouse whenever needed, don’t worry.
They let me go…
I wasn’t scared about actually getting a ticket, the money wasn’t the issue, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there without taking my wallet out (even if I had to go to a courthouse).
It it had been on a well lit street, not in the middle of the night and not after a hurricane, I would have probably just given them $20 and moved on.
This picture is too much! Blech.
#6
It’s as if the laws of supply and demand are universal or something.
#9 pegged it. The Mexican cartels are using Mexico as a conduit to the US where they make most of their money.
#12
Fantastic. Just what I want is having to carry cash to bribe cops out of doing their job and enforcing the actual law. I would much rather have renegades that use strong arm tactics to rob the citizenry.
I found the on the spot justice in Mexico very refreashing after my run in with the pig in the states. I would rather pay a poor cop then a rich lawyer
The impact of such a law will be to crack the same idiot laws in the USA. Mexico proposed a law to legalize just marijuana 3-4 years ago and the Bush Admin quickly gave them millions of dollars in anti-drug aid to stop that legislation. ((Talk about meddling in another country’s affairs?))
How much harm does a law need to cause before it gets changed?
As corrupt and incompetent as the USA is these days, you have to figure whatever our Congress/Admin is for, the right course of action must be the opposite. Make drugs legal, decrease crime and the cost thereof, increase tax revenue. Simple and humane, it makes sense our government is against it AND against anyone else doing it as well.
Mexico pulls crap like this to pressure Washington for more cash for whatever. Historically most long term wars were won on lost on economics, not battlefields. More countries are going to start demanding more money to fund drug interdiction. One day we’ll realize we can’t afford it anymore. Apparently no one remembers the lessons from the eighteenth amendment.
“The details: If passed, Calderón’s legislation would decriminalize up to 2 grams of marijuana, 500 milligrams of cocaine, 40 milligrams of meth, and 50 milligrams of heroin. To qualify, any individual arrested with those drugs would have to agree to a drug treatment program to address admitted addiction or enter a prevention program designed for recreational users. Those who refused to attend one of these kinds of programs would be subject to a fine.”
Big Fucking Deal. Calderon is merely trying to build a “recovery” industry a la’ the USA’s. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea? California already has this type of law. Passed by prop 36 back in 2000. A bunch of nothing new here.
I am sure many will disagree with what I say, but consider
– Organized crime in the US received an ocean of cash in the last century because our government outlawed liquor. The probitition made organized crime what it is today.
– The dollar value of illegal drugs in the US is in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. More windfall profits for organized crime.
– There is allot of money to be made importing and distributing illegal drugs. This would not be possible without corrupt officials, on all sides, looking the other way for “contributions”. There is allot of money being made on the cultivation, manufacturing, distribution and sale of these illegal drugs. It only goes to reason that those involved in the trade will do everything possible to stop legalization. Legalization would put these people out of business, at lease in the drug trade.
– People want the drugs, are willing to pay for them, and where there is a market, there will be a supplier. Penalities only increase the price of the product sold.
– This could be a good argument for the free market. “Bad” drugs will not sell, and eventually fade away. There is also incentive for manufactures of these drugs to find alternatives providing the same, or better desired effect, without the bad side effects, such as addiction, etc.
– The US government has lost all credibility in the war on drugs due to inaccurate profiling of these drugs as being far worse than some of them are. This is not opinion, but fact backed by decades of unbiased medical research. Marijuana for example – a medicinal herb used for thousands of years. The only known effective threatment for glaucoma and very effective at pain / stress relief for terminally ill. Remember the bronze age man found frozen in ice on the Italian border a few years back? The initial reports state clearly he had a pouch of marijuana. Later reports conveniently ommit this fact.
– Keep in mind, medical studies / clinical research often have pre-ordained conclusions based on who is funding the study and the desired “findings”. Such studies must be unbiased, funded without strings attached.
– Legalization would bring oversight, taxes, and quality control. A person is responsible for their actions. Play with fire, get burnt, and it is your problem – get yourself out of trouble.
– Certain European countries, dispite legalization, due not have excessive problems. An arguable point, I agree.
If people want something, they will obtain it, regardless of government intervention. Government needs to fulfill a role of fact based education, not hysterical hype or distortion of the facts. The people will form their own truths.
– a government is not my nanny / big brother, and never will be. Stop trying to play a role never envisioned or described in our Constitution.
– It is impossible to make someone understand a problem if their livelihood depends on their not understanding a problem.
All of this so some dweeb can snort coke off a hookers ass.
“All of this so some dweeb can snort coke off a hookers ass.”
And that is a good thing.
What is that picture from?
Say NO to Drugs! And Hookers!
Unless your in Vegas.
#15
But that’s the only thing the Republicans have for porn now thanks to Christie Brinkley.
I have lived in Mexico for 22 years. There is a very small marginal political group which broke off of the PRD political party. I don’t see any chance of this getting through Congress, nor will Calderon sign it. He did not initiate it either. It is not his bill.
The drug lords have some of the politicians in their pockets, and this is a manifestation of that. If you don’t understand it, just think bankers have some politicans in their pocket in the US, and so when they don’t do their business correctly, they pull strings to get bailed out by Congress.
That is basically the same situation here. It will be difficult for anything like this to get passed into law. Besides the small minority that is pushing this, the bad PR for the Congress if it gets passed, think, hundreds of millions of US dollars coming into Mexico to fight the drug traffic, and this law would be the end of that free ride for the Mexican counter drug police.
Corruption exists and flourishes here in Mexico because guys like you guys come down here and pay off the cops instead of fighting the abuse. Thanks for screwing things up even worse than they are! Don’t pay bribes! If they take your money without you offering it to them, that is called stealing, and you can prosecute them, but obviously only if you want to do what is right. Not likely from the tone of these posts on this story.