Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession

NYT ^ | August 21, 2009 | AP

[SolidWood]

MEXICO CITY (AP) - 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.

[ChrisInAR]

I’m still waiting for a legalization plan that doesn’t make it worse.

I doubt if any plan will work for you, since your mind is probably already made up (???). But as for me, I think the states can come up w/ their own plans, all 50 of them. If conservative states like Oklahoma or Utah chooses to give the death penalty for possession of a pot seed, then more power to them; & if a liberal state like the People's Republic of California chooses to legalize completely, then so be it. The people know how to govern themselves better than do the bureaucrats & czars in Washington, D.C.

[donna]

I already covered states in post 188.

You’re so busy trying to make this personal that you are falling behind.

[donna]

Would you not argue at the very least that we should strip the FedGov of such authority immediately?

Now THERE'S a plan, LOL.

[dcwusmc]

Thank you. That is precisely the point I was making to that donna person. And, to me, the SoCons’ willingness to use the force of government vastly outweighs the “good” they do. Now if they stick to setting an example and using moral suasion, I’m THERE, boy, oh boy! I’M THERE! Otherwise, those like la donna are, as far as I’m concerned, OUTTA HERE!

[donna]

In the future, the feds will knock on your door to say it’s time for you to sacrifice your life to donate both kidneys because your federal medical records indicate that your liver will fail in 2-years due to drug use. If you die now, your kidneys will save two youngsters for years to come!

You underestimate the evil of big government.

[dcwusmc]

I would argue that the federal government be stripped, once more, of its power to directly tax the People and be required to REQUEST (not demand) revenue through the Several States. I would also task the states to ensure that no monies went to FedGov beyond the minimum amount required to do their CONSTITUTIONAL duties.

But beyond that, the States themselves should be deprived of any authority to regulate private, consensual behavior. Public behavior MAY be regulated at the local level.

(Oh, and repealing the Welfare State would ALSO be high on my priorities list!)

[donna]

I agree with you about Soros. He got public financing of political campaigns passed by referendum in Arizona. That’s how we got Janet Napolitano as governor.

[SunkenCiv]

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.

Mexico legalized possession of small amounts of cocaine and heroin at least a few years ago, so this isn't news. Since there's so much societal support for abiding by the law in Mexico, it'll probably mean that people will stop possessing small amounts of cocaine and heroin. ;')

[Clinging Bitterly]

This overreaching federal government makes my job in this debate harder... ...I believe legitimizing drug use will make it widespread...

It's a real bugaboo, no? Try letting go of the assumption that "legal" equates to "blessed as good and proper". Far as I know, most places it's not against the law to jump off a cliff.

Some time around ten years ago a couple of Eugene's finest responded to a disturbance call in the downtown shopping district. They arrived to find a group of 8 or 10 local youth in front of one of the businesses wearing mud (and nothing else), apparently making some kind of a protest statement. The cops cuffed them, wrapped them up and hauled them in. Looking for the applicable chapter and verse for charging purposes they searched city, county, and state laws and found absolutely nothing. They had no choice but to sheepishly apologize and let them go.

If you watched O'Reilly on one of a couple times over the last few weeks, or Huckabee filling in for him just tonight, you'd know that no law against public nudity, much to his chagrin, remains the status quo in Oregon. Now, the state and the police are not going around saying folks should run around naked in the streets and dig this, almost nobody ever does it (but dang, there's more than a few I see in this college town I sorta wish would).

The state could outlaw it tomorrow and there'd be no constitutional argument against it far as I know (I imagine this state legislature would rather find a way to tax it), but in 140 years of statehood it seems there has not been a compelling need to do that.

Besides the constitutional argument against federal prohibition, I believe most of the legislative arguments for it (things like rampant non-marital, or worse, interracial sex) are utter fallacy and I think the laws deserves a serious revisiting of all the aspects of need and propriety or lack of same. Certainly, if individual states had a justifiable need for some kind of regulation or prohibition it would be within the power of most of their legislatures to enact them.

[LearsFool]

That people, given Liberty, will invariatably choose the best path? Isn’t that what we all believe?

Well now that's where we part ways, because what I see throughout history is just the opposite. As Thomas Paine put it:

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices.

I'll grant you that at certain times and places there've been Mayberry RFDs with little need for government interference beyond deciding what color to paint the schoolhouse. But quite often people do what they think they could get by with. They might not go in "the worst direction"; they'll go in whatever direction they please, and I wouldn't bet money that it'll be the best either. This is why democracies fail.

People make their own community, laws or no laws. And they always end up with laws, because "fundamental goodness" is fundamentally unreliable - as the commune experiments demonstrate time and again.

That said, it puts me in the position of having to try to convince you (my neighbors, actually) that our community will be better off if we don't allow drugs here. (I'm also in the unenviable position of being a smoker, and having to convince my neighbors that banning tobacco is undesirable.) Madison admitted that in democratic America, the will of the majority rules, but also restricted it by saying that "the will of the majority, in order to rule, must also be right."

The question in every case is whether the majority is right in restricting this or that liberty. The smaller the community, the less important (and enforceable) that question by nature becomes - as in "small-town justice". And the more desperate the situation, the less weight the answer carries - as in the Constitution's provision for the suspension of habeas corpus, i.e. the Japanese internment case.

If the majority is right in outlawing my smoking, I'm obliged to comply. And if they're right in outlawing your drugs - and if they vote to do so - you're obliged to comply as well. Them's the rules.

In our current circumstances, however, which you describe so well, these ideal rules for majority will vs. individual liberty are rapidly becoming moot. Mexico's decision was an act of self-preservation, not liberty. They have street battles with submachine guns and grenade launchers.

[timm22]

Basically, you think drug legalization will lead to government organ harvesting?

Seems like kind of a stretch. But even if true, couldn't the government already justify harvesting my organs based on my alcohol consumption?

[LearsFool]

I think the problem w/ it is it's willingness to use force (i.e., government) to seek its goals

Right on the money! Sounds straight out of Albert Nock's book "Our Enemy, The State", written during FDR's days of destruction. The state corrupts everything it touches, he said, yet each side uses it in an effort to achieve their own goals.

[dalereed]

“For what it’s worth, I believe that California will legalize pot before the end of 2010.”

If they do the feds should move in and arrest every legislator that voted for it and Arnie for signing it!

[Clinging Bitterly]

...140 years of statehood...

It's 150. Dang (guess I should take a hit, see if them evil spirits are better at simple arithmetic).

[Clinging Bitterly]

They have street battles with submachine guns and grenade launchers.

Good thing we don't have those. Oh wait, nevermind.

[LearsFool]

I’ve never argued for federal criminalization. There’s only one constitutional argument to support such a move, and the feds skipped right over that step: Amendment.

But if you think that laws have no effect on public opinion, you’re sorely mistaken. Oh, not in cases of mud-wearing. But cases like public morality such as homosexuality, divorce, drunk driving, welfare, etc. (And if mud-wearing became a problem, you’d see some laws crop up on that too. :-)

Drunk driving is a good example, because public outcry was a significant force in bringing those laws about. Law can reflect as well as reinforce public opinion, and vice versa. In fact, democratic law should absolutely reflect public opinion. (Doesn’t mean it’s just, of course. Merely means it’s what the people want.)

[LearsFool]

Good thing we don't have those. Oh wait, nevermind.

I meant the battles between the cops and the drug-runners. If we have those here (like some I've seen on youtube), it's news to me.

[Clinging Bitterly]

I meant the battles between the cops and the drug-runners.

I meant cops shooting 90 year old ladies full of holes. My bad (dang those evil spirits, still in my head after 33 years).

[ChrisInAR]

Sorry if I sounded like I was making it personal...that wasn’t my intention. But I’m a lil shocked to hear you say that drug laws should be a state issue. Considering all I’ve seen over the years, conservatives think that Washington should be “The Decider” on our nation’s drug policy, the 10th Amendment rights of the people & of the states be damned. I’m happy to hear that we seem to be in agreement on this issue.

[ChrisInAR]

The state corrupts everything it touches, he said, yet each side uses it in an effort to achieve their own goals.

That's why I despise the Democrats & have completely lost respect for the GOP. The end result of their corrupt reign is a dumbed-down populace w/ little respect for the Constitution & a "what's in it for me?" attitude re: public policy.