Mexico's Hopeless Drug War (Mexico Decriminalizes Narcotics "for Personal Use")

WSJ ^ | 9/15/2009 | Mary O'Grady

[mojito]

Mexico announced recently that it will decriminalize the possession of "small amounts of drugs"—marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamines, heroin and opium—"for personal use." Individuals who are caught by law enforcement with quantities below established thresholds will no longer face criminal prosecution. A person apprehended three times with amounts below the minimum, though, will face mandatory treatment.

For the government of President Felipe Calderón, which has spent the last three years locked in mortal combat with narcotrafficking cartels, this seems counterproductive. Is the government effectively surrendering to the realities of the market for mind-altering substances? Or could it be that the new policy is only a tactical shift by drug warriors still wedded to the quixotic belief that they can take out suppliers?

The answer is that it is a bit of both. But neither matters. Mexico's big problem—for that matter the most pressing security issue throughout the hemisphere—is organized crime's growth and expanded power, fed by drug profits. Mr. Calderón's new policy is unlikely to solve anything in that department.

[mojito]

Chalk up a victory for the Narcotraficantes.

[Kenton]

Mexico’s just trying to get those spring breakers back...

[TomasUSMC]

Expect obambi’s next vacation to be in MEXICOKE

[Pearls Before Swine]

OK drug warriors. If we did that here, some of the profitability that drives the traficantes would go away.

[mojito]

I think 0 would like your idea.

It’s a whole new sector of the economy that could be nationalized, bureaucratized and run by the government. With millions of willing clients waiting for product and services.

[rellimpank]

---It is demand north of the border that is the primary driver of organized-crime terror. And that shows no signs of abating.--

--the key sentence--

[Clock King]

And expect the hospital bills to increase as the amount of “personal use” increases. I’ve known drug users in my time. They never get enough. Esp crack or coke. The amount just keeps going up until they hit a ceiling.

[swain_forkbeard]

“With millions of willing clients waiting for product and services.”

Which, for me, is much better than tens of millions of unwilling subjects forced to participate in collectivist schemes to ration healthcare and regulate CO2 emissions.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Like border pharmacy! Maybe they will start a new come on to get business at the “Boy’s Towns”!

[AmericanVictory]

And just think, if the Latino congressman from Illinois has his way and the One honors his payoff pledges to Latinos we can be more and more like Mexico.

[rolling_stone]

the policy has already been reversed or is in the process of being reversed.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Some of my high-school classmates from back in the Cheech and Chong era who started getting high never stopped, which today has left them in a state where they have no interest in getting a job.

So....on the bright side, this might eventually cure our Illegal Immigrant problem...

[-YYZ-]

“OK drug warriors. If we did that here, some of the profitability that drives the traficantes would go away.”

Only if you legalized the production and distribution. I could maybe see that happening for marijuana, but I don’t see anyone legalizing the production and sale of coke, meth, or heroin anytime soon, so there would still be lots of money to be made there.

[Responsibility2nd]

Mexico has done lost the WOD.

Hope to God America does not follow Mexico.

Sad, but there are way too many Libertarians who want to see America in the same sorry shape as Mexico.

[varyouga]

Yep. This drug war is an “emperor has no clothes” situation. The government was swindled and now can’t turn back.

The only way out is to completely legalize and tax all drugs with standards for quality. Nobody would even think of buying from criminals if every drug was available from a store. The cartels will go the way of 1930s bootleggers.

Then require yearly physical/psychological/financial tests for all users with references from friends/family. Similar to the ‘medical’ program in CA with a ‘license’ to do drugs. If you mess up in any way, your access to drugs is taken away. If caught possessing without a license, there should be mandatory treatment and no jail time. Charging an addict with a crime and making them unemployable only guarantees they will leech off others and never return to a productive life.

The same requirements should apply for alcohol, which hurts and addicts more people than every illegal drug combined.

[Just another Joe]

The amount just keeps going up until they hit a ceiling.

There is no ceiling.
A cocaine "addict" will do, practically, anything to get the next buzz. And it doesn't have to be mainlined, snorting is enough for some people.

With that said, there are some people that can "use" occasionally without becoming addicted.

With ALL that siad, I am a proponent of legalizing, or at least decriminilizing, just about every type of drug there is. If they OD and kill themselves, tough.
Survival of the fittest and all that.

[calex59]

Sad, but there are way too many Libertarians who want to see America in the same sorry shape as Mexico.

Excuse me, I am not a libertarian but I can see the merit of legalizing drugs. The sorry shape Mexico is in is due the the trafficking of drugs across the border into the US. They are just now legalizing drugs in Mexico so how could that have caused their "sorry mess"? Drugs in the US, all drugs, used to be legal, there were no more addicts per population than there are now and gangs weren't getting rich off of them.

Legalize them, it worked for alcohol and it will work with drugs. Plus we could get rid of the stupid laws that make us criminals for carrying our own money around and takes our property without due process, guilty or not.

What keeps people like you tied to the war on drugs, despite its obvious failure and it's blatant adding to drug use, is morality, not common sense. False morality I should say because you are trying to control other people's behavior.

[atomic_dog]

Someday America will understand that we are not given the choice of whether or not drugs are sold in our communities. The only choice we get to make is who sells them. We can chose a pharmacist in a white jacket selling known doses of known substances in a drug store or we can have a sixteen-year-old gangbanger with a Glock and a do rag selling God knows what on the corner.

I am getting increasingly pissed about my Second Amendment rights being under constant attack behind the excuse of the Drug War. What kind of society declares war on it's own people?

[Nathan Zachary]

"OK drug warriors. If we did that here, some of the profitability that drives the traficantes would go away."

OH B.S. When government gets involved, drug costs will go even higher. Nothing changes, except the government gets more revenues, YOU get government pot (probably a good thing) And smugglers, dealers, growers still go to prison on felony charges, just like tobacco and alcohol is still illegal to smuggle and distill/bootleg.

[Nathan Zachary]

"With millions of willing clients waiting for product and services.” Which, for me, is much better than tens of millions of unwilling subjects forced to participate in collectivist schemes to ration healthcare and regulate CO2 emissions.

That doesn't even make sense. What's one got to do with the other?