Posted on 08/21/2009 2:53:19 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Seriously??
It’s now legal to be stupid AND stoned down there?
Legal to own “personal use” sizes of drugs, while offering free detox and care from the gov’t? Add on top of that dealers with their own “personal use” sizes of drugs and “gifting” them to others while those others “gift” the dealers money, guns and sex... seems like an endless cycle and a money pit... especially with the free gov’t kickbacks.
Oh good. Now they can come over the border drugged up.
You are seeing what happens when the the effect of law is worse than the drugs.
More people are being killed by the drug gangs than by the drugs themselves. The illegality of drugs has given criminal gangs various ways to make money, and with that, a reason to strictly enforce their financial stake in illegal drug operations.
Making small amounts of drugs un-illegal (pardon the term, but it fits) stops some low-level corruption by local authorities and changes the stakes for the big dealers. In addition, it throws more weight on personal management and family in dealing with these problems.
Think about the problems Mexico is enduring before casting stones.
For what it’s worth, I believe that California will legalize pot before the end of 2010.
Mexsterdam.
It has already begun, and this is surrender.
“We want them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against — then you’ll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
“Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
You just say that because you've never seen what happens when there are no drug laws.
When the hippies discovered LSD, they used it like candy, legally. Look at where those hippie liberals took the country.
you very well may be right....why not decriminalize small amounts of these drugs for personal use, and tax their sale.
Nearly every "evil" drug in existence today was legal and often commercialized during one of the greatest periods of economic and social expansion of the United States.
If they banned tobacco, the drug cartels would be raking in billions by cooking and distributing crack nicotine instead. Hasn't the abject failure of alcohol prohibition taught anyone anything?
Hmmm---and where would that be?? The only places I currently know about were the Netherlands and now Mexico.
"When the hippies discovered LSD, they used it like candy, legally. Look at where those hippie liberals took the country."
Oh, baloney. First, hippies were never more than a tiny minority, and secondly, even of those, the LSD druggies were a small minority. Marijuana was the "toke of choice".
Hey, this is great. We trade US stoners for Mexican workers who choose not to be stoned. I wonder if this is enough to reverse the flow of population. Sounds like a win-win to me.
It won’t be too much longer before drugs are legalized AND TAXED here. With bankruptcy of the federal and state governments ahead, this is a likely scenario.
California has to release 40,000 prisoners in the near future. Think of the money to be made by the gov’t and saved by states and municipalities on law enforcement and prison management. The police would actually be able to go after violent criminals. There isn’t enough money in the world to win the drug war.
But if the drugs could be manufactured legally in licensed facilities, addicts could get them at a reasonable price so no more robbery and break ins to finance drug habbits. The purity would no longer be a problem and suddenly criminal enterprise would be out of the drug business.
Tax money generated could pay for treatment for those who would like to get off drugs.
Oh My, Oh My - Now you’ll be able to get marijuana in Mexico, Oh the Horrors!
You are right. Anyone who doesn’t understand this needs to read about Al Capone and other gangs in the prohibition era.
Not that legalizing drugs and paying for treatment plans work, especially in a society that doesn’t really encourage people to live the ‘right way’, but there is no way to keep up with how far over the top the gangs have gotten.
They were losing tourist money from people staying away due to the violence. Now they will get hordes of college students going down to get legally stoned for the weekend.
I don’t think it did. People would rather sit morally on high (no pun intended) and not look at the big picture.
Yeah, passing LSD out like candy on every college campus...it never happened...
They forces. With Guns, and courts, fines and prisons.
The left, and the big business Republicans FORCED the county, us, to hand over half of everything you ever earn for all of your life.
I've never been robbed by a criminal. But I get robbed each and every day, with real money by the government.
I can handle a stoner, doper or a armed ‘honest to God’ criminal. I can not defend my self from the thieving of the IRS, ATF, Congress and the President.
Yes I have seen the effects of legalized drugs; I lived in Europe for over three years. Be careful of what you assume on this forum; we have some very experienced and thoughful people on FR.
Instead of engaging in over-generalized banter, let us get specific. An old friend of mine investigated a multiple murder. A daughter was raped and murdered, a boy was tortured and murdered and the grandparents were murdered by a drug dealer who was looking for a 17 year-old kid who owed him under a hundred dollars. That was in the US!
Laws cannot take the place of human dignity. If some person wants to do drugs they will do them despite what laws say. As the nation has clearly lost the drug war, it is time to get into the business and clean things up in a way that takes money and power away from the criminals.
Think about that.....
But it's curious how that tiny minority came to get a stranglehold on the RAT Party.Hasn't Hussein I,himself,casually admitted to cocaine use?
Maybe our addicted will move there and enjoy the freedom to
live with the suppliers? Is there a fund I can donate to that will hire buses with one way tickets to Mexico?
Is it now legal to sale that amount?
It's a shame that prohibition led to this tragic outcome. Under a sane, rational government the dealer would have sued him, they both would gone on People's Court, and Judge Milian would have chewed them both out and sent them on their way with the debt settled like she does with all the eBay and Craigslist car purchase cases.
Yeah, you'd think that if these "illegal" drugs were as bad as the propaganda says they are, nobody who took them could possibly go on to be a productive member of society, let alone President of the US.
I suppose they're "producing" communism, eh?
Since I was on campus during those years, I can say from direct evidence that...no...LSD was never handed out like candy on the campus of the major university I was studying at.
And on top of that, tax dollars will go to treating them. What a country!
That’s why I can’t take the “libertarian” position on drugs. Because we all know we would wind up footing the bill for treating these losers.
Like how Portugal and the Netherlands have lower rates of marijuana use than the U.S.? That's what you were talking about, right?
From a purely cost standpoint I honestly don’t see how treatment programs would cost more than than the war on drugs.
Just think of the costs to house one prisoner, multiplied by the amount of prisoners in jail for minor drug offenses. Multiple police agencies who do nothing but drug busts. All of the associated court costs to process minor drug offenders.
The war on drugs has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and there is no evidence of any positive effect.
Personally I would legalize everything that can be grown naturally, and keep harsh penalties for manufacturing chemical drugs, aka meth and acid.
lol! but it’s really not funny....
But our elected officials never learn.
Some say legalize drugs and tax the hell out of them to pay for gov. programs. The problem I have with that is for one it would then create the black market you are trying to eliminate due to high taxes.
Also, what happens to that gov. program when the drug use revenue doesn't come in as predicted?
Just legalize most of the stuff. Especially pot
I wonder if this applies to non-citizens? I would think it does but with Mexico you never know. If it is legal to have and use drugs in Mexico maybe we will see a migration of our drug addicts to Mexico~ ha ha that would be poetic justice.
Before all you ‘moral authoritarians’ go off the deep end, consider this.
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal:
Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies
“...more than seven years have now elapsed since enactment of Portugal’s decriminalization system, there are ample data enabling its effects to be assessed.
...none of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for “drug tourists” — has occurred.”
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
Here’s the full 38 page report from the Cato Institute:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf
bfl. btw, great pics.
Wow, what is that picture of?
Mexico, libertarian paradise.
Par for the course.
UNREAL.
now just as in europe, they will lose a generation to drug abuse.
Instead of taking the battle head on and stopping it, they act like a parent who catches their kids smoking then just buy cigarettes for them
“There’s just one thing left to do.”
“...Tijuana roadtrip!”
Counterfeit [Michigan Cigarette] Tax Stamps
California Schemin': Cigarette Tax Evasion and Crime In the Golden State
...Maybe if Mexico starts taxing these drugs, they’ll get out of debt. Sh!t, they,re already stoned! Be too bad for the drug lords, they can do business, it just won’t be so lucrative...
...Look on the bright side. Maybe folks will stay, for what ever reasons. And, if yer so against druggies, maybe they’ll move south, and get out of the neighborhood...
...Should have been done long ago. I’m actually warming up to the idea myself...
If the kid wants to smoke, he can find a lackadaisical convenience store owner and buy a pack of smokes, instead of having to descend into the underworld of violent mafia crime which controls the illegal drug trade.
If a convenience store owner sells smokes to underage kids too often, he can lose his license, thus creating a strong incentive NOT to sell the smokes to the kids, an incentive which the violent mafia drug dealers don't have.
Surveys have indicated that high schoolers find it much easier to buy pot than to buy tobacco or alcohol.
"Taking the battle head on" thus far has meant acting like a parent who blows their kids brains out if they catch them smoking. Surely that's just as stupid as buying cigarettes for them, yes?
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