Mexico and Argentina Move to Decriminalize Marijuana and Other Drugs
In the last week both Mexico and Argentina made international news by passing a law and making a major Supreme Court ruling calling for low-level drug offenders to receive treatment instead of jail.
On Friday Mexico decriminalized small amounts of drugs including heroin, cocaine and marijuana. The new law removes criminal penalties for possession of drugs considered to be for personal use -- up to five grams of marijuana (roughly three to five joints) and half a gram of cocaine, (equivalent of three to eight "lines"). The law will offer treatment instead of incarceration for people caught with small amounts of drugs for personal use. A similar decriminalization bill passed Mexico's Congress in 2006 but the Fox administration decided not to sign it, reportedly because of pressure from the United States.
"This new law is a step in the right direction toward removing criminal penalties for people who possess small amounts of drugs for their own use," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "But Mexican authorities need to avoid the temptation to arrest even more people for other low level drug offenses -- a possibility that this law allows. Mexico is trying to make smarter choices on law enforcement priorities; it's time for the United States to do the same."
Yesterday, Argentina also made news when its Supreme Court ruled out prison for marijuana possession, saying the government should go after major traffickers and provide treatment instead of jail for consumers of marijuana. Ruling in a case involving several young men caught with marijuana cigarettes in their pockets, the judges struck down a law providing for up to two years in prison for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Although the Court Order was about marijuana, most of the arguments can be made about other illicit drugs and may open the door to larger drug law reform in Argentina. While the vast majority of people who get busted with small amounts of marijuana don't need treatment, they certainly don't need a jail cell.
Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez has supported certain drug law changes, saying in July 2008, ''I don't like that an addict is condemned as if he were a criminal. The ones who need to be punished are those who sell the drug.''
"Mexico's new law to decriminalize personal possession of illicit drugs and the ruling out of Argentina yesterday are consistent with the broader trend throughout Western Europe, Canada and other parts of Latin America to stop treating drug use and possession as a criminal problem," commented Nadelmann. "But it contrasts sharply with the United States, where marijuana possession arrests top 870,000 annually -- and now represent nearly half of all drug arrests nationwide."
Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance
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When we were children we were told not to lie. We did and we were punished in some way. As we grew older we began to realize how we could manipulate the truth for our own benefit and did so until were were caught and branded a liar. If we realized that being called a liar was negative to social behavior we changed our ways.
The U.S.A. has a long history of telling lies with marijuana being a big one. Even today we hear people within the current administration continuing the lie because they have to. We provide money to other nations and require that they follow the U.S. drug enforcement policies. All along since 1937 the lies about marijuana has been the foundation of American drug policy. With the help of the internet the truth is not going to set you free, but ultimately will prove that the U.S. has lied again.
We can not continue to state that we do not torture, our most recent wars were not to protect our oil interests, Iraq was involved in 9/11 and marijuana is a harmful drug with no medical uses that needs to remain illegal. We can confess and change or we can continue to lie and be branded a liar.
Right now it looks like the rest of the world is starting to realize that America lies and American policy based on these is not the best course of action.
It's funny, in a strange way, that we're even behind developed and some third world nations..n
Good for Mexico and Argentina. When will America realize that drug prohibition belongs in the garbage can of history like lynchings and witch trials?
I suspect Obama gave the thumbs up on this one .... without having to take the calvinist heat.
This is going to really boost the Mexican economy...
What a boon to Mexico!
I"m not sure how I feel about more meth on the streets...
Heroin addicts will just find a comfortable corner to slowly kill themselves.
Pot smokers will use make it our own Amsterdam.
you can't make it an Amsterdam without being able to legally sell/trade it. They should legalize tax and regulate, make an example on this side of the atlantic. Then the American pot smokers need to fight the negative image that the govt tries to portray it as.
You cannot make it Amsterdam.
Let alone the fact you miss the Dutch mentality. Otherwise it would never have been illegal. They could not even begin to criminalise marihunan use, because people in parliament smoke it. There was a Dutch - Amsterdam Council member - dude who smoked it during council sessions. He was a member of the Kabouter Party, a hippy party that got seats in the local council elections. That could never happen in Amurriku.
A similar decriminalization bill passed Mexico's Congress in 2006 but the Fox administration decided not to sign it, reportedly because of pressure from the United States.
We are living in the belly of the beast. The United States is the most backward country in the Americas.
''I don't like that an addict is condemned as if he were a criminal."
And I don't like that a user is condemned as if he were an addict.
Not all drug users are drug abusers, and nobody is addicted to marijuana (because it's not addictive). Politicians should not be permitted to write public health policy unless they bother to go to medical school first.
or have used the drugs and thus have experience.
Oh they've all used drugs. Of this I am sure.
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