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Debate Far From Over For Mexico's Drug Bill
Lawmakers vowed Monday to pass a bill that drops charges for small amounts of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs.
Danna Harman | Christian Science Monitor | 05/09/06

MEXICO CITY – Welcome to Mexico, a paradise of beaches, Mayan ruins ... and methamphetamines?

Much to the relief of many in Washington, Mexican President Vicente Fox decided last week not to sign into law a bill that would drop criminal charges for possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs.

But Mexican lawmakers pledged Monday to keep pushing for the decriminalization bill, saying they could override Mr. Fox's veto. The bill has proved controversial, sparking debate in both the US and Mexico over how best to battle drug trafficking and use.

Fox helped design the bill, and when Mexico's Congress initially passed it at the end of April, presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar called it "an advance in combating narcotics trafficking." The reason: it would free up jail space and re-focus funding and manpower currently used to crack down on small-time users on big-time smugglers and dealers who, in the past few years, have turned Mexico into a more dangerous hub in the international drug trade.

But that was before Washington began raising objections. Officials from the State Department and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) "expressed concern," says Judith Bryan, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Mexico City, that such a law would both increase local drug consumption and encourage "drug tourism."

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders called the idea "appallingly stupid," and warned that it would turn border cities like Tijuana into Mexican versions of Amsterdam, where drug "tourism" rose after marijuana was decriminalized.

Mexico's Secretary of Public Security Eduardo Medina Mora argues the bill has been sensationalized by the media. Selling drugs or using them in public would remain a crime punishable by jail, and police would still be able to take anyone found using drugs into custody for questioning, he told reporters last week.

The bill also sets stiffer penalties for trafficking and empowers Mexico's 400,000 local and state police to pursue and arrest street dealers, something that is now the responsibility only of the 21,000-strong federal police force.

Mexico would not have been the first country to decriminalize drugs. Half a dozen European countries, as well as Colombia, have passed some form of decriminalization law, says Bruce Bagley, a professor of international studies at the University of Miami. Many other countries have decriminalized marijuana. Most US states, by contrast, have much stricter laws.

"Is decriminalization the way to go? Absolutely," says Mr. Bagley. "The US method of repression does not work. Not only have we failed to reduce drug use, we have filled our jails with prisoners in for drug-related crimes, many of them non- violent - which has a devastating impact on society, especially on the poor."

Whether diverting resources from prosecuting small-time users to fighting big cartels will help combat the scourge is still unclear - but worth trying, says Jorge Chabat, a Mexican scholar who studies the illegal drug trade at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, a university in Mexico City.

"It does not make any sense to put all the addicts or small-time users in jail. Addicts are not criminals and our jails are overwhelmed - so we need to choose who we are going to fight and how," says Mr. Chabat, who says that Fox was wrongly pressured into scrapping the bill by the US.

As many of the Colombian drug cartels have been dismantled in the past decade, the hub of the drug trade has shifted to Mexico, says Chabat. The US Bureau for International Law Enforcement Affairs claims that as much as 90 percent of the cocaine sold in the US is now smuggled through Mexican territory.

"Did the fact that Colombia decriminalized drugs make it easier for them to fight the cartels? That is hard to prove," says Bagley. "But they have seen some success there that Mexico might try to follow."

Critics of decriminalization, meanwhile, argue that turning a blind eye to any drug use only leads to worse problems.

The Mexican bill would make drug use easier, says Ron Brooks, President of US National Narcotics Officers Association, a coalition representing over 60,000 state narcotics officers. "Your kid goes down to party for a few days over spring break and comes back strung out," says Mr. Brooks, who worries that decriminalization normalizes drug use. "We have 24,000 overdose deaths a year in the US," he notes, arguing that if the bill becomes law, there would be more.

Tom Riley, ONDCP spokesman, says the Mexican bill is contrary to the prevailing trend against drug decriminalization. "Everyone talks about the Netherlands as an example of somewhere where decriminalization has worked fine - but, in fact, they are rethinking their strategy in response to higher addiction rates," he says. "Soft drug laws lead to more use and more addiction, and no one wants that problem."

Peter Reuter, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland's Department of Criminology disagrees, arguing that there is no proof leniency affects the number of users. "Italy and Spain have moderately severe drug problems but don't stand out with the highest addiction rates or more drug-related criminality. Switzerland has a higher rate of addiction and has much more conventional policy," he says. "A study has yet to show that decriminalizing drugs has an effect on drug consumption or trafficking."

Ms. Harman is Latin America correspondent for the Monitor and USA Today.

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Buzzby

Drug tourism has proven to be both profitable and, for the most part, problem-free. If you want to attract tourists you have to offer them something they can't get at home, like legal party drugs.


This would assume that little Johnny couldn't get the same drugs at home, an assertion that is patently false. As long as there is prohibition, drug distribution is in the hands of criminals who will sell anything to anybody.


Most of those deaths are suicides and most of them are the result of overdoses of prescription drugs. If they were really interested in limiting deaths from drugs they'd be working on criminalizing tobacco (450,000/yr.) and alcohol (100,000/yr.). Marijuana is non-toxic. If they were legal, currently illicit drugs would be sold in known potencies and dosages. A major cause of drug overdoses is street drugs that aren't stepped on as much as the user is used to.


The only reason the Netherlands is talking about recriminalizing drugs is that they've acquired a new conservative government, not any problem with drugs. There is no proof that legalizing marijuana leads to hard drug use.

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Bombi

I must say i cannot think of one major problem that decriminalization would incite in the US that either isnt already a problem or that would even measure up to the social and economic benefits of decriminalization. in terms of cannibus, the US could use a new cash cow that incorporates this countries dying agricultural network of farmers looking for the money to buy out developers. the industry associated with growing "pot" would create thousands of jobs, a renewed sense of agricultural worth country-wide, and quite a hefty sum of money for the federal reserve to pay back that mammoth debt we seem to have racked up. drug dealers, needless to say, would find themselves in the unemployment line in neighborhoods that they used to own with violence and fear. buzzby referred to this nations other addictions, nicotine and alcohol, and their rate of death year to year, not their rate of addiction which in not only unboubtably larger than the death rate but also two of the most physically severe in the stages of withdrawl.
this, by the way, was written by a red blooded republican wondering what in the hell the world is waiting for.

Little Nicky

Mexico isn't going to legalize drugs. GW and the DEA put Fox in his place real quick.

TheNewGuy

You sound like you would like the Libertarian party. You should check out thier website and see what they're all about.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

 

Ieppie

Kamer voor proef met legale wietteelt
Van onze verslaggevers

DEN HAAG/EINDHOVEN - Een meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer wil dat er een experiment komt met legale wietteelt. Een halfjaar geleden wees een kleine meerderheid van CDA, VVD, ChristenUnie en SGP dit nog af, maar de liberalen zijn van mening veranderd, bleek woensdag tijdens een overleg in de Kamer.

Die koerswijziging betekent een doorbraak in het softdrugsbeleid. De verkoop van wiet in coffeeshops wordt al jaren toegestaan, maar ten aanzien van de teelt en inkoop van wiet was zo’n gedoogbeleid tot nu toe onbespreekbaar.

In 2000 nam een Kamermeerderheid een voorstel aan om de productie van softdrugs te legaliseren, maar het kabinet-Kok II voerde deze motie niet uit omdat bij de stemming Kamerleden hadden ontbroken die daartegen waren. Coffeeshops betrekken hun waar nu van criminelen en thuiskwekers.

PvdA, VVD, D66 en GroenLinks noemden Amsterdam en Maastricht als eventuele steden om een experiment te beginnen. Onduidelijk is hoe de proef eruit gaat zien. Al deze partijen hebben hun eigen variant op tafel gelegd. De ministers Donner (Justitie) en Remkes (Binnenlandse Zaken) zijn tegen omdat internationale verdragen dit niet zouden toestaan.

Burgemeester Leers van Maastricht, die zich ontpopte als pleitbezorger voor een experiment met legale wietteelt, sprak gisteren van ‘zeer verheugend nieuws’.

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This means that they are thinking about the option to legalize weed growing,
Last month they wanted to crimanlize weed again, because they thought that the weed had become to strong ( THC ) , so they did a test on 24 people for 6 months , but they came to the cunclussion that it didnt damage that much. So it stays legal , and now they will hopefully legalize the growing ( more than 5 plants ).