The Depths of Reporting

The Associated Press reaches a new low with this one: Mexico’s new drug use law worries US police

Mexico now has one of the world’s most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

Really? One of the world’s most liberal laws for drug users? Merely because an extremely tiny amount of possession has been decriminalized (not legalized) to reflect actual practice?

“All right!” said a grinning Ivan Rojas, a rail-thin 20-year-old addict who endured police harassment during the decade he has spent sleeping in Mexico City’s gritty streets and subway stations.

Oh yeah, that’s a good interview choice.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

“Now they will go because they can get drugs,” said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. “For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use.”

Yep, the “worries US Police” and “stunned police” are… San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne and San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. This is San Diego, where the municipal authorities fought all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost) to avoid obeying the state’s medical marijuana law.

“It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world’s most dangerous drugs,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. “For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence.”

You’re kidding, right? Since when to Americans need to go to Mexico to have 4 joints or .015 milligrams of LSD?

Nobody from LEAP interviewed. No vast law enforcement numbers opposed to Mexico’s decrim bill.

Just a bunch of crap wrapped up with an AP byline, and disseminated in thousands of papers around the country.

Update: The News Tribune of Tacoma Washington did the right thing to this AP story. Changed the headline to read: U.S. cops fear Mexico drug law

Now that I can believe. After all, their future overtime could be in jeopardy.

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11 Responses to The Depths of Reporting

  1. DdC says:

    AP – All Propaganda

    Can you just imagine how many DEAth worrier degenerates are on their scabby knees praying for something terrible to happen, just to rush back to the status weird. Same with the stigma hurled onto sick people using Ganja. Maybe it should be “preying”. Oh big surprise the cops, rehabs, worrier whacko’s and druggists are squirming. All while 300,000 peaceful Ganja tokers gather at the Hempfest. No arrests.

    Mexico’s New Drug Law May Set an Example
    No dreadlocked revelers smoked celebratory reefers in the streets, no armies of conservatives protested, the Mexican media raised no hullabaloo.

    Mexico, Calif. Are Laboratories for New Approach
    Both California’s move toward legalization and Mexico’s experiment with decriminalization provide real-life laboratories for observing the effects of new approaches to drug use.

    NEIGHBOR FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST POT SHOP
    Chris Copley who owns a building at 1314 and 1316 Solano St., across the street from the medicinal marijuana dispensary went to City Hall on Monday and filed the complaint. “I think it is wrong,” Copley claims Prather is breaking federal laws and setting a bad example to the youth and children in the community.

    On Aug. 11 the City Council adopted an emergency ordinance prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries, collectives or cooperatives in the city for a 45-day period during which the council will be gathering information on the issue.

    American pot smoke-out

    Seattle Hempfest 2009: A Vision of the Future (excerpts)
    By Jeremiah Vandermeer, Cannabis Culture – Tuesday, August 18 2009

    Seattle Hempfest was started by a group of peace-turned-hemp activists in 1991 and has grown to include over 300,000 attendees a year, making it the largest gathering of marijuana advocates in the world. The event stretches more than a mile along Seattle’s downtown waterfront coastline at Myrtle Edwards Park for two days each summer.

    On August 15 and 16, 2009, four main stages hosted activist speakers, stand-up comedians, and musical acts of all shapes, sizes and sounds. Endless vendor’s booths offered clothing, food, books, bongs and pipes, and all the newest and oldest weedy inventions and pot paraphernalia. People young and old began to fill the park grounds shortly after 10am, and by 3pm, on both Saturday and Sunday, Hempfest was completely packed.

    Dr. Robert Melamede: “The bottom line is, cannabis is an anti-aging drug and it’s good for you. And all this nonsense about whether we should have a right to use it or not – can you imagine that we’ve got a government that’s so insane that they’ve taken a plant that’s an anti aging drug, that inhibits cancers, that inhibits arthritis and Crohn’s Disease and a million autoimmune diseases, Arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer’s Disease – all of these things are inhibited by more cannabis activity.

    Dr. Robert Melamede speaking at Hempfest 2009 youtube

  2. paul says:

    I saw that article, too, and it made me very happy. Another story about frustrated authority watching events spin out of their control. Yes!

    The article was entirely one-sided in favor of the state, which is normal for the AP. The mainstream media can’t sink fast enough for me. AP is going down, and they know it. The internet took their power to set the narrative and frame things from their point of view, and that power will never return.

  3. allan420 says:

    As always… these stories printed in your local rags are perfect LTE targets. They are like the fattest, slowest, most over-the-middle pitches we can get. Easy to rebut and easy to add a bit of mockery – both at the paper and at the drug warriors.

    As always… write those letters! And I’m sure a search of MAP’s Drugnews in the next few days will provide sources for stories to reply to as well.

  4. Buc says:

    I read that article earlier when it was on the Yahoo front page.

    As with most articles, you can tell right away how the particular AP writer feels about the drug war. I just wonder if they are fully in support of it or are out to lunch and just believe the other BS that their fellow writers write on occasion.

  5. ezrydn says:

    Mexican rules will be about the same as US rules. No smoking in public, smoke in home only, that sort of thing. Reverers are in for a big surprise when they hit the beaches with spliffs in hand. It’s NOT that liberal down here. Hell, the street cops haven’t goten word yet, according to a couple police buddies of mine.

  6. kaptinemo says:

    It just goes to show that ‘dumbing down’ affected the US journalism majors as much as it did everyone else who survived US public schools. They need to go to Al Giordano’s authentic journalism academy.

    I am seriously considering collecting instances of this kind of ‘reportage’ and naming the collection (in what should be an obvious parody of certain popular violent ‘real-life’ videos) “When lapdogs PANT!” That about describes this drivel perfectly.

  7. Nhop says:

    Fortunately, this is one instance where we have won. The same law was proposed and almost passed two years ago, when media pressures & political interference from the Bush administration ( & the same dinosaurish San Diego LEO’s) shot it down. This time the crying by the cops & medias is a little too late, the law is already in effect. My guess is that in time this strategy will be validated by studies showing its effectiveness, which will only serve as further ammunition against our prohibitionist system. Let the prohibs cry as much as they want, this is still a win for our side.

  8. BruceM says:

    What’s wrong with a country getting more tourist dollars because people go there to enjoy FREEDOMS their own country doesn’t offer?

    Also, to say “US police fear” mexico’s new drug-related freedom is such bullshit. I can’t foresee any reason why the decriminalization of extremely small, personal use quantities of drugs in Mexico would cause more drugs to be brought into America. But if that actually did happen, why would US police “fear” something that means more money and forfeiture assets for US law enforcement, higher arrest records to justify their existence, and maybe even more law enforcement jobs?

    Mock fear is so pathetic. When will people learn to see through it?

    It’s only a matter of weeks before Mexico caves in to pressure from the US and revokes their new drug freedom law. NO WAY that law stays on the books for more than 6 weeks, tops. We’ll bomb the fuck out of Mexico if necessary. Operation Mexican Freedom. Because we don’t like their new freedoms.

  9. paul says:

    BruceM:

    I disagree. I think Mexicans really, really want this decrim law and it probably does not go near far enough for most of them. They are not going to change it to please America.

    I predict a sweeping victory for the PRI in the next presidential election, with a mandate to end the Cartel War. A couple more years of violence at this level, and the Mexicans will want to do anything to stop it.

    Mexico is a proudly nationalistic country, and any perception that they are being pushed around by America is only going to strengthen their resolve. Tens of thousands of Mexicans die in the Cartel War every year, and for what? So American drug users have a harder time getting high?

    Why the Devil should Mexicans continue to die for some dumb American policy? And the longer this goes on, the dumber that policy will seem. Between the border fence, the Cartel War, and thousands of insults, big and small, Mexicans will rightly conclude that America could care less about Mexico or Mexican lives.

    And that means dumping the Cartel War and returning to the old ways of just ignoring the cartels the the corruption. Anything is better than this endless and pointless American sponsored war.

  10. BruceM says:

    The only way to end the cartel war is if either:

    1) Space aliens come down and use their antimatter beams to destroy Earth’s entire drug supply; or

    2) Mexico legalizes the sale and possession of ALL drugs in ALL amounts.

    I agree that Mexico really wants their decrim law (they’d like one that goes much further than the one just passed allowing the possession of tiny drops of certain drugs for personal use). We agree on that. I also agree that Mexicans should not continue to die and have their lives ruined for a dumb US policy (one based on racism against dark-skinned people including Mexicans). But in the same way Barack Obama is ball-lessly beholden to the Republican Party, Mexico is will hurt itself and its citizens in order to please America. They need us to give them money, give them good/free trade status, and so many other perks that come with being a partner in the war on drugs with America.

  11. Lonna says:

    hi, I didn’t know where to contact you but your layout was messed up on firefox and internet explorer. Anyways, i just suscribd to your rss.

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