Drug WarRant

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.

Mark “Can I watch while you lock the cell door?” Souder meets Gil “Words aren’t in my vocabulary” Kerlikowske.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – U.S. Representative Mark Souder and Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Gil Kerlikowske will host a roundtable discussion on Monday, August 31 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. regarding national drug control policy and strategy.

The roundtable, which is one of eight regional meetings with public health and safety leaders from the community, will take place at the Landmark Conference Centre in Fort Wayne, Indiana. […]

Media are invited to attend the last 15 minutes of the roundtable discussion, from 3:15 to 3:30 p.m. Following the event, Souder and Kerlikowske will be available to the media to discuss the event and answer questions.

Any media in Fort Wayne willing to ask some real questions?

CNN

Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday it is unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. […]

Supreme Court Justice Carlos Fayt, who at one time supported laws that make personal use of marijuana illegal, told the state-run Telam news agency that “reality” changed his mind.

Boy, that’s some Constitution they must have there, to actually protect the rights of citizens against over-reach by government. Too bad we couldn’t have something like that here…

I thought it would be interesting to get the views of readers on different models of marijuana legalization (note: this is marijuana legalization only — we’ll explore other drugs in later polls).

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The New York Times has a very strange article on Mexico’s recent partial decriminalization law: In Mexico, Ambivalence on a Drug Law

That “ambivalence” apparently stems from the New York Times talking to two people: a drug addict and a former drug addict.

“No one should live like I live,” [cocaine and heroin addict Yolanda Espinosa] said. “It’s an awful life. You do anything to satisfy your urge. You sell your body. It ruins you. I hope this won’t make more people live like this.” […]

At one Tijuana drug treatment center, a former addict was not convinced that going easy on those found with drugs was the right approach. “With everything that’s happening, we need to distance ourselves from drugs,” said the former addict, Luis Manuel Delgado, 50, who is also the center’s assistant director. “Imagine if I told the people in here that it was now legal for them to have a little. No way.”

Jailing addicts helps them reach rock bottom and decide to turn their lives around, Mr. Delgado said.

Even putting aside the fact that today’s addicts got there despite (and maybe partly because of) massively repressive laws, and that evidence shows much better ways of helping those who abuse drugs than the “rock bottom” approach, does it make sense to turn to those who have problems with a substance for advice on policy for everyone else?

I have problems with certain types of food, in that I find them hard to resist, which makes me overweight, and could cause future health problems. What if I said that anybody who eats those foods should be thrown in jail as a way to force myself to stop?

Or should a video game addict call for anyone who plays Zelda to be imprisoned? Or maybe someone with a sexual fetish should call for a complete prohibition on women’s shoes?

I’m not saying that those who abuse drugs shouldn’t be allowed to speak about drug policy — of course, everyone should. But the New York Times seems to be pretending that drug abusers are the only ones with a dog in this hunt, which is ridiculous.

Cato Unbound has another excellent discussion series on the war on drugs, this time focusing on Mexico, though naturally, the discussion ends up coming back to the U.S. time and time again as it must.

The lead essay — A U.S. War with Mexican Consequences — is by Jorge Castañeda, who was the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 2000-2003. He starts moving the discussion in an interesting direction.

If current trends toward medical decriminalization continue, if the Webb Commission in the Senate concludes that some changes in U.S. drug laws are necessary and desirable, and if the Obama administration pursues a de facto harm reduction approach without explicitly stating it, there may be a way for Mexico to extricate itself from its current, tragic predicament. Otherwise, though, there does not seem to be any accessible, affordable, and acceptable exit strategy from the current war. And Mexico will continue to pay an exorbitant cost for having plunged, with U.S. support and encouragement, into a war with no ostensible victory in sight. […]

As long as criminalization, its hypocrisy, and serious discussions of the alternatives are banned from public discussion, U.S. drug policy will remain what it has been for the past forty years: a supply-side, foreign-policy, nickel-and-dime war waged beyond U.S. borders. In the case of Mexico, for a series of specific reasons, that policy, as well as domestic Mexican political considerations, have led to a war that cannot be won and should not be waged. […]

There is no optimum solution to this conundrum. But the only conceivable alternative lies in a change in U.S. drug policy: not demand reduction, or supply interdiction, but decriminalization, harm reduction, adjusting laws to reality instead of uselessly attempting the opposite, and understanding that the last thing the United States needs is a fire next door.

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Just a quick note regarding yesterday’s book bomb for Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? by Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert…

The book got up as high as #14. Pretty darn good (not #1, but I’ve never seen a drug policy book get up that high). Today, it’s still holding in the top 100, giving it some good attention. This site helped out — 35 books were purchased going through the links on Drug WarRant.

Well, the conversion to the new site has been working quite well, and it seems people are finding it, for the most part. I’m still working on getting 301 re-directs for the pages on the old site and hope that those will be in place soon.

One great thing about the new site is that I have full control over the commenting system (I had no control on the old site). It seems to work fine for me to approve someone’s first post and then they can automatically post freely (I’m hoping that first approval requirement isn’t putting anyone off). It’s part of the game of fending off the inevitable hordes of spammers (and they have found the new site).

You can follow along with the spam scorecard at the bottom of the right column. Akismet is a very powerful system that quarantines anything it thinks is spam and it does a pretty good job. Occasionally a real post (usually with lots of links) will get caught up, but I can always rescue it out of the spam folder before it gets deleted and manually approve it. The spam techniques are quite fascinating. Some are just massive long lists of links — others are more subtle in an attempt to get past spam filters. The ones I love are those that claim to be wanting to start a conversation, usually in the most broken English imaginable (perhaps using random word generators? or really bad translators?), such as…

How ar You?

Nice sickly out of the closet there. At least here where I am at.

Other than that my facvorite movie is playing tonight, I don’t recollect what to forgive as I am pretty chic to this.
Entertain allow in me distinguish how to proceed.

So yearn .. til late then.

How can I delete such moving poetry?

Eric Sterling has mocked up a Personal Marijuana License Application (pdf). Interesting exercise.

Man gets three months in jail for possession of breath mints. Yeah, I’d sue, too.

World’s First Cocaine Bar in Bolivia.

“Tonight we have two types of cocaine; normal for 100 Bolivianos a gram, and strong cocaine for 150 [Bolivianos] a gram.” The waiter has just finished taking our drink order of two rum-and-Cokes here in La Paz, Bolivia, and as everybody in this bar knows, he is now offering the main course.

Illinois: New law aims to fund drug investigations

Convicted drug dealers will help pay for the cost of anti-drug investigation under legislation approved by Gov. Pat Quinn. The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, and state Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, will levy a $25 fine on those convicted of drug offenses.

The money will go toward local drug task forces, some of which saw reduced federal funding last year.

Just what we need. More incentive for drug task forces to go after the little guy.

Colorado juror: Medical Marijuana Case a Waste of Resources

Drug-Testing Firm Latest Specimen of Tough Times

Globallab Solutions of Charlotte Is Handing Out Far Fewer Test Cups These Days, Thanks to the Hiring Drought. […]

“When you opened the doors at 8:30, you’d have five or 10 people waiting,” said Sullivan, who runs the nine-employee company with his wife. “And then, a steady flow all day long.”

These days, it’s more like a trickle. […]

He says business has been in the toilet since October, and he’s seen no recent signs of an uptick.

I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin for them.

DrugSense Weekly – a weekly review of the most interesting or relevant articles in the press and on the web related to drug policy reform.

Drug War Chronicle – weekly update of drug war news and analysis from Stop the Drug War.org.

This was tried in 2006, but the U.S. objected and it didn’t pass. But now it’s the law

Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory — although the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance. […]

“This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty … for a practice that was already in place,” Espino del Castillo said. […]

The maximum amount of marijuana considered to be for “personal use” under the new law is 5 grams — the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is a half gram for cocaine, the equivalent of about 4 “lines.” For other drugs, the limits are 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD.

This is a useful step, but a very small one. Of course, it won’t have any impact on the cartels or the violence in any way. It is interesting that the U.S. has not seen fit to throw a fit about it.

Update: New York Times headline writer doesn’t get it. Their headline for the AP article: Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession. Um, no. If you’re mandated to attend treatment after being caught the third time with something, it’s not really legal, is it? And possession isn’t even really decriminalized if what you possess happens to be more than 5 grams of pot or more than .015 milligrams of LSD (how do you even measure that?)

Drug WarRant reader Chris found something interesting on the editorial page of a San Franciso newspaper from August 30, 1910 (full page available here as a pdf).

The paper was urging the municipal authorities to use their best efforts to “stop the use of narcotic poisons.” Their description of the problem in the editorial is fascinating:

San Francisco’s municipal authorities should use their best efforts in aid of the campaign to stop the use of narcotic poisons, which, notwithstanding severely repressive legislation, does not seem to diminish.

Lesson #1: Even “severely repressive legislation” has no impact on drug use.

The use of these injurious and demoralizing drugs does not appear to have been checked in any effective way.

Lesson #1 is re-stated.

The state association of pharmacists has been using its utmost endeavors to limit the sale of narcotics, and while it has done much to prevent trading in these poisons by reputable druggists, the result has chiefly been to raise up a class of illicit peddlers, who are willing, in view of the large profits, to take chances on going to jail.

Lesson #2: Prohibition results in a very lucrative black market which encourages people to turn to criminal activity.

Some of the victims of the narcotic habit have been driven from the large cities because of the high prices involved in law breaking, but they have continued to keep out of the clutches of the officials by going to the newer towns where things are wide open.

Lesson #3: When prohibition tries to clamp down in one area, it just pops up in another.

The military authorities at the Presidio are surprised to find the drug habit spreading among the garrison….

Lesson #4: No place is so secure that it can prevent supply from meeting demand.

Now, perhaps we shouldn’t be too hasty to fault the editors of the San Francisco Call in August of 1910 for being unable to read the clear lessons in their own words and still suggesting a continuation of prohibition efforts. Perhaps they had limited historical background upon which to gauge the effectiveness of their suggestions.

But what’s the excuse of the media 99 years later?