Police officers search residents for drugs in the Zona Norte of Tijuana, Mexico, in March. Photo by Guillermo Arias, from the Denver Post's excellent series.
Word comes today that Mexico, plagued by drug gang wars that have left more than 11,000 dead and verged into civil collapse, has legalized drugs for personal use:
MEXICO CITY — 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.
"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.
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.
Such things were, of course, completely unknown before.
"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."
Enacted last week, the Mexican law is part of a growing trend across Latin America to treat drug use as a public health problem and make room in overcrowded prisons for violent traffickers rather than small-time users.
Brazil and Uruguay have already eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use, although possession is still considered a crime in Brazil. Argentina's Supreme Court ruled out prison for pot possession on Tuesday and officials say they plan to propose a law keeping drug consumers out of the justice system.
Colombia has decriminalized marijuana and cocaine for personal use, but kept penalties for other drugs.
Well no, Chief Lansdowne, it actually makes perfect sense. The drug cartels plaguing Mexico have cash for weapons, mercenaries and bribes because they're selling a product that makes them a 3000 percent profit. Why is the profit that large, because criminalizing something in highly sought after as drugs results in people suddenly willing to pay a lot of money to get it.
The Mexican government has tried to suppress the cartels through military means, and almost been brought to the brink of ruin by the conflict. So someone had a brainstorm: if we decriminalize the user end of it, drugs will become less risky, then less expensive and thus the cartel warchests will go down, helping to restore government control over the country.
We'll see if it works, but these moves by Mexico and other Latin American countries mark a watershed in the slow shift away from the prohibitionist policies that have dominated drug policy for about a century.
Interestingly, they also mark the continuing death-knell of the idea that nation-states can progressively order or "improve" their populace away from their "baser" urges, which had its high point in the early 20th century adoption of alcohol Prohibition in many countries. Mexico seems to have tacitly accepted that people will do drugs, now viewing it as a health issue: something best monitored and channeled instead of forcefully crushed.
Importantly, what's compelled them to do this is pure politics: they want to maintain their state and its power.
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