Mexico talking decriminalization of pot
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 12:05AM 
Economist story.
Felipe Calderon, president of Mexico, floating the idea that enough is enough. His war on drugs (truly a war) has come at the cost of 28,000 lives in four years--with no let-up in sight.
We freak out, as a nation, over 4,000 troop deaths over twice the period, and we're three times the population of Mexico. So fair to expect far more of a political freak-out on their side, which has remained really quite reasonable throughout.
So I guess I don't see why, as The Economist says, that "it came as a surprise when on August 3rd Mr. Calderon called for a debate on whether to legalise drugs."
If we had similar numbers of per-capita deaths, we'd be talking 84,000 deaths since 2006, or roughly 15 times what we've lost in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002. If we were suffering such losses, dontcha think we'd be talking decriminalization a lot more than we are now. Hell, even with our relatively marginal losses, 30 out of 50 US states have passed or are considering medical pot/decriminalization bills. So why such a surprise that mellow Mexico calls for just a debate?
Calderon's predecessor, Vincente Fox, has already called for legalization in response. If California soon votes to legalize and tax pot sales to adults, then expect Mexico to more ahead, I say.
Reader Comments (3)
It doesn't matter if Mexico decriminalizes or legalizes, its the American appetite for weed that is causing the problems.
If both California and Mexico stop drug prohibition, Mexico's problems change for the better over night. Decriminalization is better than nothing, but you can really only have effective control with legalization, of all drugs. If I could effectively stop that recreational drug shit, I would, but it is at the cost of not having a "free society," and I don't want to do that. I think most people personally, when they see more harm than good being done, will slowly understand this reality.
If I have put up with, say British American Tobacco selling drugs like marijuana, the situation is much better than some hell bound mafia boss in Mexico doing so.
We are surprised because many in the United States stupidly believe that marijuana is a meaningfully harmful substance (while far more toxic ethyl alcohol is viewed as a relatively benign national pastime).