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Mexico decriminalizes drug possession

Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday – a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle against drug traffickers.

Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexico's corruption-prone police from shaking down casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check.

"This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty," said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney general's office.

The new law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities no longer face criminal prosecution.

Espino del Castillo says, in practice, small users almost never did face charges anyway. Under the previous law, the possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts.

"We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way... because the person would claim they were an addict," he said...

The maximum amount of marijuana 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.

Thanks Bomberman and GK for sending us the news!

Posted By jamesk at 2009-08-21 11:38:10 permalink | comments
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greenfloyd. : 2009-08-30 21:45:18
Although it will have little impact on the violence it is a victory for freedom and justice. We gringos need to do the same thing, asap. Here's a link to a petition I just signed and I encourage you to do likewise if you live in the US. Let's reclaim our natural rights...
[link]
tim . : 2009-08-26 18:33:48
i have seen 5 gram joints.by not totaly legalizing drugs this wont do anything.if it was done in the us it would keep our children from becoming criminals for no damn reason and would be a good thing.how many cops do we need...honestly.how many more jails do we need.i think we have to many.why is this you may ask.they make to much damn money puttin peaple in jail,and on probation,with fines and poor peoples money padding judges and there cronies wallets.a 1000 2000 dollars aint shit to a lawyer or judge especialy when they can just take it.its called robbery i.f your not the law
Adam. : 2009-08-22 10:37:40
Yeah I heard the numbers were incredible low, too... don't you need micrograms, not nanograms, to get high on acid? Like, 3,000 times as much as they legalized? Nice one. That's million, not [i]billion[/i] (I could make a harmless joke about Mexicans not knowing the difference, but some people still think I am above that. :-)

But Vicente Fox tried to do the same thing, yet without the limitations. It's the reason he was kicked out of office by "Global (read: American) political pressure and replaced with friend of Washington, Felipe Calderon.

GK. : 2009-08-22 01:28:05
When I read the article the first time I hadn't noticed that 0.015mg was 15ug. Wow. Even funnier. This may be significant policy because a country neighboring the US "decriminalized" any quantity of essentially any drug and this is in direct opposition to our imperialistic imposition of moralistic laws. However, the reality is that this does next to nothing to solve crime. For as long as cartels have existed in Mexico, the Mexican judicial system has been overloaded with non-violent drug offenses. Prosecuting addicts has been of low priority for many years, whereas US courts would have incarcerated a greater percentage for no rational reason. The quantities of all the drugs but marijuana are absurd and make no difference if taken literally by prosecuters, which previous de facto policies make me doubt. Forty milligrams of meth is just less than a large, addict sized hit. Although a full dose of pure heroin is around 15mg, this is rare and two daily doses of street heroin are almost certainly more than 50mg. Personally, I find it ironic that this is breakthrough policy since it changes nothing. But people are easily swept up in this political garbage and it will undoubtedly have at least some small effect in the US, if only as rhetoric to be spouted by democrat pundits once the first shoddy statistics are collected.
Sergio. : 2009-08-21 19:25:55
Haga Jack, i was about to say the same thing. Isn't 15 mics of acid seems very harmless indeed
Mateo. : 2009-08-21 16:01:17
so now that they have more money to spend on shutting down cartels instead of their customers we'll finally see some real change...HA!, not likely...those same police are still having theyre families threatened by the cartels, so instead of just legalizing their main exports(instantly shutting down most cartels) they'll maintain the whole severed head found in the middle of a intersection with the testicles neatly placed in the mouth...honestly, fucken tragic...
jack white. : 2009-08-21 14:26:35
They must roll the big in Mexico if you only get four joints out of 5 grams!!
john. : 2009-08-21 13:48:55
awesome

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