Pubdate: Tue, 25 Aug 2009
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2009 New Zealand Herald
Contact:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/300
Author: David Usborne
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HEROIN NOW LEGAL IN SMALL DOSES

Mexico - A controversial new law decriminalising the possession of 
small amounts of heroin, marijuana, cocaine and other illicit 
substances has quietly slipped on to the statute books in Mexico.

Under the new rules there will be no action taken against those 
carrying up to a half-gramme of cocaine, 40 grammes of marijuana or 
50 milligrammes of heroin.

Limits are set for other drugs, including LSD and methamphetamine. 
People found in possession of these small amounts will be encouraged 
to attend a drug treatment programme.

The move provoked little fuss either in Mexico itself or across the 
border in the US, which in the past has resisted anything that might 
be seen as going soft on drugs.

"This is not legalisation. This is regulating the issue," insisted 
Bernardo Espino del Castillo, the Attorney General, in an attempt to 
play down the significance of the new measure.

The government made sure there was no fanfare or grand announcement 
after the law was finally passed at the end of last week.

Mexico is enmeshed in a violent war with drugs cartels and 
traffickers that has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the past 
two-and-a-half years, and it is keen to explore any new approach that 
might ease the situation.

Officials believe that the law will ease pressure on the country's 
overcrowded prisons and allow police to concentrate on dealers and smugglers.

The reform is also intended to help by taking away from ordinary 
police officers the discretion on whether to arrest and possibly 
prosecute drug users n a prerogative that has encouraged shakedowns 
of citizens and corruption.

However, it is also with at least half an eye towards America that 
the law has been signed.

Many in Mexico believe that their northern neighbour would do well to 
reassess its own ultra-prohibitionist approach to drug use, 
particularly concerning marijuana, sales of which provide roughly 
two-thirds of the cartels' profits.

Some US states have moved to decriminalise the possession of small 
quantities of marijuana but not other drugs.

At the same time, arrests for marijuana possession set a new record 
of about 800,000 last year.

With Barack Obama in the White House, the atmospherics have been changing.

Earlier this year, the US said that it shared some of the blame for 
Mexico's drug problems because it was the main point of consumption.

Observers also note that when the Mexican Congress approved a similar 
law several years ago, the then president, Vicente Fox, declined to 
sign it because of stiff pressure from the Bush administration in Washington.

This time around, there was no such intervention from the US, which 
so far has had little to say about it officially.

- - THE INDEPENDENT
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