Pubdate: Mon, 17 May 2010
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2010 El Paso Times
Contact: http://www.elpasotimes.com/townhall/ci_14227323
Website: http://www.elpasotimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/829
Author: Marty Schladen

GROUP INCLUDING 2 CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ASKS FEDS TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

EL PASO -- A group that includes two El Paso City Council members 
today is asking the federal government to legalize marijuana. The 
event is timed in anticipation of a state visit to Washington, D.C., 
Wednesday by Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

El Paso city Reps. Beto O'Rourke and Susie Byrd are helping to 
organize the event, at 1 p.m. at the base of the Paso del Norte 
Bridge, which connects El Paso to Juarez. Oscar Martinez, a Juarez 
native and history professor at the University of Arizona, will speak.

The Obama administration is about to unveil an initiative to reduce 
the demand for illegal drugs in the United States. It will include 
more money for drug treatment.

But O'Rourke also wants Obama to lead an effort to legalize, regulate 
and tax marijuana.

U.S. residents spend $8 billion to $9 billion a year on marijuana 
from Mexico, O'Rourke said. That money helps fuel a drug war that has 
taken more than 5,000 lives in Juarez since the start of 2008, O'Rourke said.

"You have the deadliest city in the world on one side of the bridge 
and the second-safest city in the U.S. on the other," O'Rourke said.

O'Rourke has twice pushed City Council resolutions calling on the 
U.S. government to reconsider its drug policy. If they had been OK'd, 
they would have been only symbolic measures.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart