Mexican Politicians are Smarter than as Stupid as American Politicians

Mexico has just passed a bill decriminalizing the possession of "personal-use" quantities of all recreational drugs.

5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin or 500 milligrams of cocaine, 2.2 pounds of peyote, 2 pills of ecstasy, MDA, LSD and methamphatime were all mentioned.

This is golden opportunity to prove to the world that decriminalization is far more intelligent a policy than prohibition, but I'm scared shitless that it is going to get fucked up by any of a number of mechanisms.

First of all, our government can't be happy about this, and I'm sure they will do whatever they can to make sure the Mexican president doesn't sign the bill in to law, and if the president does sign it into law, the US will try to put pressure on Mexico to have the law repealed. We'll need to keep our eyes open to be sure we know what the US government is doing on this front and be sure we apply pressure as needed, to ensure Mexico's new bill becomes a law and stays that way.

Second of all, American drug tourism to Mexico is going to increase, for certain. I fear that a few people are going to go down there and flip out on meth and start acting like irresponsible assholes, annoying just enough of the voting Mexican population to re-instate prohibition. This golden opportunity could easily be abused and squandered, and if it is, it will set the decriminalization movement in this country back by decades. All the DEA and the ONDCP (office of national drug control policy) will have to say is, "decriminalzation in America? Are you crazy, don't you know what happened in Mexico?" And they will largely be right.

I can also imagine that the ONDCP and the DEA will be finding sneaky ways to encourage certain annoying, irresponsible, American assholes to go to Mexico to use drugs, just to piss off Mexican voters. Those of us who are anti-prohibition in this country need to organize a massive public education project aimed at Americans thinking about going to Mexico to use drugs. we need to make it clear to Americans that they need to respect this new Mexican law and be responsible drug users, as you would be if you were a guest in any of your friends' homes.

As I said, I'm scared that this will get screwed up. Mexico has done a very bold and special thing, and the world will be looking to them to see how thier experiment turns out. Let's make sure it turns out for the best.

Update:

Fox news has the total quatities allowable for the newly decriminalized drugs. This is a good step for Mexico, but in real-world terms, these are tiny amounts, even for personal use.

— opium (raw, to be smoked) 5 grams
— heroin, 25 mg
— marijuana 5 grams
— cocaine 500 mg
— LSD .015 mg
— MDA 200 mg
— MDMA (Ecstasy) 200 mg
— mescaline: 1 g
— peyote: 1 kg
— psilocybin (concentrate, pure, active ingredient) 100 mg
— hallucinogenic mushrooms (raw, off the farm): 250 mg
— amphetamines: 100 mg
— dexamphetamines: 40 mg
— Phencyclidine (PCP, or Angel Dust) 7 mg
— methamphetamines: 200 mg
— Nalbuphine (synthetic opiate): 10 mg

Update2: Under US pressure, Mexican President reverses position, now says will not sign bill into law.