Mexico

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April 29, 2006, 10:32AM

Mexico May Allow Some Cocaine, Heroin Use


By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
The Houston Chronicle

MEXICO CITY — Mexicans would be allowed to possess small amounts of cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use under a bill approved by lawmakers that some worry could prove to be a lure to young Americans.

The bill now only needs President Vicente Fox's signature to become law and that does not appear to be an obstacle. His office said that decriminalizing drugs will free up police to focus on major dealers.

"This law gives police and prosecutors better legal tools to combat drug crimes that do so much damage to our youth and children," said Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar.

The Senate approved the bill Friday in the final hours of its closing session. Mexico's lower house had already endorsed the legislation.

The measure appeared to surprise U.S. officials. State Department spokeswoman Janelle Hironimus said the department was trying to get "more information" about it. One U.S. diplomat, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said "we're still studying the legislation, but any effort to decriminalize illegal drugs would not be helpful."

Some worried the law would increase drug addiction in Mexico and cause problems with the United States. Millions of American youths visit Mexico's beach resorts and border towns each year.

"A lot of Americans already come here to buy medications they can't get up there ... Just imagine, with heroin," said Ulisis Bon, a drug treatment expert in Tijuana, where heroin use is rampant.

In off-the-record chats and through their communications with U.S. officials, Mexican officials tried to depict the drug bill as a simple clarification of existing laws. But the changes are clear.

Currently, Mexican law leaves open the possibility of dropping charges against people caught with drugs if they can prove they are drug addicts and if an expert certifies they were caught with "the quantity necessary for personal use."

The new bill drops the "addict" requirement, allows "consumers" to have drugs, and sets out specific allowable quantities, which do not appear in the current law.

Those quantities are sometimes eye-popping: Mexicans would be allowed to posses 2.2 pounds of peyote, the button-sized hallucinogenic cactus used in some Indian religious ceremonies.

Police would no longer bother with possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine _ the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity.

The law lays out allowable quantities for a large array of other drugs, including LSD, MDA, MDMA (ecstasy, about two pills' worth), and amphetamines.

However the bill stiffens penalties for trafficking and possession of drugs _ even small quantities _ by government employees or near schools, and maintains criminal penalties for drug sales.

Sales of all those drugs would remain illegal under the proposed law, unlike in the Netherlands, where the sale of marijuana for medical use is legal and it can be bought with a prescription in pharmacies.

And while Dutch authorities look the other way regarding the open sale of cannabis in designated coffee shops _ something Mexican police seem unlikely to do _ the Dutch have zero tolerance for heroin and cocaine.

Sen. Miguel Angel Navarro of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party argued against the bill. "This authorizes the consumption of opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and a variety of drugs that can only be bought illicitly."

Roman Catholic Bishop Jose Guadalupe Martin Rabago, president of the Mexican Council of Bishops, also expressed concern.

"It's not by legalizing the possession or use of drugs that drug trafficking is going to be combatted," the bishop told reporters, "and that's why the government should be cautious about implementing this measure."

The law comes at a time of heightened tensions over a U.S. proposal for immigration reform, including legalization of many of America's estimated 11 million undocumented migrants.

A demonstration by thousands of Mexican workers Friday to promote union solidarity turned into a protest against America's vast influence on the nation's economy, with many protesters saying they will take part in a boycott of U.S. products next week. The proposed boycott is timed to coincide with Monday's "Day Without Immigrants" protest in the U.S., aimed at pushing Congress to approve the immigration reform.

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, said Mexico's bill removed "a huge opportunity for low-level police corruption." Mexican police often release people detained for minor drug possession, in exchange for bribes.

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Mexico's Fox to OK drug decriminalization law

May 2, 2006 — By Noel Randewich
ABC News


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's president will approve a law that decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs to concentrate on fighting violent drug gangs, the government said on Tuesday.

President Vicente Fox will not oppose the bill, passed by senators last week, presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters, despite likely tensions with the United States.

"The president is going to sign that law. There would be no objection," he said. "It appears to be a good law and an advance in combating narcotics trafficking."

Public Security Minister Eduardo Medina-Mora said Mexico's legal changes are in line with other countries and warned drug users they should not expect lenient treatment from the police if they are caught.

The approval of the legislation, passed earlier by the lower house of Congress, surprised Washington, which counts on Mexico's support in its war against gangs that move massive quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines through Mexico to U.S. consumers.

Under the federal law, police will not criminally prosecute people or hand out jail terms for possessing up to 5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, or 25 milligrams of heroin. Nor does the law penalize possession of 500 milligrams of cocaine — enough for a few lines.

The legal changes will also decriminalize the possession of limited quantities of LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, amphetamines, ecstasy and peyote — a psychotropic cactus found in Mexico's northern deserts.

<b>STILL ILLEGAL </b>

But city and state governments may pass their own misdemeanor laws against drug possession, levying fines, forcing law-breakers to spend up to 48 hours in police station holding cells or even making them accept medical treatment for substance addiction, Medina-Mora told reporters.

"International practice, including in the United States, in many cases dictates that possession of small amounts of drugs does not require a penal sanction," he said.

Hundreds of people, including many police officers, have been killed in Mexico in the past year as drug cartels battle for control of lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.

The violence has raged mostly in northern Mexico but in recent months has spread south to cities such as vacation resort Acapulco.

Medina-Mora warned that vacationing college students and other foreigners caught with even with small amounts of drugs could be breaking municipal or state misdemeanor laws and could easily be shown to the airport or the border.

Vacation cities including Cancun, Acapulco, Tijuana and Mazatlan already have their own laws against drug possession, he said.

The legislation is expected to make the rules clearer for local judges and police, who currently decide on a case-by-case basis whether people should be criminally prosecuted for possessing small quantities of drugs, often leading to corruption.

While likely to complicate relations with the U.S. government, the legislation has drawn relatively little attention from the media in Mexico, where drug use is less common than in the United States.

Medina-Mora said Fox has until September to sign the bill, but neither he nor Aguilar could say more specifically when it might be signed.

(Additional reporting by Monica Medel)

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Mexico to Extend Anti-Drug Operations

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO 12.14.06, 10:17 PM ET
Forbes

Mexico's government said Thursday it would send troops and police to root out drug smugglers in several states, expanding an offensive that began this week in one violence-plagued state where soldiers clashed with traffickers trying to protect a marijuana field.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina said raids could take place simultaneously in various states, apparently to prevent traffickers from fleeing between regions. He declined to name the states.

"The operational design in each state will be different," he said. "The war against drug trafficking is very complicated, but it is a winnable war."

He said the idea was to wrest income and turf from drug traffickers.

"This operation doesn't aim to be spectacular, it aims to be effective and the focus is on territory, recovering geographical space for the public," Medina said.

On Tuesday, some 6,500 troops and federal police rolled into Michoacan state to round up traffickers and burn marijuana and opium fields. Smugglers in the state have defied authorities with beheadings and large-scale drug production.

In the first major clash since the troops arrived, soldiers killed a suspected trafficker and wounded another Wednesday in a gunbattle in the Michoacan mountains.

The Defense Department said the soldiers were attacked by gunmen protecting a marijuana field near Aguililla, a remote farming community overrun by a drug cartel some 120 miles southwest of the state capital, Morelia. One gunman escaped.

In that raid and others in Aguililla, soldiers and police seized a dozen assault rifles, pistols, radios, a satellite phone and a press used to pack marijuana.

Michoacan's violence continued even as police set up highway checkpoints Thursday around the state capital. Javier Morales Gomez, a 28-year-old musician for the band Los Implacables del Norte, was shot to death by unidentified assailants in the town of Huetamo. Prosecutors had no immediate information on the possible motive.

There have been more than 2,000 drug-related killings across Mexico this year. Michoacan, the home state of President Felipe Calderon, has been one of the worst hit.

On Wednesday, Calderon, who took office Dec. 1, said he was assigning 10,000 soldiers and sailors to the federal police force, which is used in operations from riot control to drug interdiction. Many members of the federal police are on loan from the military.

"We must, at all cost, prevent this public safety problem from becoming a national security problem, to the extent it challenges the Mexican government," Calderon said in announcing the transfers. "This task will not be easy or quick, but the public demands results and we must act immediately."

Also Thursday, the attorney general discounted fears that the shooting death of first lady Margarita Zavala's cousin could have been a retaliation for Calderon's anti-drug campaign. Medina said there was no indication that Luis Felipe Zavala's killing was related to organized crime.

Zavala's body was found in his minivan just west of Mexico City on Tuesday - the day after Calderon announced the crackdown. Medina told reporters the timing was a coincidence.

Meanwhile, in the border city of Ciudad Juarez an alleged drug trafficker who was involved in a standoff with Texas authorities in January was shot to death inside a medical clinic, authorities said Thursday. Cesar Gandara, 30, killed Tuesday night by several gunmen wearing ski masks.

The Jan. 23 standoff strained relations between Mexico and the U.S. after Texan officials accused Mexican soldiers of being part of a group they confronted near the border. Both countries eventually concluded that no Mexican military officials had been involved.