The term “legalization of drugs” often invokes sharp responses and harsh denunciations from legal communities and political parties throughout the world. Such rebukes occurred in considerable form in 2001 when the Canadian legislature approved specific regulations allowing the use of marijuana by people with serious illness. Critics of the measure have since repeatedly voiced concerns that the regulation would ease restrictions, thereby permitting individuals who are not suffering from a degenerative illness to more readily acquire narcotics. Similar responses have been forthcoming from many camps within both the United States and Mexico concerning a recent bill approved by Mexico’s Congress that legalizes drug possession for personal use, whereby possessing small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and/or ecstasy would no longer be punishable by imprisonment.
Such a bill conjures up images of a drug user’s utopia where anyone can travel to Mexico and engage in illicit behavior, indulging their harmful addictions. Rather, the bill is attempting to both address deficiencies within the Mexican legal system and curtail the escalating drug war that is flourishing throughout Mexico. Under the bill, people would be allowed to possess 2.2 pounds of peyote, up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana, and 0.5 grams of cocaine.
However, in addition to the legalization of specific quantities of narcotics for consumption, the bill also stiffens penalties for trafficking and possessing drugs by government employees or near schools. Further, all sales of these drugs will remain illegal. The continuation of the legal provision, therefore, seems effectively to limit the ability of individuals to acquire legal narcotics for personal consumption. More importantly, the bill will target the common street-corner drug pusher and will limit the amount of discretion Mexican judges will have when deciding an adequate punishment for individuals arrested for possessing illegal quantities or selling those drugs.
Previously, Mexican law allowed judges to determine if individuals caught with drugs were drug addicts and unable to control their addiction. In such an occurrence, the judge could drop the charges. However, corruption plagues the judiciary branch in Mexico, and judges and prosecutors were often bribed for lenient sentences. The bill will remove the discretionary ability of judges and prosecutors, ensuring an equal and standard approach toward individuals who break the law.
Although legalization of specific quantities of narcotics has prompted opponents of the bill to state that US citizens will seek to travel to Mexico so as to indulge their addictions, US Embassy personnel continue to warn against this belief. Penalties remain severe for individuals found surpassing legal limits. Legalization should not be viewed as an open invitation for US drug addicts. In combination with ongoing enforcement activities by Mexican authorities, US citizens traveling to Mexico for such purposes may also be targeted for petty criminal activity.
The rampant and escalating levels of violence perpetrated by Mexican drug cartels is often the product of low level narco-runners and traffickers staking claims on specific locations in Mexican cities. Although Mexican law enforcement personnel have expressed their contempt with the new law, citing contradictions in policy, experts in the US, including Ana Maria Salazar, a former Pentagon anti-drug official, believe the law will make it easier to convict street-corner drug pushers and apprehend and prosecute small groups of drug smugglers. The law represents a radical approach to the war on drugs and could prove to be an effective means of isolating and eventually eliminating the narcotic elements of the Mexican state.
