San Diego cops freak out over Mexico’s decriminalization of drugs

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico now has one of the world’s most liberal laws for drug users after eliminating jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and even heroin, LSD and methamphetamine.

But stunned police on the U.S. side of the border say the law contradicts President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, and some fear it could make Mexico a destination for drug-fueled spring breaks and tourism.

Tens of thousands of American college students flock to Cancun and Acapulco each year to party at beachside discos offering wet T-shirt contests and all-you-can-drink deals.

“Now they will go because they can get drugs,” said San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. “For a country that has experienced thousands of deaths from warring drug cartels for many years, it defies logic why they would pass a law that will clearly encourage drug use.”

That’s strange.  I don’t recall the police chiefs calling on Mexico to raise their drinking age from 18 to 21.  One major reason American college kids flock to Cancun is because under age 21, they can’t go to clubs and can’t easily acquire alcohol in America.  Prohibition of alcohol for adults who can vote, smoke, and join the military is what makes those adults fly to Mexico.

Decriminalization does not encourage drug use.  In the thirteen US states that have decriminalized marijuana use, the perceptions of risk and the rates of use remained virtually unchanged.  Countries that have decriminalized have lower drug use rates than the US and lower rates than before they decriminalized.

Laws don’t encourage or discourage drug use.  Drugs encourage drug use.  Drugs have their own built-in public relations and advertising campaign – when you take them, you get high.  The only things that discourages drug use are education prior to drug use and health care after drug use.

Supporters of the change point to Portugal, which removed jail terms for drug possession for personal use in 2001 and still has one of the lowest rates of cocaine use in Europe.

Foreigners caught with drugs still face arrest in Portugal, a measure to prevent drug tourism.

The same is not true for Mexico, where there is no jail time for anyone caught with roughly four marijuana cigarettes, four lines of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

That’s what concerns U.S. law enforcement at the border.

“It provides an officially sanctioned market for the consumption of the world’s most dangerous drugs,” San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said. “For the people of San Diego the risk is direct and lethal. There are those who will drive to Mexico to use drugs and return to the U.S. under their influence.”

So you’re telling us that someone who could easily score pot, coke, heroin, meth, or LSD right in downtown San Diego is instead going to get a passport, drive to Tijuana, try to find a dealer, avoid cartel violence, score some drugs, get really high, and drive back across the heavily-fortified cop-laden inspection-ridden US border?  Wow, Reefer Madness is so much more mind-altering than anything Mexico decriminalized.