EL PASO — South-West city Rep. Beto O’Rourke has been in the hot seat since he successfully lobbied the rest of City Council to approve a resolution that included an amendment that asked for an open and honest debate on the legalization of narcotics.

The resolution by the Border Relations Committee called for federal intervention to quell the crime wave in Juárez that claimed 1,600 lives in 2008. O’Rourke added the part of a debate on legalizing narcotics, the rest of council agreed with him but Mayor John Cook vetoed it.

After making national headlines, being on the losing end of the veto and taking on a congressman, O’Rourke discussed the interesting week-and-a-half he has had.

Q All city representatives said they received a lot of calls and e-mails on this issue. Can you share some of the feedback you received?

A Right off the bat most of my correspondence was split 50/50 pro and con. Later on, I got more 70 percent pro and 30 percent con. Someone at my Monday morning breakfast meeting said that when they first read the headline he wondered what I and the rest of City Council were doing. But that then, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that we were right. That all options needed to be on the table.

Q Is it your belief that El Paso would have lost federal and state funds if the veto had been reversed on Tuesday?

A The honest answer is I don’t know. And part of why I don’t know is because the congressman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) and his office and the state House delegation offered no specifics or facts. In fact, what they did offer was speculative. It’s speculation. There is no specific threat, no specific dollar amount or no specific project that is in peril. 

via Rep. Beto O’Rourke: 70% now back drug legalization resolution – El Paso Times.

The American People are ready to talk about legalization.  Every call for issues to discuss through Change.gov and Change.org has seen marijuana law reform rise to the top of the list, over concerns with the economy, foreign policy, the environment, and war.  It is not because marijuana law reform is more important than those issues, it is because those issues are at least allowed to be talked about.  

Americans recognize the fundamental unfairness and unAmericanness of silencing any discussion on this issue.  Americans have recognized that not only has the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs failed to stop any American who wants to use drugs from doing so, but that it has wasted billions of dollars, ruined millions of lives, and created the unintended harmful consequences resulting in the erosion of our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 14th Amendment rights, America as the world’s largest prison state, and the creation of needless violence and despair.

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The city of El Paso buckled to unusually explicit federal government pressure Tuesday and withdrew a call for a national debate on ending drug prohibition.

Last Tuesday, the El Paso city council voted 8-0 to express solidarity with its sister city in Mexico, Juarez, which has seen its murder rate double this year alone as the Mexican government has waged war on powerful drug cartels. To slow that violence, the resolution called for “an honest, open national debate on ending the prohibition of narcotics.”

That was enough to get Washington’s attention.

Mayor John Cook vetoed the resolution and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, lobbied each councilmember, making it clear that if the resolution calling for a debate passed, El Paso would risk losing money in the upcoming stimulus legislation. Five Texas House representatives made the same threat.

“Funding for local law enforcement efforts and other important programs to our community are likely being put in jeopardy,” lawmakers warned in a letter to the city, “especially during a time when state resources are scarce.”

Four members of the council switched their votes and supported the veto; three of them publicly cited the funding threat as the reason for backing down.

via El Paso, Texas, Calls On Congress To Debate Drug Legalization: Dems Refuse.

What is the feeling that goes through your mind when you read that our federal government is openly blackmailing local governments to shut up about even discussing legalization of marijuana?  In the piece, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, who represents the Texas district that contains El Paso in Congress, said, “Please let the mayor’s veto stand and put this behind us. We’ve got huge issues that are facing us as a Congress,” as if the mere mention of trying something different in this escalating drug war is going to completely derail working on the economy, fighting terrorism, fixing health care, and creating new jobs, when in fact marijuana legalization would help solve all those issues!

It’s not like we’re asking you to impeach anybody; God knows we can never again put that on the table because it will supposedly grind the country to a screeching halt.  The resolution simply called on the city to call on Congress to take a look at potentially forming a commission to study the possibility that maybe perhaps arresting our way out of a drug problem isn’t working and we ought to examine other scenarios for drug control that might include an investigation of the feasibility of considering the regulation and sale of a non-toxic mood-altering herb.

NO!  It’s like our Congress are the Knights Who Say “Ni!” and “legalization” is the one word they cannot bear to hear.

So how do you feel?  Me, I’m ecstatic.  Thrilled, actually.  When one little town in Texas calls for a conversation on the drug war and Congress immediately pulls out all stops to shut it up, that tells me the Berlin Wall of prohibition is about to come tumbling down.  Americans aren’t too fond of “Just do what you’re told” as a policy justification.  Before, the prohibitionists would engage with their silly little slippery slope arguments and trumped up statistics; now they won’t even engage the dialogue because they know they’ve lost before they open their mouths.

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KVIA.com El Paso, Las Cruces – Weather, News, Sports – Day before re-vote, mayor’s e-mail says ‘potheads’ have had sayEL PASO, Texas — City Council is poised to re-vote Tuesday on a drug war resolution that includes the controversial request for an open and honest debate on the prohibition of drugs.

Mayor John Cook quickly vetoed the resolution after city Rep. Beto O’Rourke added that request at the last minute.

Monday, an e-mail from the mayor surfaced, urging those who are against the resolution to make sure they are heard, because “the pot heads” have sent their message.

It states: “I can tell you that all the pot heads have sent their e-mails and they are encouraging the reps to stand by their decision. But why does the silent majority remain silent? We have certainly attracted attention to our city, but I don’t think the attention is positive.”

Cook told [reporters] the e-mail was private and not meant to be forwarded to others. “Specifically, I was referring to one individual who happened to write an e-mail to me saying that he’s been smoking pot for over twenty years and he thinks we should legalize marijuana in the United States … So if calling that person a pot head is insulting to him, then I apologize.”

O’Rourke had this to say about Cook’s remarks in the e-mail: “I’m sure the mayor probably didn’t mean for everyone to read this, but I was concerned that anyone who might support having a national open discussion on our best options in the drug war would be described as a pothead.”

The vote to override Mayor Cook’s veto of the resolution on the drug war in Juarez is scheduled for Tuesday.

Mayor Cook, did you ever stop to think that the people who want to at least talk about alternatives to the prohibition of drugs are the majority and aren’t being silent?  

Or is that too difficult to handle when you haven’t even mastered the difference between the plural (”all the pot heads have sent their e-mails”) and the singular (”if calling that person a pot head is insulting to him, then I apologize.”)

It is insulting, Mayor Cook, to me and to all the people who support the El Paso Council’s unanimous vote to begin a new discussion on the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, to call us “potheads”.  (I call myself a “pothead”, but that’s because I wear a 100% hemp cap with a pot leaf on it.  Literally: pot on head.)  It’s the kind of word we can use amongst ourselves with good friends (think “n-word”) but is automatically offensive when used by outsiders to describe us.

Won’t it be something if later today that council overrides his veto?  The city that started this stupid War on Drugs almost one hundred years ago could be the city that begins to end it.

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