aug28-2009

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By CYNTHIA R. FAGEN

New York Post
Aug. 23, 2009

Full story from home page 8/28/2009

Dude, you're not hallucinating.

South of the border, you won't get busted for possessing small amounts of hardcore drugs, as long as it's for personal use.

Mexico's newly minted law allows a person to own the equivalent of about five marijuana joints, four lines of cocaine, six dime bags of heroin and one hit of LSD.

It's an unusual crime-fighting approach in the war against the violent drug cartels that have cost both Mexico and the United States billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Letting the small-time drug users off the hook is a way to free up the courts, thwart corrupt Mexican cops from shaking down casual users and addicts, and instead smoke out the big drug cartels, government officials say.

But stoner beware: One toke over the line of carrying anything heftier is a federal crime punishable by a stiff jail sentence.

The Obama administration has taken a wait-and-see stance.

In April, a Zogby poll showed that 52 percent of those surveyed in the US said marijuana should be legal, taxed and regulated in this country.

The normally law-and-order Mexican government has emphasized the need to differentiate drug addicts and casual users from the violent traffickers whose turf battles have led to the deaths of more than 11,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in late 2006.

One critic, Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said the new law posed "a serious contradiction" for the government.

"If they decriminalize drugs, it could lead the army, which has been given the task of combating this, to say, 'What are we doing?' " he said.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the indictment of 10 Mexican cartel honchos for operating a multibillion dollar, coast-to-coast distribution ring here.

Among them were Joaquin Guzman Loera, Ismael Zamabada Garcia and Arturo Beltran Leyva, the top leaders of the violent Sinaloa Cartel, known as the Federation.

They're accused of distributing 200 tons of cocaine and large shipments of heroin into the United States. Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of $5.8 billion. With AP

cynthia.fagen@nypost.com




	The Narcotics Nod: Obama Gave Go-Ahead for Mexican Drug Law Written by AmericanPatrol.com THURSDAY, 27 AUGUST 2009 21:08 According to an Associated Press report, U.S. law-enforcement is concerned that young Americans will take advantage of Mexico's new law legalizing use. "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." According to the report, Mexico's move to legalize drug use was made possible when the Obama administration gave its tacit go-ahead. "The Bush administration criticized a similar bill proposed in Mexico in 2006, prompting then- President Vicente Fox to send it back to Congress. But Washington has stayed quiet this time, praising Calderon for his fight against drug cartels -- a struggle that has seen some 11,000 people killed since Calderon took office in 2006." One U.S. watchdog group claims that the Mexican drug war was set-off when the U.S. began construction fences and barriers along the Mexican border, not by actions of the Mexican government. "The Obama administration could stop drug smuggling by finishing the fence," said Glenn Spencer of American Border Patrol. "Instead it has decided to surrender to the drug cartels and sacrifice American youth on the alter of globalism."