Mexico just took a huge step toward legalizing marijuana

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From the article:

Here is the part I find most intriguing. The court found in a 4 to 1 ruling that marijuana prohibition violates the “right to the free development of personality,” and this is why banning pot is unconstitutional.

I wonder where the precedent for that ruling comes from.

Anyone know Mexican law and want to tell us about this?

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Mexico, mexico… When we say ‘Think of the Children!!!’ we are posturing for political effect, not actually encouraging that sort of thing; and definitely not your children. C’mon, you’ve got our war to fight!

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Puff Puff Pass, know what I’m saying…

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I guess that that ol roach will finally be able to walk…

:musical_note: La cucaracha, la cucaracha,
      ya no puede caminar
      porque le falta, porque no tiene
      marihuana pa’ fumar.
:musical_note:

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Maybe, some day, we’ll catch up with the cockroaches.

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(Kidding. I know it’s a nickname.)

I thought the US was making good gains in that direction, as is Europe.
We can only hope that the United Kingdom catches up with the United States, Europe and Mexico soon.
It’s a simple matter of history which shows that prohibition creates gigantic, violent, wealthy cartels. The course should be clear.

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I tend to believe that the best way to fight the war on illegal drugs is to legalize most drugs.

I suppose that in Mexico, we’ll see that play out at particularly high stakes.

Good luck, mi amigos.

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I see what you did there

But true nonetheless–I would think the pressure to reverse this ruling will be huge both inside and outside Mexico. I hope they have the courage to stand their ground, especially given the absolutely appalling ills that country has had to endure as a result of US drug policy.

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I always wondered how the US government rationalized its prohibition of “vice” activities with its stated belief that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right.

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Of course, by “changing” they mean “has tried to legalize in the past but the U.S. keeps intervening.”

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IANAL but I am Mexican which should be good enough for this purpose. :smile:

In 2008, an ammendment to article 19 of the Mexican constitution added the following:

El juez ordenarĂĄ la prisiĂłn preventiva, oficiosamente, en los casos de
delincuencia organizada, homicidio doloso, violaciĂłn, secuestro, trata de personas,
delitos cometidos con medios violentos como armas y explosivos, asĂ­ como delitos
graves que determine la ley en contra de la seguridad de la naciĂłn, el libre
desarrollo de la personalidad y de la salud.

Which very loosely translates as:

“A judge will order imprisonment in cases of organized crime, homicide, rape, human trafficking , offenses committed through violent means like weapons and explosives as well as grave offenses determined by the the law against national security, the free development of personality and health.”

As you can see the wording is very vague (Though penalties are defined for some specific cases in another part of the law) and its cases like this that really establish precedents for what it means, I don’t have a link right now but I believe this was used by a trans gendered woman to be officially recognized as female a few years ago.

If somebody was to challenge this outcome they’d have to go after the vague wording in the amendment, but I think its highly unlikely at this point since it was already criticized at the outset and the only group I could think of that could organize against this is the catholic church, but they haven’t been very effective against gay marriage so I don’t think they could do much here.

Its also important to note that the outcome of this case is protection from the law for a few individuals, yet leaves them with no means for acquiring seeds which means that any plants they have must be illegal from the outset. But hey, its a start.

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Thank you!

I realize that ‘war on drugs’ is often driven in nontrivial part by distaste for those filthy junkies and their moral weakness; but I’m always a bit surprised(given that the orthodox strategy is somewhere below WWI’s ‘just march in neat rows toward the machine gun nests and never mind the barbed wire’ approach); that nobody has tried a two-pronged “prohibit and compete” strategy; just for the pleasure of actually beating the black market.

The extralegal suppliers have demonstrated extraordinary aptitude in maintaining a supply chain in the face of relentless attack; but doing so does increase their production and logistics costs(if often by impressively small amounts). How long could they stand before a legal arrangement where unofficial suppliers remained deeply illegal; but guaranteed-purity-and-potency-all-labelled-and-FDA-approved drugs were fully legal and available with ease and regularity by some relatively trivial prescription at a price just enough above cost to encourage the usual generics fabs to meet demand?

Probably wouldn’t decrease the number of drug users(you’d have to solve various other problems for that); but what a lousy market to be a criminal in…

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Xeni, it’s time to stop merely hoping and start ACTING. That’s why I support Bernie Sanders for president.

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@xeni , you mean

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Wow, that’s an excellent principle. It goes x100 for hallucinogens.

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