Mexico Decriminalizes Drugs for 'Personal Use'
A new law was enacted today in Mexico that allows for ‘personal use’ of narcotics with no prosecution. This means one can be stopped with small amounts of cannabis, meth, cocaine, LSD and even heroin on the streets and not be sent to the 5 star accommodations of a Mexican jail cell. Under the previous law, the possession of any amount of drugs was punishable by jail.
Mexico is rife with addicts of every stripe and this law actually comes as no surprise to Mexican law enforcement. Prior to this law, people were thrown in for the smallest amount of drugs and corrupt Mexican law enforcement demanded bribes from busted users to prevent incarceration. Mexico decided on this legislation due to the need to distinguish between the average casual user and the drug cartel that has as of now claimed over 11,000 deaths in the last 3 years.
The limits set forth by the Mexican government under the new law is 5 grams of cannabis, half a gram for cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams for LSD. If one is caught with under these amounts, drug therapy at the government’s expense will be offered.
[AP]
