Mexico gives up, decides to get high. San Diego mayor gets mad. President Bush says nothing. Now all those good-people-just-looking-for-a-job will also be looking for their next high. And where, oh where, will they pack that bong on their very dangerous trek across the desert?
Or, as Vicente Fox sees it, peasants are so much more easily handled when they’re A) America’s problem or B) high as a kite.
UPDATE 5/4:
Whaddya know, Fox has reversed himself and has not signed the bill. Instead, after pressure from the U.S., he has sent it back to the Mexican Congress. The change he wants? Change the word “consumer” meaning anyone with drugs wouldn’t be prosecuted to “addict” meaning only those who really need to get off drugs will be allowed to stay on them. The Mexican Spanish Elite mentality at work. Aren’t you impressed?
You mean all we have to do to stem the tide of illegal immigration is get our esaay’s high.
If you miss my bloging for a while it’s because I’m busy on EBay looking for grow lights and an irrigation system.
I wouldn’t presume to suggest that I know how to fight the drug war. I’ve got some sympathy for the argument that we should treat drug abuse as a health concern rather than a legal transgression, just like we treat obesity. Or maybe as a personal moral transgression, like adultery, which we disapprove of but don’t jail people for. I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem right to shrug as people destroy themselves; on the other hand, does it help to clog up the criminal justice system with such people? News stories like this again raise the question in my mind of whether we should be re-thinking our own approach. The battle we need to win is not in the streets but in our own heads. I’m sorry if that sounds touchy-feely. I’m just broadly speculating and not proposing anything. The devil is in the details, and the details are elusive.
I’m still trying to get my mind around the idea of what would constitute a small personal-use stash of meth. I’m generally libertarian about drugs – ecstasy is a valuable drug that was used to good effect in psychotherapy & PTSD, but almost can’t be studied now by researchers because it’s a Schedule One drug – but as a homo living in the Bay Area, I can only think of one person I know who uses crystal occasionally & in moderation. It’s a toboggan to nowhere.
But I don’t buy the whole addiction construct, which places the emphasis on the substance, rather than the psyche of the user. Gay men have loads of issues they’d rather not deal with, & crystal is a very effective way of doing that
As Thomas Jefferson put it: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It looks like the tree in Mexico needs refreshing with the blood of the corrupt and racist govenment officals from top to bottom in the Fox administration.
That update really made me laugh! So now if any “consumer” is stopped they’ll suddenly become an “addict.”