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VP Biden Visiting Latin America Amid Drug Legalization Debate

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on March 3, 2012 Global, Legislation, News

Vice President Joe Biden will get an earful from Latin American presidents who are weary of the failed War On Drugs

Vice President Joe Biden is heading to Mexico and Honduras on Sunday in the midst of rapidly escalating demands by Latin American leaders that legalization should be included among the options for reducing drug-related violence, crime and mayhem.

The presidents of Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Mexico, all struggling to stem the violence associated with a failing Drug War, have said in recent weeks they’d like to have a discussion on legalizing drugs, reports Martha Mendoza of The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru already allow the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use, and the leaders of Brazil and Colombia are discussing alternatives to jailing drug users.

“U.S. government officials are worried because the smartest among them know that the current strategy, both domestically and internationally, cannot be defended on economic, scientific or ethical grounds,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

Mexico Nervous As California Votes On Legalizing Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on September 10, 2010 Global, News

Photo: AP

Mexican soldier caqrries marijuana plants seized near Aguililla,

To embattled government officials in Mexico, where armed soldiers patrol the streets and more than 500 people have died in cartel-related violence just this year, marijuana seems inextricably linked to the enrichment of death-dealing drug bosses who earn huge profits smuggling the illicit weed north.

“Marijuana arrives in the United States soaked with the blood of Tijuana residents,” said Mayor Jorge Ramos, whose police department lost 45 officers to “drug violence” in recent years, report Nick Miroff and William Booth of the Washington Post.

But across the border in California, cannabis has a very different reputation — that of a healing herb. After the Obama Administration said it would not prioritize the prosecution of patients and providers who were abiding by state medical marijuana laws, about 100 dispensaries opened in San Diego alone in the past year.

Mexico’s Former President: Legalize Drugs Now

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on August 9, 2010 Global, News

Photo: Brian Kersey/UPI

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox: “We should consider legalizing the production, distribution and sale of drugs”

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox is joining the chorus of those urging his successor, President Felipe Calderon, to legalize drugs in Mexico, saying that could could help break the economic power of the country’s illegal drug cartels.

The comments, posted Sunday on Fox’s blog, came less than a week after Calderon agreed to open the door to discussions about the legalization of drugs. Calderon, however, stressed that he remained opposed to the idea, reports E. Eduardo Castillo of The Associated Press.

“We should consider legalizing the production, distribution and sale of drugs,” said Fox, who served as president from 2000 to 2006 and is a member of President Calderon’s conservative National Action Party. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.”

“Legalizing in this sense does not mean drugs are good and don’t harm those who consume then,” he wrote. “Rather we should look at it as a strategy to strike at and break the economic structure that allows gangs to generate huge profits in their trade, which feeds corruption and increases their areas of power.”

Florida Panel Touts ‘Dangers’ Of Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on June 10, 2010 Medical, News

Graphic: Teensavers.com

A panel of self-styled “marijuana experts” threw a real scare into addiction counselors Wednesday, as they described the alleged “dangers of medical marijuana” using their time honored tactics of distortion, misinformation, propaganda, thinly veiled hysteria, fear tactics, and outright lies.

The 9th Annual Conference on Addictive Disorders at the Harborside Event Center in Fort Myers, Florida, brought together substance abuse counselors in workshops on mental health treatment, gambling compulsion, domestic violence and the use of prescription drugs, reports McKenzie Cassidy at the Cape Coral Daily Breeze.

And long-time, rabid anti-drug zealot Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation (formerly the notoriously abusive Straight Inc.) and the St. Petersburg-based Save Our Society From Drugs lobbying group (along with 100+ other subsidiary groups, thus giving the illusion of “consensus”), was in fine form, sharing her irrational pot phobia with the sympathetic, well-heeled crowd.

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