Search Results: mexico/ (7)

Caravan for Peace

“Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity” to Embark from San Diego August 12 Calling for End to Drug War that Has Killed 60,000 in Mexico
Javier Sicilia and other Victims from Mexico and United States to Make 6,000-mile Journey Through 20 Cities to Honor Lives Lost to Drug War, Culminating in International Day of Action in Washington D.C.
Caravan Proposes Comprehensive Solutions to Violence: Explore Drug Regulation, End Weapons Trafficking, Prevent Money Laundering, Eliminate U.S. Military Aid, and Ensure the Safety of Migrants
On Sunday, August 12, a broad bi-national coalition of more than 100 U.S. civil society organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC), Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), Global Exchange and the Drug Policy Alliance will join the Mexican Movement for Peace with Justice & Dignity (MPJD) to embark on the “Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity” across the United States. 
The Caravan will be led by renowned Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who emerged as a leader of the MPJD after his son Juan Francisco was killed in senseless prohibition-related violence last year, together with  family members of Mexican victims of the drug war. They will unite with victims and supporters from the United States for a month-long voyage across the continental United States.

Americas Program
Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity set off from San Diego on August 12 to traverse the country with a message: To end the war on drugs in the U.S. and Mexico.
  

Poet Profiled in Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” Javier Sicilia and Other Drug War Violence Survivors from Mexico & U.S. Will Conclude Cross-Country Journey in Washington
 
Press Conference Will Call for Halt in Arms Trafficking to Mexico and Drug Policy Changes to Reduce Violence in Mexico
The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity arrived in Washington, D.C., on September 10 on the last stop of its 25-city journey across the United States to call for an end to the failed Drug War that has devastated individuals, families, and entire communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
 
The Drug War has led to more than 60,000 murders in Mexico in the last five years and incarcerated millions in the United States at a cost of over $1 trillion in the past 40 years. The Caravan’s ultimate goal is to help bring an end to that war by urging alternatives to drug policies and sensible regulations of the U.S. gun market, among other critical changes.

Miguel Tovar/AP
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: The Drug War is “a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs”

​Never mind what your ears, your eyes and your brain tell you. The Mexican Drug War, despite the fact that it has produced a river of blood and no results, is “not a failure,” claimed U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

The bloodshed began in earnest in December 2006, and has, to date, claimed more than 40,000 lives in Mexico, according to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which published an online Google map of the killings, reports Daniel Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.

Secretary Napolitano on Monday called the drug policies of both the U.S. and Mexico “a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs” at a press conference in Mexico City, reports Rafael Romo at CNN. She made the remarks after meeting with Mexican Interior Minister Alejandro Poire.

Mexico Unmasked

​A Native American tribe in Arizona says that the state’s medical marijuana cards don’t apply on tribal lands, and has apparently started seizing the vehicles of legal cannabis patients as they pass through.

Under Arizona law, the state’s 18,000 medical marijuana patients with state-issued cards are allowed to transport small amounts of cannabis in their vehicles — but not on tribal lands, reports Ray Stern at Phoenix New Times.
In the case of the Salt River Maricopa-Pima Indian Community, that includes a strip of the Loop 101 freeway — and it seems that every legal patient who drives down that particular stretch of freeway is not only putting his or her medicine at risk, but the vehicle they’re driving, as well.

Photo: Alejandro Bringas/Reuters
Mexican soldiers stand guard, pretending they don’t have a buzz as bales of marijuana go up in smoke

​It seems that top Mexican officials, weary of their bloody and protracted drug war, have been been subtly pushing the U.S. for some time to seriously consider marijuana legalization. Now, with the sitting president calling for a debate, it’s not so subtle anymore.

Responding to out-of-control violence related to the illegal drug trade, Mexican President Calderon on Tuesday said he is open to a debate on the legalization of marijuana and other drugs.
​Calderon called the increasingly widespread public discussion of legalization “a fundamental debate.”

Photo: AP
Mexican Army soldiers stand at attention, desperately trying to keep a “military bearing” as the intoxicating smoke from a buttload of marijuana being burned billows over them in Ciudad Juarez

​High-ranking officials from the United States and Mexico Thursday concluded a conference to reduce the illicit drug trade associated violence that plagues the border between the two nations.

Unfortunately, the talks concluded with no reference to the most sensible strategy for reducing that violence: removing marijuana from the criminal market, thus depriving drug cartels of their main source of income and strife.

“The only solution to the current crisis is to tax and regulate marijuana,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Once again, Mexican and U.S. officials are ignoring the fact that the cartels get 70 percent of their profits from marijuana.”

Photo: Flickr / Westword
New Mexico: Land of Enchantment. And, well, taxing the sick.

​New Mexico’s Legislature has been looking mighty hungrily at the state’s medical marijuana program as a source of tax revenue. But according the state’s Tax and Revenue Department, such a tax could cause patients to turn to the black market.

A 25 percent excise tax on medical marijuana could potentially raise about $1.2 million for the state, according to the Legislative Finance Committee’s fiscal impact report on Sen. John Sapien’s bill, SB 56, reports Marjorie Childress at The New Mexico Independent.
The analysis estimated a typical patient spends $6,256 annually on medical marijuana, and would pay about $1,564 in excise tax per year.