4 ms·
Mexico Decriminalizes Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin and Other Drugs
- mynameishere 17y ago0.015 milligrams of LSD. I'm not an expert, but I believe that's enough to intoxicate the entire world's population of elephants.
- pwmanagerdied 17y ago0.015 mg = 15 μg. According to erowid.org, the threshold dosage for LSD averages around 20 μg. It sounds like this isn't enough to significantly effect a human, let alone elephants. Am I missing something?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- mynameishere 17y agoAm I missing something? You are missing 0.015 mg of a sense of humor.
- pwmanagerdied 17y agoA reference, perhaps?
- mynameishere 17y ago??? Clue #1: My comment was a joke. Clue #2: Jokes aren't necessarily funny. Clue #3: Even if a joke isn't funny, it is still a joke. Clue #4: Jokes, whatever the degree of funnyness, are not appropriately responded-to by "How did you come about such-and-such a miscalculation? I demand citations." My calculations were deliberately fallacious; see Clue #1. This website is sometimes like a frickin' Aspergers asylum.
- startingup 17y ago"frickin Aspergers asylum ... " - you had me in splits on that one! Upvoted.
- pwmanagerdied 17y agoThis entertaining little conversation was probably helped along by my being influenced by one of the substances in the title. It's cool.
- jrockway 17y agoYeah, damn those Aspergers fuckers, trying to assume you were being intelligent instead of a moron who thinks the site is Reddit! I hate people like that, always being nice and using their brains.....
- mynameishere 17y agoI've never seen such an asshole comment get upmodded so much. It'll all fade anyway.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- nimbix 17y agoTusko, the elephant from the famous LSD experiment, was injected with 297 milligrams. 0.015 milligrams, on the other hand, is only about 1/10 of the usual dose one would take for a "trip". I suspect this might be a typo since 0.15mg is the about the amount of LSD you can usually expect to find in a single tab of blotter or a drop of liquid LSD.
- Timothee 17y agoChances are that said elephants would be pink. They might also fly. Depends on your trip…
- magoghm 17y agoThe original draft for the law had higher amounts for all the drugs. For LSD it was 0.025 milligrams (which would be the smallest possible dose). When the law was vetoed, congress reduced the doses and voted again on it. That's the way they came up with that 0.015 milligrams.
- asdlfj2sd33 17y agoHow will this affect the illegal smuggling operations into the US? Probably not at all. If the US legalizes drugs that would bankrupt the drug cartels in Mexico.
- kitcar 17y agoProbably will have no effect. It should give a small boost to Mexico's tourism business though
- dkokelley 17y agoI agree. The law is really just reflecting unwritten rules already adhered to there. I disagree that legalization would bankrupt the cartels. While a good portion of their operations involve non-essential tasks like smuggling, transportation, and security (and bribes, I suppose), the cartels are in the best position to capitalize on legalization. They have the growing and refining operations down on a scale large enough to support the (supposed) increased demand due to legalization. The smuggling portion of their costs will be substituted with marketing and supply chain management costs.
- dkasper 17y agoI think you're right, drug cartels will just become legal businesses rather than an illegal ones.
- scythe 17y agoPerhaps, but they would no longer have an incentive to kill people as they were going about it. That's really what we'd like to end. If they had a public presence (which they'd need if they were going to compete in a world of legal weed),they wouldn't be able to commit violent crimes. Hell, they probably wouldn't be as bad as most businesses.
- alexgartrell 17y agoI think you're right from a business perspective. The reality though is that "gang bangers" aren't killing people solely for the benefit of their drug smuggling and distribution operations. It's become a cultural thing, the change you're suggesting would require a total cultural change, which wouldn't happen anywhere near the present day. If you don't believe me, look at the slew of wealthy hip hop/rap artists who get busted with firearms or even for violent crimes. There's no reason for them to do it, but they do it anyway, because it's what they're used to.
- quantumhobbit 17y agoThe article states that people will not be arrested for possession, but says nothing about sale. It sounds like this wouldn't allow Amsterdam style "coffee shops" only allow the police to ignore minor infractions as they apparently already do.
- huhtenberg 17y agoShops is the next logical step if they want to tax this activity (and I am sure they do).
- nico 17y agoOn this article: - http://www.tribunalatina.com/es/notices/mexico_despenaliza_la_posesion_de_drogas_para_uso_personal_18053.php http://www.tribunalatina.com/es/notices/mexico_despenaliza_l... It says: Según la nueva ley, los policías estatales y federales podrán poner trampas a los vendedores mediante la compra de narcóticos y lograr la detención de los responsables de su tráfico. Which translates to (google translator is good!): "Under the new law, federal and state police may set traps to sellers through the purchase of drugs and to arrest those responsible for trafficking." So you are right, no "coffee shops" or anything like it.
- tremendo 17y agoArticle in NYT has yesterday's date, but I cannot find any similar note on Mexican news sites. An immediate consequence could be harder, longer times crossing the border from Mexico back into the U.S. For labor day weekend coming up, it's traditionally a 3 or 4-hr affair to get accross by car, it can only get worse with these news.
- nico 17y agoThis law was vetoed by the president of Mexico in 2006 and sent back to congress for review: - http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/137975.html http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/137975.html Then it was finally approved on April of this year: - http://www.tribunalatina.com/es/notices/mexico_despenaliza_la_posesion_de_drogas_para_uso_personal_18053.php http://www.tribunalatina.com/es/notices/mexico_despenaliza_l... Edit: corrected description of links. Thanks PieSquared for noting the veto.
- PieSquared 17y agoWhile I'm not fluent in spanish, the gist I get from the article is that it was vetoed and sent back to Congress in 2006; perhaps it has only been passed recently?
- nico 17y agoYou are absolutely right, in the first article it says the president vetoed the law the first time in 2006. Nevertheless the law was approved by congress in April of this year, so it appears like the NYTimes article is a few months late.
- tremendo 17y agoWell again, the news site saying the law was approved, is not from Mexico (TribunaLatina based in Spain). All law updates are published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación http://dof.gob.mx http://dof.gob.mx Searching that site for 'droga', or 'marihuana', 'posesión', etc. turnes out nothing relevant. Will have to call the family over there later to get more insight.
- nico 17y agoSometimes nytimes.com forces me to login to read articles. Only if it's interesting enough (the title at least) I'll bite. For these cases I recommend BugMeNot: http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com http://www.bugmenot.com/view/nytimes.com
- rms 17y agoIt should also go away if you delete your NY Times cookies.
- collision 17y agoGoogle the article title and follow that link. You won't get the paywall.
- dougp 17y agoIt is interesting I noticed that the NY Times seems to be doing some A/B testing around this. I Followed a link and was surprised to be able to read when I clicked on the second page link it told me to login. When my co worker went to this page he had to click past one of those big skip this advertisement pages but the article was all on one page and he didn't have to login.
- bilch 17y agoAfter much bugmenot and cookie hassle I'd recommend the Firefox RefControl add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/953 https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/953. It lets you set your referrer to http://www.google.com http://www.google.com for nytimes.com so NYT thinks you're coming from a Google search and always skips the login page.
- JBiserkov 17y agoTake that, Steve Yegge ;) Context: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legalized-marijuana.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...
- pavelludiq 17y ago"President Felipe Calderón waited months before approving the law." :D
- chrischen 17y agoThey should legalize it all. Then Microsoft go in and drive the drug dealers out of business.
- riffic 17y agoNORML has a rebuttal to this article on their blog: http://blog.norml.org/2009/08/21/new-york-times-mexico-legalizes-drug-possession-well-not-exactly/ http://blog.norml.org/2009/08/21/new-york-times-mexico-legal...
- mariorz 17y agoWhile the rebuttal makes good points, it still misses what the law is really about and why it isn't a step in the right direction at all. It's about prosecuting small-time drug dealers. Except now anyone caught exceeding the above limits of personal use is a drug dealer. The limits are so arbitrary they're laughable. I mean 5 grams of pot could keep you high for days or just give you a bad head ache, 40 mg of mdma? How much is that? the kid at the club only sells it by the pill. TBF, it seems you could make yourself a pretty crazy personal party kit and stay under the legal limit. Too bad the kid caught with just a 10 mg bag of crappy pot will get a really hard time at the police station though.
- tetha 17y agoThey miss the point that merely the title is misleading. The correct title should have been 'Mexico legalizes drug addictions', and I consider this a very, very good and important step for a country. Why? Because there is a certain asymmetry in the drug scene. On the one hand, you have those guys who are addicted. They buy small amounts of drugs to consume and, well, consume them. Usually, and especially for those harsher drugs, however, this addiction is physical, which -- at least to me -- qualifies as a sickness. On the other hand, you have the professional drug dealers. They buy large amounts of drugs (much more than one could consume and not die) and sell drugs to other people. I consider this to be a nasty abuse of sick people (one might go as far and sort of compare it with stealing purses from people in wheelchairs, even though that might be a bit harsh). Thus, mexico legalized a disease, while keeping abuse and organized criminality illegal, which seems like a good, correct step to me.
- gojomo 17y agoThat's an interesting viewpoint, but for a newspaper to write "Mexico legalizes drug addictions" would have been a strange, non-idiomatic, somewhat-loaded way to say things. There's already a word appropriate for Mexico's half-step -- decriminalization -- and I'm happy to see that in the HN headline.
- dylanz 17y agoIf 5 grams is 4 joints, I'm either a lightweight, or I've been doing it wrong. I think I'd be able to roll 4 joints in "1" gram.