Peace and Justice of La Luz

Source: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

August 21, 2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.

The law sets out maximum “personal use” amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.

Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory – although no penalties for noncompliance are specified.

The maximum amount of marijuana considered to be for “personal use” under the new law is 5 grams – the equivalent of about four marijuana cigarettes. Other limits are half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams for methamphetamine and 0.015 milligrams of LSD.

We at Peace & Justice of La Luz are proud to have sponsored Mike Jones at the Otero County Fair. We were able to talk to hundreds of people who were curious about the subject. And if we did not convince them all that prohibition was a failure, we at least started this conversation in our community. Thank you, Mike Jones!

LEAPing to legal drugs

(J.R. Oppenheim/Daily News)

Drug warriors from across the country are banding together to ask people to support the legalization of drugs.

Judges, prosecutors, prison wardens, corrections staff and police officers have organized to educate the public about the damage and cost of the war against illegal drugs.

The premise of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, is the war on drugs cannot be won and the benefit of regulating, taxing and controlling these substances far outweighs the cost in tax dollars and human lives trying to suppress them. Read More…

Drug, alcohol treatment vital in solving problem

In spite of the nationwide prohibition of street drugs, New Mexico and Otero County, as well as the rest of the United States, has a persistently growing drug problem with increasing numbers of younger students using drugs and alcohol.

With that is the typically disastrous results of addiction, incarceration, unintended pregnancies, failing grades and school drop-outs. While education and law enforcement are making strides in stopping the illegal drug trade while educating our youth about the consequences of drug use, drug and alcohol use continues to be a devastating problem, suggesting once again that peer-pressure can be a stronger force than education. Read More…

Giving credit where credit is due while holding my nose, Glenn Beck has shown a rare moment of intelligence and sanity in his interview with Andres Rozental, former Foreign Minister of Mexico.

I will, however, question the Fox News statistic stating that US marijuana use is down 24% since 1998.