Chihuahua marijuana legalization

The administration of Chihuahua, Mexico, Governor Patricio
Martinez has launched a study of marijuana legalization in the
Mexican border state most widely known for the violent drug
running organizations based in its largest city, the border town
of Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso. The
move comes after discussions on the topic during an April meeting
of the governors of the Mexican border states of Chihuahua,
Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamulipas, and leads the way to putting
the topic on the agenda of the Commission of Border Governors,
which includes both Mexican and US governors. The governors will
meet later this month.
Gov. Martinez was already pumping up the idea of marijuana
legalization at last year's border governor's conference in
Tampico, Mexico, last June, when in a sign of independence from
drug war orthodoxies, the governors issued a statement calling for
drug use and the drug traffic on the border to be viewed primarily
as a public health -- not crime -- issue. At that time, he said:
"This should be studied, analyzed, and looked at to see what the
people want and what the effects are from a different perspective
that considers not only their prohibition, but also in given time
their approval for medical purposes or rehabilitation or other
reasons. We need to study all aspects of drug use, especially
marijuana."

Despite the failure of his cross-border colleague, New Mexico Gov.
Gary Johnson, to get a marijuana decrim bill passed this year,
Martinez has not lost his ardor for the cause. "We, the border
governors, have asked different institutions to study the issue of
legalizing drugs," Martinez told a Mexico City newspaper. "Until
now, what's been done hasn't worked because the use of drugs
continues to grow, despite the war that has been launched."

While Martinez spoke about drugs in general, the study his
administration has launched is looking only at the consequences of
legalizing marijuana. The weed is so common in the border region,
a Martinez spokesman told the Dallas Morning News, and efforts to
curb it have failed so badly, that the governor had to look at the
legalization option.

"We're studying the issue of legalizing marijuana from addiction
to economics and everything in between," said spokesman Fernando
Medina. "The governor has said that despite the countless
offensives launched as part of the war against drugs, smuggling
and drug use continue to grow. It's an issue we really need to
study."

Not surprisingly for those who follow Mexico, the idea of
legalizing marijuana has some support. The idea of legalizing
marijuana in Chihuahua has so far been endorsed by Sen. Elias
Moreno, president of the Commission on Health and Public Safety
and Rep. Gregorio Urias, co-coordinator of a banking industry
trade group and a member of the Commission on Public Accounts and
Loans.

As well, Mexican social and political groups, some of which
participated in Million Marijuana Marches in Mexico City last
month, are coming on board. Among them are the Mexican Society
for the Study of Cannabis, the Multiforo Alicia, a coalition of
social and political organizations, some of which are linked to
the Zapatistas, and the faculty of philosophy and letters at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

The DEA is not amused. Osvaldo Amado, agency spokesman in El
Paso, told the Morning News legalization would make the agency's
job all the more difficult. "If it were to happen, the impact
would be tremendous because it would put the whole burden on us,"
said Amado. "It would be very difficult for us. We just don't
have the resources to deal with something like that."

It is a big business. Last fiscal year, DEA agents seized 184,000
pounds of pot in the El Paso sector alone, while Customs agents
working the same sector seized 306,000 pounds in the same period.
That is approaching a half-million pounds at El Paso alone, and
that's only what got caught.

Almost a century ago, Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa led US
troops on a fruitless chase through Chihuahua as his soldiers sang
border ballads about the weed. The famous tune "La Cucaracha" was
one of them. "The cockroach can't walk because he doesn't have
any marijuana to smoke," goes the famous line, although it loses
something in the translation. Is a Pancho Villa Cannabis Cafe
coming to Ciudad Juarez? Stay tuned.


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Border Governors to Discuss Chihuahua Marijuana Legalization
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/241.html#chihuahua

 

lol sorry cradle....im not fluent in "smiley" so i have no clue what that was spozed to mean

 

oh yeah..those aztecs...theyre a great sight during spring break