Chihuahua marijuana legalization

Discussion in 'Marijuana News' started by NuBBiN, Jun 23, 2002.

  1. 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.


    --

    Border Governors to Discuss Chihuahua Marijuana Legalization
    http://www.drcnet.org/wol/241.html#chihuahua
     
  2. lol sorry cradle....im not fluent in "smiley" so i have no clue what that was spozed to mean
     
  3. i live in texas got to drive my ass to mexico
     
  4. Yeah if that works I think Im gonna try to persude my parents to take me to Mexico for spring break. You know to study the Aztec Prymaids! ;)
     
  5. oh yeah..those aztecs...theyre a great sight during spring break
     

Share This Page