Take it with a grain of salt — this is one person’s story of reactions in one bar in Tijuana, but I thought it was an interesting take at Narco News on the recent decriminalization law in Mexico.
When I talk with the Fiesta Bar patrons about Mexico’s recent legalization of drugs, they laugh uproariously at either my stupidity or naiveté, reminding me that they have been smoking pot in this bar for generations. They point to the two huffing, overweight policemen who just lugged their fat-asses down those tremendous steps to collect their “hands-off†money. The mordita, the bite, that every bar and restaurant in the central district pays not to have their establishment “set up†with an under-age plant; just like in the strip joints, the hooker bars, the Gay discos, the heroin “shooting gallery†back-rooms of the pool halls. […]
“That law is for you Gringos, not us,†he smiled. “The police have always allowed the decriminalization of drug use, otherwise the jails would be full, the city treasury bankrupt from having to feed them and the courts clogged with meaningless cases.”
The article is more a comment on U.S. policy than Mexican policy.
“Look at your stupid state of California,†he seemed to announce, like a lecture, “no money to pay for services because of the billions of dollars you spend locking young kids up for having a good time.â€
“You people are hysterical about drug use, a kind of obsessive paranoia that borders on madness,†he continues, while taking a hit off Miguel’s joint. “I truly feel sorry for your intense jealously that someone else might be enjoying themselves.â€
“Porque?†Miguel asks. “Why are the nortenos so afraid?â€
I urge everyone who reads this to read that article. Because you’re looking at the international future of drug prohibition. Namely, it doesn’t have one.
The Latin American nations have been the most hurt by the US’s insane DrugWar, and they know it, from the palaces to the barrios. They’ve had enough. As time goes on, more and successful legislative efforts to decriminalize will take place…and for the exact reasons given in the article.
When enough of this happens, the inevitable, long-delayed debate will take place here. And then it’s all over but for the shouting…
OT: They still won’t give up on trying to tie schizophrenia to cannabis: Cannibis smokers have a seven-fold schizophrenia risk. It would seem the Harper regime just cannot stop chasing chimeras and snarks on the public’s dime.
I’ve been to Tijuana as a Marine and then years later on business (no really).
I can attest to the fact that the laws were really there for the gringos and the gringo bars.
Speaking as someone with schizophrenia, I call bullshit. My illness (which is clearly genetic as my mother has it and there’s some in-family anecdotal evidence that a few of our forebears were fellow sufferers) began manifesting itself a full five years before I first tried cannabis (or any recreational drug for that matter). When I finally did discover the blessed herb, many of the symptoms simply vanished. During the periods when I had to stop smoking (primarily when I would have to take a drug test) they would reemerge. So, as far as I’m considered, any link between schizophrenia and cannabis use is simply that the sufferer finds relief in the drug (i.e self-medication).
any link between schizophrenia and cannabis use is simply that the sufferer finds relief in the drug (i.e self-medication).
As a man diagnosed with a schizoid personality disorder (mild form of schizophrenia), I completely concur.
The nortenos are scared because they are brainwashed nitwits? The US seems farther down the path of 1984-style thought control than most other countries. Well, time to watch more “fair and balanced” news, comrades.
I’ve lived in the center of the country now for the last 8 years and have never had any sort of problem. Prices? About $15US/Oz. Seeds and stems but at that price? And, since the inception of the law, it would seem that prices are also declining.
I had a “mordida” situation on my Harley one day and I wouldn’t pay him. I took out a pencil and paper and started writing down his ID and name, along with location and time. That scares them. I told him as soon as I paid my ticket (50% if paid in 5 days), I’d be stopping by to talk with his supervisor. Case got dropped on the spot.
Gringos just don’t know how to play the game down here, that’s all.
Glad to see someone gets it. Too bad it’s in Mexico.
Too bad the Toronto Star can’t spell. They would sound more authoritative if the first word in the headline was spelled correctly! OK, so I emailed them a correction.
“In the Morenos Mountains campesinos are planting their fields
While the ghost of Zapata rides a horse that can still outrun the wheel.
While free in the sky high above, nearly clear out of sight
It’s the Free Mexican Air Force flyin’ tonight.
In the City of Angels a cowboy is cooling his heels
Remembering that God gave us herbs and the fruits of the fields
But a criminal law that makes outlaws of those seeking light”
~ Yeah, the Free Mexican Air Force is flyin’ tonight
Tell your friends: Will Foster Hearing- TULSA 9.8.2009
THE JOYS OF MARIJUANA
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Bill would give president emergency control of Internet | Politics and Law – CNET News
Lies Omissions Programmed & Banned = Censorship
Rauschgiftbekaempfung
Elsewhere in Latin America, Colombia and Mexico have already decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs. Brazil and Ecuador are looking at an initiative to legalize some drug use.
“Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state,” the court’s ruling said. It did not set a weight limit for what constitutes small-scale and the court said it was not decriminalizing all drug use.”
Counselor accused of keeping pot at USI
On unpaid leave, barred from campus
By Lydia X. McCoy
Friday, August 28, 2009
James W. Browning, director of counseling at the University of Southern Indiana, has been placed on unpaid leave and barred from campus after marijuana was found Wednesday in his office in the university’s Orr Building.
Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia
Cannabis: Potential Treatment For Skin Disorders?
New research by Polish scientists, Piotr Kupczyk, Adam Reich and Jacek Szepietowski has uncovered a potential use for medicinal cannabis.
We’ve been using Ganja and Hempoil extractions for a few years for skin breakdowns. Only thing I’ve found to stop weeping from edema, that prevents healing. Once again, ain’t it nice when science catches up.
Schizophrenia Link To Cannabis Denied
A study by North Staffordshire academics has rejected a link between smoking cannabis and an increase in mental illness.
Protest Aims to Force out ‘Cruel’ Housing-Group Head
Diabetic double-leg amputee Marilyn Holsten may have lost her life while fighting eviction for smoking medical marijuana at home, but her struggle survives.
Some rental property management companies are using HUD as an excuse to evict Ganja patients in Cali. Most of the renters are disabled and fear any kind protest. That just sucks when these wealthy bastards take advantage of poor sick people trying to help their predicaments. Un-American traitors!
He’s right, the law is for us Gringos, because we’re the ones who insist on drug prohibition and force other countries to go along with it.
As soon as the US goes bankrupt and collapses, the world will be free to use, sell and enjoy drugs. There will be huge increases in tax revenues for all governments, great new social programs, exponential decreases in crime, and a global renaissance of liberty. China – STOP BUYING AMERICA’S DEBT! America will immediately collapse, and you’ll be the world’s only remaining superpower. Americans will still buy your cheap goods… you’ll just ship them to 50 small countries instead of one big one. I know China will eventually come to its senses and stop buying America’s debt.
“I know China will eventually come to its senses and stop buying America’s debt.”
America is going to be bypassed as soon as the new deep water port is completed in Mexico.
From http://www.prlog.org
The Government of Mexico is committing $5 Billion dollars to transform a sleepy seaside town on Mexico’s Baja California into one of the world’s busiest shipping centers, providing once-in-a-lifetime business opportunities for U.S. and international investors.
The window for submission of construction bids was just extended to January 26, 2009, to allow foreign bidders time to sort out the current global financial mess. The government’s Secretariat of Comunicaciones (SCT) says 61 companies have already indicated their intention to bid, guaranteeing that this mega-project will go forward. Officials of the Secretariat have recently traveled to Singapore, Paris, Japan and other global investment centers to promote interest in the project.
In just 3-5 years, Megapuerto De Punta Colonet, or the Megaport of Punta Colonet, will handle six million containers a year – twice the total number handled in all of Mexico in 2007. Volume is expected to triple within 15 years. Most of the freight will arrive from Asia, destined for the United States.
A thriving city of 200,000 will spring up from sand and farmland, with all the housing, commerce, roads, schools and infrastructure needed to accommodate a surging population. Eighty-thousand workers will be employed just by the port itself.
Total near-term investment could exceed $12 billion dollars, according to some estimates, to build and maintain the port, city, new rail line to the U.S., airport(s), highways, industrial parks, residential areas, hotels and more.
Initial port work will include development of a deep harbor with 10 docks and four cranes per dock. Phase two will double that capacity.
Punta Colonet, 150 miles south of San Diego, will be the terminus of a vital new rail connection to U.S. freight transfer cities, possibly including Yuma, Arizona or El Paso, Texas. The new route will allow trains to avoid congested tracks in Southern California.
The bold project, championed by Mexico president Felipe Calderon, is urgently needed to relieve chronic freight bottlenecks at the United States’ largest ports, Long Beach and Los Angeles, California. Once built, Punta Colonet will compete directly with those operations. (California’s freight dominance is also being challenged by expansion of Canada’s northern Prince Rupert Port and a $5 billion expansion of the Panama Canal, which will speed Asian freight to Miami, Atlanta and other southeastern U.S. cities.)…
American labor is being squeezed out of the global market because we (as a nation) are too expensive for the globalists.
Bruce;
When the deep water port is completed at the new city of Punta Colonet, Mexico then America will be bypassed on the Global Trade Superhighway.
China is just biding its time while our economy and our will to resist bleeds out as our standard of living is sucked down by the pin striped bandits, the politrixters and the banksters.
We (the US) are already China’s bitch and most of us don’t even know it, they are just waiting for the Roofies to work so they can really get busy.
Americans will still buy your cheap goods.
Bruce;
When the US$ collapses, Chinese imports will not be cheap and thus the need for the new deep water port in Mexico. America will be so broke, no one will want to trade with us unless we are willing to be their slaves. The US is fixing to reap what it has sown for the last century or so.
China will be to us as a pawn shop is to a drunk or a junkie. We are going to sell off our resources at bargain basement prices and beg for a new currency (and not care who pulls the strings) when everything collapses.
Bja’s got a fairly good sized port of call in Ensenada.
Cliff: I agree to an extent. My prediction is this: The federal government will go bankrupt, the dollar will be worthless (hyperinflation) and we will no longer have the luxury of paying our debt in our own currency – so the federal government will cease to operate. America will cease to exist and there will be 50 nation-states.
Now, those 50 nation-states already have their own operating governments, constitutions, elected representatives, leaders, infrastructures, etc. Each state will have to have its own currency and that’s where things will get interesting. Some states, like California are already bankrupt they may have to be absorbed into other more solvent states.
As for what will happen beyond that, my powers of prediction basically end there. Landlocked states will have to pay other states for out of state/foreign shipments to go through them, and all sorts of other issues like that. Some states might form their own little coalitions. The south might form the United Christian Confederacy. The northern states may form their own coalition. Some states will be better off (donor states), some states will be harmed – i.e. the ones that receive more from the federal government than they give.
Either way, there will no longer be an America superpower. The states can actually become true laboratories of democracy, some may legalize drugs (or at least some drugs). But more importantly, there won’t be an America to force drug prohibition on the rest of the world. Overnight Mexico will legalize all drugs, and within a year 50% of the world’s secular nations will have decriminalized drugs.
Americans have gotten so stupid, arrogant, annoying, selfish, and religious that the world will be FAR better off without America. I, for one, can’t wait to see it collapse. I was thrilled when the soviet union collapsed, and I’ll be thrilled when the American union collapses too. The new nation-states (those that remain, anyway), can actually have a chance at real freedom. I think there will be a renaissance of freedom once America ceases to exist. America once stood for freedom, now it stands for nothing but profit. Profit at the expense of freedom. Sadly, America needs to go. Most think it’s “too big to fail” but it most certainly is not. Nothing is too big to fail. That’s what they said about the Roman Empire too.
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