What a mess in Mexico

All this uproar over the supposed legalization of drugs in Mexico! The media has jumped all over it and it has sparked a lot of stupid talk about dangers to our borders.
As those who have read over the bill in more detail have noted, the bill does very little in a practical matter to liberalize drug use from current policy. It merely adds some defined amounts and actually increases penalties for many drug charges, along with expanding the ability of police to arrest people on drug charges.
Yet this little thing — the fact that they won’t throw you in jail for possessing under 5 grams of marijuana (something that’s true anyway in much of the U.S.) — has caused a firestorm. And it startles me. It seems to me that we would get less violent a reaction if a state passed the same law. Is this more of our historic racist reefer madness in play? (Just curious.)
Anyway…

MEXICO CITY — After intense pressure from the United States, President Vicente Fox has asked Congress to reconsider a law it passed last week that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs as part of a larger effort to crack down on street-level dealing.
In a statement issued late Wednesday, Mr. Fox said the law should be changed “to make it absolutely clear that in our country the possession of drugs and their consumption are and continue to be crimes.”