James: I’ll bet you an evening’s serving of your drug of choice (wine, right?) that this bill will have almost no effect on addiction and drug-related death in Mexico. The bill legalizes possession of 5 grams of marijuana, two MDMA pills, a half a gram of cocaine, 25mg of heroin, and 1 kilogram of peyote. With the exception of the peyote, which I suspect gets special treatment because of its role in Native American religious ritual, these are tiny amounts: four joints, two hits of ecstasy, four lines of coke. Twenty-five milligrams of heroin is several doses for a first time user, but wouldn’t do much for an addict: According to a study by the Swiss government, after 6 months of regular use (the point at which tolerance generally levels off into a stable dose), the mean daily dose of heroin is 491.7mg.
And remember, this is Mexico we’re talking about: Standard operating procedure when caught for small drug possession is to bribe the cops and go on your way. Surely a modest bit of drug legalization is preferable to that sort of endemic corruption.
