While the Mexican government wages an endless, no-exit, and unbelievably violent war against the country’s internationally powerful narcotrafficking cartels, President Felipe Calderon quietly signed a law this week that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of cocaine, weed, meth, heroin, and LSD.

The president sent the law to Mexico’s lawmakers, who passed it, back in April. That was during the height of the swine flu feargasm, so the proposed reform didn’t have the same fate as a similar law that Calderon’s predecessor Vicente Fox tried to get passed in 2006. Fox eventually bailed on that bill, bowing to pressure from Mexican conservatives and from Washington.

With everyone distracted by the A-H1N1 virus, Calderon’s bill sailed through Congress but fell off the radar for months. That is, until Thursday, when the Official Diary of the Federation dryly reported that the Health Secretariat is implementing the president’s bill, as of Friday. Ostensibly, Mexicans can now freely roam their nation’s streets and roads with up to 5 grams of marijuana, 2 grams of opium, 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine, half a gram of cocaine, and a tiny 0.015 milligrams of LSD, which, I’m not too sure, but can’t possibly be one whole Hoffman hit, can it?

Possession of these small amounts of drugs for “personal use” will no longer lead to criminal charges (or the traditional street-cop bribe) in Mexico. Instead, users will be encouraged to seek free addiction treatment. We’ll see how that works in real life. As this radio feature from FSRN suggests, the new law doesn’t correspond to the “reality of the market.” Who, after all, buys half a gram of cocaine on a Friday night in Mexico City’s thumping and drug-addled Condesa?

And what about the big boys? It’s unclear right now how this law will affect the major traffickers who are now officially wanted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Could they be pleased? Anxious? Confused? More on that later.

* Photo above via.

Email