Mexico and Argentina: Baby Steps

In the past two weeks, there have been two significant drug policy developments in the international arena. On August 21, Mexican President Felipe Calderon signed into law a bill that essentially decriminalizes the possession of marijuana and other drugs. Under the law, users caught with very small quantities—less then 5 grams of marijuana, half a gram of cocaine, 50 milligrams of heroin, or 40 milligrams of methamphetamine—will not be subject to prosecution. One third offense, users will be forced into treatment. Two days ago, the Argentine Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a law that provided penalties of up to two years in prison for simple possession of marijuana. In the ruling, the court encouragingly wrote:

"Each individual adult is responsible for making decisions freely about theirdesired lifestyle without state interference. Private conduct is allowed unlessit constitutes a real danger or causes damage to the property or the rights of others."

As the AP reported, the ruling has been met with support from the Fernandez administration:

Cabinet chief Anibal Fernandez declared that the ruling brings an end to"the repressive politics invented by the Nixon administration" in the UnitedStates and later adopted by Argenina’s dictators, to imprison drug users as ifthey were major traffickers."

The ruling sets a precedent that goes beyond marijuana by striking down anarticle in Argentina’s drug law that applies to people caught with personal useamounts of any narcotic.President Cristina Fernandez has supported drug law changes, saying in July 2008 that "I don’t like that an addict is condemned as if he were a criminal. The ones who need to be punished are those who sell the drug."

These legislative changes in Mexico and Argentina are positive to the extent that they will keep non-violent drug users out of jail; however, they will in no way alleviate the greater harms to society that prohibition currently causes. By keeping their country’s narcotics trade in the hands of organized crime, the plagues of violence, corruption, overdose deaths and injection-transmitted disease will continue unabated. The only solution to these problems is to legalize all substances, regulate and control the safety of those that are addictive and dangerous and focus harm reduction efforts on education and treatment. Anything short of that—including the incremental decriminalization that Mexico and Argentina recently adopted—is tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.