Mexico looks to decriminalize drugs

A nice start for them (as it would be for us)...

But how much pressure will our government apply to them, asking them to continue the staggeringly destructive policies of Prohibition II?

Here's Mary O'Grady in the WSJ...

Mexico announced recently that it will decriminalize the possession of "small amounts of drugs"—marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamines, heroin and opium—"for personal use." Individuals who are caught by law enforcement with quantities below established thresholds will no longer face criminal prosecution. A person apprehended three times with amounts below the minimum, though, will face mandatory treatment....

Mexico's big problem—for that matter the most pressing security issue throughout the hemisphere—is organized crime's growth and expanded power, fed by drug profits. Mr. Calderón's new policy is unlikely to solve anything in that department.

The reason is simple: Prohibition and demand make otherwise worthless weeds valuable. Where they really get valuable is in crossing the U.S. border. If U.S. demand is robust, then producers, traffickers and retailers get rich by satisfying it.

Mexican consumers will now have less fear of penalties and, increasingly in the case of marijuana, that's true in the U.S. as well. But trafficking will remain illegal, and to get their products past law enforcement the criminals will still have an enormous incentive to bribe or to kill. Decriminalization will not take the money out of the business and therefore will not reduce corruption, cartel intimidation aimed at democratic-government authority, or the terror heaped on local populations by drug lords.

Nevertheless, Mexico's attempt to question the status quo in drug policy deserves praise. Unlike American drug warriors, Mexico at least acknowledges that it is insane to repeat the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome....

The war on supply is a failure, something any first-year economics student could have predicted. But this plan is unlikely to reverse the situation. It is demand north of the border that is the primary driver of organized-crime terror. And that shows no signs of abating.