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posted by azrael on Tuesday October 21 2014, @04:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the learning-lessons dept.

Christopher Ingraham writes in the Washington Post that many countries are taking a close look at what's happening in Colorado and Washington state to learn lessons that can be applied to their own situations and so far, the news coming out of Colorado and Washington is overwhelmingly positive. Dire consequences predicted by reform opponents have failed to materialize. If anything, societal and economic indicators are moving in a positive direction post-legalization. Colorado marijuana tax revenues for fiscal year 2014-2015 are on track to surpass projections.

Lisa Sanchez, a program manager at México Unido Contra la Delincuencia, a Mexican non-profit devoted to promoting "security, legality and justice", underscored how legalization efforts in the U.S. are having powerful ripple effects across the globe: events in Colorado and Washington have "created political space for Latin American countries to have a real debate [about drug policy]". She noted that motivations for reform in Latin America are somewhat different than U.S. motivations - one main driver is a need to address the epidemic of violence on those countries that is fuelled directly by prohibitionist drug war policies. Mexico's president has given signs he's open to changes in that country's marijuana laws to help combat cartel violence. Sandeep Chawla, former deputy director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, notes that one of the main obstacles to meaningful reform is layers of entrenched drug control bureaucracies at the international and national levels - just in the U.S., think of the DEA, ONDCP and NIDA, among others - for whom a relaxation of drug control laws represents an undermining of their reason for existence: "if you create a bureaucracy to solve a particular problem, when the problem is solved that bureaucracy is out of a job".

 
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  • (Score: 2) by velex on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:31PM

    by velex (2068) on Tuesday October 21 2014, @10:31PM (#108450) Journal

    Might be they're trying to play their cards too close to the vest, just in case the whole thing doesn't pan out legally.

    Good call. Getting involved too early might be a PR disaster if legalization stalls or if we even see states that experiment with it, then reinstate prohibition.

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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 21 2014, @11:05PM

    by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday October 21 2014, @11:05PM (#108459) Homepage

    Yep, and then guess who looks like the bad guys. My guess is they'll wait for federal approval.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.