south of the border

Just heard this little snippet on the news. Apparently the Mexican government is adjusting their drug laws so that there will be more lenient punishments in cases of "individual use" and more extreme penalties for traffickers, pushers, and dealers.

Tom Brokaw and the other anchors immediately began ranting about how horrible this was, how wrong it was to let up on any drug-user, and interviewed American addicts who told how easy it would be to go down to Mexico and buy heroin.

Now, not to be argumentative or anything, but hold up just a minute. What are we really trying to stop here? Are we trying to stop people from using drugs in the privacy of their own homes (where some might argue that it is their own business whatever they do) or are we trying to stop the sale and spread of these same drugs?

As for me, I don't care what someone does in their own home, so long as they don't hurt anyone else. It's unfortunate that they feel the need to drown themselves in chemicals, but it is their problem. As soon as they bring it on the street, they share their problems with the world.

I think that this adjustment is the best idea the Mexican government has had in quite some time. If we could get our own government to adopt this kind of thinking, maybe we wouldn't have prisons full of victimless crimes.