Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled this fall that individuals have the right to grow marijuana for personal use, but on the border many are divided over the issue.
Some in this border city, which became a bloody battleground for rival drug cartels fighting for lucrative smuggling routes to the U.S., say they believe decriminalizing marijuana will reduce violence.
“Drug trafficking would go down and there would be fewer people involved in violence,” said Raul Parra, a nursing student in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua–on the U.S.-Mexican border across from El Paso, Texas.
Parra was shot in the leg in 2010 when gunmen attacked a high school birthday party, killing 15 people and injuring 13. Investigators in Mexico said young hitmen mistakenly targeted the party.
Many of the victims of the notorious birthday party massacre were student-athletes.
The mother of a football player killed at the birthday party is among those who oppose the effort to decriminalize marijuana.
“I don’t think our young people and children are ready for legalizing any type of drug,” said Lupita Davila, who honors her son Rodrigo’s memory by working with children and teens who survived years of bloodshed.
“They were all victims of years of extreme violence,” Davila said.
She and her son’s football coaches started Jaguares Jovenes Por Bien, a non-profit organization that offers violence prevention workshops, football clinics and counseling for at-risk youth.
The number of murders has declined sharply in Ciudad Juarez, but the border city is coping with the lingering effects.
Dozens of folders for children who need psychological counseling are stacked on Davila’s desk. Many witnessed violence or lost loved ones.
“They are still passing through a very difficult stage,” Davila said.
Parra supports Davila’s effort to help youth and has donated his time to the organization.
But he and others in Mexico are beginning to consider whether it might be time to legalize marijuana in spite of concerns about addiction.
“The same thing happens with alcohol and tobacco,” Parra said. “People who want to use will do so whether it’s legal or not.”
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2016.
There is too much money in Marijuana to make it legal. Just look at the economic ripple it would cause right here in Tucson. Courts police counseling prisons illegal underground economy that needs to be to keep the ancillary enforcement dollars. These would all shrivel up and the Sheriff cant really seize and confiscate anymore. So that budget gets smaller. The defence attorney that make deals with prosecutorial plea bargains for tens of thousands of dollars charges to a impoverished family will be gone.
The dispensary will be gone as a medical implement of therapies will go the way of daily specials new MJ laced hot sauce and gummy bears. We need to protect these business as they are the ones with the cash register that the Dept.of Marijuana will oversee. With out dispensaries we wont have tax collection point of sale that gets turned over daily to the dept. AZ needs to keep illegal so not to allow Marijuana from other states or countries into this market. You can only grow for yourself 6 plants and a proposed licence fee TBD. All of these plants can be 12 feet tall and yield 2 pound of market product of flower. That’s 24 pounds of marijuana you will be allowed to keep for yourself which is as much of a dream as making marijuana legal.
If / when congress changes the denotation and interstate commerce rules apply This Department of Marijuana will be obsolete with a huge bureaucracy in place that will have to be dismantled. A duplication of existing state departments that overlay already existing departments. A sick person whom can medically use marijuana will be able to order over the net and pay a sales tax like regular medicine.
It is the economic upheaval associated with legalizing marijuana that people are afraid of not the product. As far as children getting ahold of this. I had 5 kids and gave up furthering my employment or income bracket. Something had to be left out so many leave their kids for others to raise lots of free time on a child hands. I have seen kids sniffing gasoline huffing paint ripping beer selling whatever meth heck even Marigold seeds and nutmeg will get you high. All from 2 earner families with nice homes good educational opportunities if they had the background of a youth not just growing up in a day care and sent to camps. Yea Marijuana gets blamed for so much of our shortcomings.
I could have understood what you were saying if you had not been high when you wrote it. Or perhaps you didn’t learn to write in school. Please try again with correct grammar and punctuation. I would like to know your thoughts on this subject.
TXJesse you want to personal attack that is all
Seriously, I tried to read it too and gave up. Punctuation matters. It is very difficult to understand your writing, and I do think you have something important to say.
67 year old macular degeneration pain meds. Yea it’s very hard to see at time thanks for the consideration.