Ibero-American News Digest

Soros Wins a Round; Mexico Decriminalizes 'Personal' Drug Use

Aug. 21 (EIRNS)—After stalling for several months, Mexico's Calderón government buckled to Dope, Inc.'s "lead or silver" terror tactics, and promulgated yesterday the so-called "narco-retail" law, which decriminalizes "personal consumption" of seven different flavors of narcotics (from opium to LSD). Government officials insist that the law, passed by both chambers of Congress in the last week of April, and now finally approved by President Felipe Calderón, strengthens the government's ability to prosecute small-scale retailers, and beefs up treatment, but the law is clear: People caught with 2 grams of opium, 50 mg of heroin, 5 g of marijuana, 500 mg of cocaine, 0.015 mg of LSD, or 40 mg of methamphetamines, Ecstasy, or the psychedelic/stimulant MDA, cannot be arrested, if they claim it's for "personal use."

The law marks an important step forward in British-backed drug-pusher George Soros's drive to legalize dope throughout the Americas. Argentina's Supreme Court is expected to open the door to decriminalization on Aug. 25.

Soros's pushers were delighted with Mexico's new decrim law. His main-line man, Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann, on Aug. 21, quickly praised the law as "a step in the right direction," saying that "Mexico is trying to make the right choice on law enforcement priorities; it's time for the United States to do the same."

The London-controlled Dope, Inc. apparatus, for which Soros employee Nadelmann is a leading spokesman, has always had the United States as the principal target of its new opium war.

The Marijuana Policy Project also welcomed the Mexican capitulation, noting that the Bush Administration had pressured Mexico during the former Fox government to veto a similar law, but "we have not seen the same pressure from the Obama Administration this time around." They also note that Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan last April called for a debate on legalization in the U.S. as well.

As Allen St. Pierre, chief honcho at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), pointed out, "Mexico joins Portugal as only the second country in the world to legalize personal amounts of a wide range of narcotics."

Brazil's Cardozo Boosts Soros Agenda

Aug. 23 (EIRNS)—Brazilian ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, one of three former Ibero-American heads of state who are part of George Soros's Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, on Aug. 22, stated that "imagining a world without drugs is a difficult objective to reach. Humanity always used some kind of drugs. So it's like imagining a world without sex." The 78-year-old ex-President made these remarks at the founding meeting of the Brazilian branch of Soros's Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy (LACDD), the Brazilian Commission on Drugs and Democracy.

Mexico Faces 'Explosive' Social Crisis, Legislator Warns

Aug. 19 (EIRNS)—Mexico's economic crisis has brought the country dangerously close to a social explosion, warned Carlos Navarrete, head of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) bloc in the Senate.

Navarrete was speaking Aug. 18 at a business forum sponsored by the National Autonomous University (UNAM), where UNAM dean José Narro Robles, had expressed concern that the economic crisis could easily unleash a social one, and called for a new economic model to be applied. Slashing the budget isn't a solution, he said.

Fully 5.9 million Mexicans were thrown into poverty between 2006 and 2008, according to a recent report from the World Bank, and the way things have gone so far this year, 4.2 million more will be below the poverty line by the end of 2009, by their estimates. That's 51%, or 54.8 million of Mexico's 107.4 million people. And those shocking figures will prove to be peanuts, if the global monetary system is not replaced quickly.

Responding to Narro's remarks, Navarrete warned that, all it takes is for one family member to lose his or her job, for the situation to turn "explosive." We can't let the situation devolve to the point where we open the newspaper one morning, or hear on the radio or TV, that residents of some town have attacked a store or supermarket to steal food or medicine, the Senator said.

He reported that there has already been the first case of a train being attacked in Guanajuato. "But," he added, "at the point where we have an explosion in some city in the country, where desperate mothers and fathers decide to attack a supermarket or a store, in search of food for their families, this will be like tossing a match into dry grass."

At the seminar, Senate President Gustavo Madero of the ruling National Action Party (PAN) effectively agreed with Navarrete, but put it in these terms: "I think that perhaps next year, Mexico is going to have the most difficult year of [the President's] six-year term, and we must be conscious of this and act accordingly."

State Department Report on Mexico Will Free Up Anti-Narcotics Funds

Aug. 18 (EIRNS)—On Aug. 13, the U.S. State Department quietly released a report to Congress, affirming that Mexico is respecting human rights as it prosecutes its war on drugs. Congress requires such a report in order to release anti-narcotics assistance to Mexico, under the terms of the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative.

On Aug. 4, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) had blocked release of $100 million to Mexico, echoing the charges of human rights NGOs financed by George Soros, that Mexico's Army was committing human rights atrocities, and that military courts were failing to prosecute such crimes.

Leahy's office rejected a report the State Department had drafted at that time, on grounds that it had provided insufficient evidence that the Mexican Army was seriously prosecuting soldiers guilty of abuses. Release of the report on Aug. 13 was possible due to the Mexican Army having subsequently provided additional information that it had indeed prosecuted human rights crimes, according to the State Department. Leahy said he was "disappointed" with the report, but will apparently take no further action to block funds.

The Aug. 16 report that Mexico has replaced all 700 of its customs inspectors with 1,400 new agents, has received positive coverage. The new agents have been thoroughly vetted and have received months of specialized training to detect contraband at ports and border crossings. With new technology, agents will now be able to weigh and photograph every car and truck that crosses into the country—instead of the 10% checked previously—and the expectation is that, in addition to combatting tax evasion, Mexico will be able to seize more weapons smuggled in from the U.S. that end up in the hands of drug traffickers.