HEROIN NOW LEGAL IN SMALL DOSES

Mexico - A controversial new law decriminalising the possession of
small amounts of heroin, marijuana, cocaine and other illicit
substances has quietly slipped on to the statute books in Mexico.

Under the new rules there will be no action taken against those
carrying up to a half-gramme of cocaine, 40 grammes of marijuana or
50 milligrammes of heroin.

Limits are set for other drugs, including LSD and methamphetamine.
People found in possession of these small amounts will be encouraged
to attend a drug treatment programme.

The move provoked little fuss either in Mexico itself or across the
border in the US, which in the past has resisted anything that might
be seen as going soft on drugs.

"This is not legalisation. This is regulating the issue," insisted
Bernardo Espino del Castillo, the Attorney General, in an attempt to
play down the significance of the new measure.

The government made sure there was no fanfare or grand announcement
after the law was finally passed at the end of last week.

Mexico is enmeshed in a violent war with drugs cartels and
traffickers that has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the past
two-and-a-half years, and it is keen to explore any new approach that
might ease the situation.

Officials believe that the law will ease pressure on the country's
overcrowded prisons and allow police to concentrate on dealers and smugglers.

The reform is also intended to help by taking away from ordinary
police officers the discretion on whether to arrest and possibly
prosecute drug users n a prerogative that has encouraged shakedowns
of citizens and corruption.

However, it is also with at least half an eye towards America that
the law has been signed.

Many in Mexico believe that their northern neighbour would do well to
reassess its own ultra-prohibitionist approach to drug use,
particularly concerning marijuana, sales of which provide roughly
two-thirds of the cartels' profits.

Some US states have moved to decriminalise the possession of small
quantities of marijuana but not other drugs.

At the same time, arrests for marijuana possession set a new record
of about 800,000 last year.

With Barack Obama in the White House, the atmospherics have been changing.

Earlier this year, the US said that it shared some of the blame for
Mexico's drug problems because it was the main point of consumption.

Observers also note that when the Mexican Congress approved a similar
law several years ago, the then president, Vicente Fox, declined to
sign it because of stiff pressure from the Bush administration in Washington.

This time around, there was no such intervention from the US, which
so far has had little to say about it officially.

- - THE INDEPENDENT