2012 Mexican Elections May Yield New Approach To Drug Cartels
From the 1960s through the â80s, organized crime was intertwined with the government, according to Diego Enrique Osorno, a Mexican journalist and author of the recently published history, The Sinaloa Cartel. Whoever wins the 2012 elections is expected to take a new approach toward the cartels. Many voters may hope for a return to the days when the PRI let organized crime run drugs unfettered up to the U.S. border, but kept the violence off the streets.
In a historic move, the Department of Veterans Affairs has formally announced that patients being treated at V.A. facilities will be allowed to use medical marijuana if they live in one of the 14 states where it is legal. “We now have a branch of the federal government accepting marijuana as a legal medicine,” MPP’s Steve Fox told The New York Times in its front-page story trumpeting the news.
After blocking implementation of a medical marijuana law in the nation’s capital for more than a decade, Congress is no longer standing in the way of D.C. patients and effective relief. Thanks in part to lobbying by MPP and our allies, Congress declined to take action against a bill that will allow the District to license between five and eight medical marijuana dispensaries.
In another sign of the marijuana industry’s growing legitimacy, Colorado witnessed a tremendous outpouring of applicants for state licenses to run medical marijuana dispensaries and other related businesses, netting the state more than $7 million in application fees. Through taxation and licensing, Colorado is establishing what may soon be the largest regulated marijuana market in the world. 
In June, Las Vegas police shot and killed 21-year-old Trevon Cole in front of his pregnant fiancé during a raid on their home. Police charged that Cole was a major marijuana dealer. Now it’s come to light that police meant to target another man with the same name. Their tragic mistake claimed one more needless victim in the government’s war on marijuana.
A new Rasmussen poll shows that 65% of Americans believe it is “something likely” that marijuana will become legal in the United States in the next 10 years. Only 28% think otherwise. This is a huge sign that the movement to end marijuana prohibition is steadily moving in the right direction, but there’s still much work that needs to be done. Help us sustain the momentum by contributing to MPP today. 
Peter McWilliams, stricken with both cancer and AIDS, died because the federal government prevented him from using the one thing that controlled his nausea.
