El Paso Wants Feds To Consider Legalizing Drugs

Hmmmm. It's come to this.

From the January 6, 2008 edition of the El Paso Times.

El Paso wants feds to consider legalizing drugs
The Associated Press
Posted: 01/06/2009 04:01:21 PM MST

EL PASO, Texas—Concerns about the the bloody drug war being fought just across the Mexican border have El Paso leaders asking the federal government to consider legalizing drugs.

Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso city councilman, pushed a resolution Tuesday that asks the U.S. government to start an "open, honest, national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics."

"We think it should at least be on the table and so far it hasn't," O'Rourke said.

The council, which oversees a city of more than 600,000 people that is considered one of the safest U.S. cities of its size, unanimously approved the request.

The nonbinding resolution suggests that legalizing drugs in the United States could help curb a volatile and bloody drug war that claimed nearly 1,600 lives in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, in 2008. Thousands more were killed across Mexico.

But the request may be a tough sell to a newly minted Congress facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and two wars.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a former U.S. Border Patrol agent, said he has not seen the resolution and was not available for comment Tuesday.

UPDATE: MAYOR VETOS RESOLUTION, CALLS IT "NOT REALISTIC"
from the January 6, 2008 edition of the El Paso Times online:

EL PASO - Mayor John Cook on Tuesday vetoed a unanimously supported resolution from City Council asking the federal government to seriously study the legalization of narcotics as a way to respond to the plague of violence that last year killed 1,600 people in Juárez.

The council on Tuesday had voted 8-0 on a resolution drafted by the city's Border Relations Committee, outlining 11 steps the U.S. and Mexican governments can take to help El Paso's "beleaguered and besieged sister city."

All city representatives also supported an amendment by South-West city Rep. Beto O'Rourke that added a 12th step: the encouragement of the U.S. federal government to start a "serious debate" on the legalization of drugs.

Cook said it was the amendment that forced him to use his veto power for just the third time in his administration.

"The action of council ... undermines the hard work of the committee by adding new language which may affect the credibility of the entire resolution," he said in his veto.

"It is not realistic to believe that the U.S. Congress will seriously consider any broad-based debate on the legalization of narcotics," Cook added. "That position is not consistent with the community standards both locally and nationally."

Cook's veto angered several on council, including some of his closest political allies.

"I am really disappointed. I went and told him that personally," O'Rourke said. "This amendment received unanimous support from council and it also received the support of the members of the committee who wrote the resolution."

Eastridge/Mid-Valley city Rep. Steve Ortega said he respected Cook's decision, but disagreed with it.

"The controversial amendment merely calls for the initiation of a debate regarding the prohibition of narcotics ... (it) does not endorse the legalization of drugs but it places it on the table for debate," he said. "Ending cartel related violence in Juárez represents this region's biggest challenge and


Cook did find some support from U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, who said Tuesday that the council's resolution wouldn't have been supported in Washington, D.C.

"Legalizing the types of drugs that are being smuggled across the border is not an effective way to combat the violence in Mexico," he said. "I would not support efforts in Congress that would seek to do so."

O'Rourke and others on council said they are not advocating for the legalization of drugs, much less their use.

Rather, they want lawmakers to have a serious debate on whether the end of drug prohibition would have a positive impact on the level of violence that has erupted along the U.S.-Mexico
Narcotics legalization

Do you agree with the City Council resolution expressing solidarity with Juarez and asking the U.S. government to begin a debate on the legalization of narcotics?
Yes.
No.
border.

"I completely understand ... this is a very uncomfortable conversation to have," said West-Central city Rep. Susie Byrd. "But the reason that I am compelled to support the resolution as we approved it is that whatever we have been doing in the last 40 years has not worked."

But Cook said the council missed the point on the message that the resolution as first drafted was meant to send.

"The whole purpose of the resolution was to get national attention to the violence in Juárez," he said. "After it was amended, the focus was placed instead on legalizing drugs in the United States."

O'Rourke said that the resolution was powerful as it was originally presented, but that his amendment was successful in taking the document "to the next level."

"We started a conversation about solutions ... a conversation that was supported by everyone on council," he said. "The mayor, though, didn't say a word during the meeting. It wasn't until I received a Xerox copy of his veto that I heard from him."

Cook said he was sorry that he didn't voice his opposition to the amendment, but "frankly, I didn't think it was going to pass."

Byrd, who has previously criticized Cook's vetoes, said the mayor needed to take action during the open meeting and not wait until the afternoon to act.

"It's almost like policy- development in the back room ... there is no public discussion," she said.

Gustavo Reveles Acosta may be reached at greveles@elpasotimes.com; 546-6133.