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Reporter's Notebook: Al Giordano

Mexico City DA Reiterates in Favor of Decriminalization

Posted by Al Giordano - February 27, 2004 at 11:50 am
The District Attorney of one of the largest cities in the world, Bernardo Batíz of Mexico City, continued this week his public education efforts to explain why decriminalizing drug users would make for a safer city, more room in prison for violent criminals, and more effective law enforcement.

According to a report last night on the national Channel 11 News, Batíz lectured a city judge about overcrowding in the city's jails and prisons:

"There are places that are overpopulated by 100, 200 or 300 percent, where you put three or four times as many people as there should be per meter, and this harms security," Batíz warned Judge Luis Rodríguez Manzanera...

He also insisted that drug consumption should be legalized: "That can be a path to end the mafias. It is the path, also, to succeed in the rehabilitation or cure of those who are addicts, it would make that possible," he said.

Months ago, when Batíz, of the Center-Left Democratic Revolution Party, called for decriminalization, some beautiful losers claimed he wasn't serious (and they confused him with national prosecutors of a competing political party). But Batíz keeps up the fight!

About Al Giordano

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Publisher, Narco News.

Reporting on the United States at The Field.

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