In Argentina it is now unconstitutional to punish for marijuana (opens in new tab)

"Personal use decriminalization" is a farce. Imagine if possessing a cup of coffee remained perfectly legal, but anyone found with a box of coffee beans were presumed to be a dealer and sentenced to hard labor.

Hurray for Argentina and Mexico. I hope the trend continues.

I give Obama accidental credit for this. I suspect these decriminalization efforts would not have been tried under a McCain administration. (And if they were tried, those countries would have been punished.)

I'm happing to see this is maybe becoming a trend (Mexico sort of decriminalized marijuana for personal use recently). The war on drugs has done much damage already.

"Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state." I agree in principle, but the reality is people's lifestyle choices can impact the state - whether it be they turn to the government health systems to help break their addictions (I write this from UK where we have socialised healthcare) or crime rates go up, and the state has to increase the police force. There are so many issues, but it's interesting to see a government taking a more progressive attitude towards casual marijuana use.

In South America more people are killed by drunk drivers that stoned drivers.

Just to show that law is open to interpretation from many countries.