Is drug tourism good?

Mexico may be decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of the following drugs:

Cocaine. Heroin. LSD. Marijuana. PCP. Opium. Synthetic opiates. Mescaline. Peyote. Psilocybin mushrooms. Amphetamines. Methamphetamines.

The list is here.  If this goes through (even if Fox doesn’t apply it to U.S. citizens, enforcement may dry up) we would be outsourcing some of our drug dealing to the Mexicans.  Why risk legal trouble in the States when you can go crazy over spring break in Cancun?  I am not sure the nominal price will be lower, given transport costs.  But if you are afraid of the law, you will have new and better drug options.

If you think the problem is isolated doses of drug-taking, and that the law is what deters people at home, our drug problem will get worse.  If you think the problem is the secondary effects of the drug trade, such as gang involvement and crime, things will get better.

If this new option gets you to start trying drugs, you might opt for recreational, non-addictive drugs.  Heroin is out, if only because it is hard to get back to Mexico for each fix.  That appears to fit the better-case scenario.

If you can go crazy, absolutely crazy, in Cancun or Tijuana, is that a substitute for or complement to domestic drug-taking?

Is substitution more likely if people take drugs for "signalling" or for "experimentation" reasons?

Which is a bigger problem: how stoned you are, or how many days you are stoned for?

Do U.S. prostitutes feel that Thailand stimulates demand for their product?  I suspect not.

Let us say such a change in Mexico would have beneficial effects on the U.S. drug problem.  Might we not also consider "drug law holidays"; periodically you could take all the drugs you want without legal penalty, but this lasts only for five days during the year?

Every year Tower Records used to have a big post-Christmas sale.  During the year I bought many fewer CDs.

If periodic sales would boost rather than lower long-term demand, won’t current drug dealers already be using such sales?  In which case some extra sales are likely to diminish demand…?