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PALENQUE -- Last month, Mexico decriminalized possession and use of small amounts of pot, heroin, methamphetamine, and acid. You still can't buy or sell drugs, and if you have more than a very small amount you can still get in serious trouble. At Room for Debate, the New York Times has asked five luminaries to give opinions on this move. Some are insightful. I could weigh in with an opinion, too, but since this blog is a reported one, I instead procured a bag of psilocybin mushrooms and ate them in my hotel room, to experience a newly semi-legal Mexican high myself.

In my previous post I wondered why almost no one copies Mexico City's signature crime, the "express kidnapping," in the U.S. and in big and chaotic cities like Cairo. Via Reihan and a worried Matt Yglesias, Noel Maurer explains:

MEXICO CITY -- Since Cairo is the foreign city I know best, I often see its image in other world capitals. Usually those kinships present themselves in little flashes here and there, reminders that when you gather a few million people in one place they are certain to organize themselves in predictable and familiar ways. But in Mexico City, the resemblances are not fleeting; they are ubiquitous, even uncanny.