This is truly outrageous.

Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign into law a measure that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Spokesman Ruben Aguilar defended the law, which was approved Friday by Mexico’s Senate, despite criticism in the United States that it could increase casual drug use.

“The president is going to sign this law,” said Aguilar, who called the legislation “a better tool … that allows better action and better coordination in the fight against drug dealing.”

“The government believes that this law represents progress, because it established the minimum quantities that a citizen can carry for personal use,” Aguilar said.

Under current Mexican law, judges can drop charges against people caught with drugs if they can prove they are addicts and if an expert certifies they were caught with “the quantity necessary for personal use.”

The new bill makes the decriminalization automatic and drops the addict requirement — automatically letting any “consumers” have drugs.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of San Diego, California, is freaking out. And rightly so.

On Friday, Mayor Jerry Sanders of San Diego, said he was “appalled” by the bill. The city of 1.3 million people is a short drive from the Mexican border town of Tijuana.

“I certainly think we are going to see more drugs available in the United States,” Sanders said. “We need to register every protest the American government can muster.”

But, at least so far, the silence is deafening.

Way back when I was much, much younger and not nearly as responsible as I am today as an adult, I use to visit friends in Southern California. During each visit, we would make our annual trip down to Chula Vista, park the car on the U.S. side, and walk over the border to Tijuana. Oh, and we would be walking with thousands of other college age kids who all had the same thing on their mind – partying in the bars of TJ. We’d get down there around 8:30 PM and we’d stumble walk back into the U.S. around 3 or 4 AM. While our interests were primarily centered around dancing and drinking, there were plenty of locals available who were more than willing to sell you a drug or two on the cheap. I can only imagine what that place is like today. And, now that it will be legal for “consumers” to have drugs in TJ, or any place in Mexico, we’ll have thousands of American youngsters coming back into the country DRUNK AND DOPED UP. And don’t think they walk home…no way. They’re getting into their cars and driving back to San Diego, or even Los Angeles. Get the picture?

The U.S. should immediately beef up the borders with more agents, and the penalties for public drunkenness and drug intoxication should be much tougher now that Mexico has decided that they’ll willingly allow our kids to toke out and snort up whenever and wherever. If U.S. citizens get loaded in Mexico and face a higher risk of gettin’ busted when they try to come back into the country, we might be able to minimize further injury or better yet, prevent an untimely death.

In the meantime, we need to publically denounce this decision by Vicente Fox. The safety of our citizens and our national security is at risk. President Bush should immediately make a statement informing the Mexican government that the United States does not support the legalization of drugs and that future relations with Mexico will be adversely affected because of their decision.

MORE: Sam Enriquez

UPDATE: Fox now refuses to sign the drug bill, sending the legislation back to congress.