Mexican Cartels Have Begun Kidnapping Americans
The more "progress" Mexico makes in its U.S.-funded war on drugs, the more of this sort of thing we can look forward to:
This is precisely why there is no such thing as progress in the drug war. The enemy doesn’t give a f$%k about anything. The harder you push, the harder they push back. New criminal opportunities emerge within the culture of violence and corruption the drug war produces and we haven't seen a fraction of the brutality that's in store for Mexican and American citizens if our governments insist on fighting this out in the streets.
The concept is simple: the harder we try to win the drug war, the greater the crime and violence we must endure. There is no threshold to be crossed, no day of reckoning for the warlords we've nurtured and empowered by placing an infinite tax-free economy in their icy death grip.
Just watch as violence against Americans leads to calls for more drug war funding, which in turn leads to more violence against Americans. The drug war itself is the coal that sustains this raging fire and anyone preferring to believe otherwise should probably just go ahead and turn off their TV.
TIJUANA, Mexico, Aug 12 (Reuters) - American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico.
Taking advantage of lax Mexican security at the San Diego border, and with U.S. authorities focused mainly on those entering the United States, the kidnappers took the two women to Tijuana in January and held them for a month before their family paid a $100,000 ransom.
…
An unintended consequence of Mexican efforts to weaken drug gangs, drug traffickers around Tijuana are turning to abducting U.S. citizens and residents in southern California and holding them in Mexico as a new way to get funds, U.S. and Mexican authorities say. [Reuters]
This is precisely why there is no such thing as progress in the drug war. The enemy doesn’t give a f$%k about anything. The harder you push, the harder they push back. New criminal opportunities emerge within the culture of violence and corruption the drug war produces and we haven't seen a fraction of the brutality that's in store for Mexican and American citizens if our governments insist on fighting this out in the streets.
The concept is simple: the harder we try to win the drug war, the greater the crime and violence we must endure. There is no threshold to be crossed, no day of reckoning for the warlords we've nurtured and empowered by placing an infinite tax-free economy in their icy death grip.
Just watch as violence against Americans leads to calls for more drug war funding, which in turn leads to more violence against Americans. The drug war itself is the coal that sustains this raging fire and anyone preferring to believe otherwise should probably just go ahead and turn off their TV.
Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? You've found it!
Something about this does not make sense
Your basic point seems to be that criminals will continue to be criminals and we shold not try to stop them. People will always deals drugs and use drugs so lets legalize drugs
Does this mean that because people are still going to rob banks we should legalize bank robbery. People are always going to kidnap people so lets legalize kidnapping. People are always going to kill each other so lets legalize murders. With that kind of logic, all crimes will become legalized.
No.
My point is that the war on drugs exacerbates violent crime. We created an enemy, declared a war, and now we've achieved levels of violence and disorder that the drugs themselves could never have caused.
Designing the market
Legalizing drugs is not the same as legalizing murder. Drug use, possession or sales aren't real crimes, because there is 100% consensus among those trading the goods, hence no victim. This defining characteristic of "drug crime" sets it apart from other real crimes. Murder, however, is a classic crime with perpetrator and victim, and as opposed to drug crimes the victim of violent crime and murder (attempts) will actually try to assist the police in solving the crime. So please don't miss the very different nature of these crimes.
There IS a market for drugs, because humans demand them - whether they be alcohol or other drugs. How we design that market i really what's important. In a legal market registrered companies have a lot to lose if they don't comply with regulations or if they sell to kids, but the basic benign nature of the market means it attracts pretty normal people and only the occasional psyko.
An illicit market can be subject to a variety of enforcement pressures, ranging from mere slaps on the wrist to life-and-death pressures.
An illicit market with lenient punishment and relaxed enforcement will attract some pretty normal people and there'll actually be some pretty good natured cops'n'robbers stuff going on between the police and the criminals.
Raising the stakes to life and death will keep most normal people out of the business while attracting the most ruthless and unscrupulous elements who are willing to use violence and murder to attain their goals. Not the least because profits soar to insane levels for those few total psykos willing to brave the deadly force levelled against them by law enforcement. This is especially true at the high level where the drug cartels operate..
But as the various recent reports say (like the WHO report) the harsness of enforcement doesn't seem to have any effect on the drug use or abuse. So it's inevitably there. Question is what kind of market we really want?
Sense and Sensibility in Victimology
For those who don’t already know, the difference between a drug crime and the crimes mentioned in the anon-post above (robbery, kidnapping, murder, etc.) is that the latter crimes have actual victims, whereas drug use crimes committed by consenting adults generally do not.
For instance, cannabis smokers rightly don’t consider themselves to be victims of cannabis. For them, no victim exists until the law intervenes.
Another characteristic of the drug use ‘crime’ is that people who don’t consider themselves to be victims are unlikely to act as accusers and make a voluntary effort to file a complaint about drugs or drug use with the authorities. Drug enforcement rarely encounters a victim-based accuser—all this in what is supposed to be a citizen-based accusatorial system of criminal justice in the United States.
As for drug enforcement, eliminationist motivated, non-accusatorial laws of this type are a proven, insidious menace. History tells us these laws screw up everything they touch.
Aside from the horrendous suffering forced upon the entire world by the drug war, law enforcement officers in the U.S. are urged to employ entrapment, trickery, threats, paramilitary raids, and the accompanying civil rights violations, to achieve a darkly deluded and impossible goal: a drug-free America.
Cops and politicians are caught up in this exciting drama and its corrupting influences. However, in every previous use of this juridical scheme, law enforcement and civil government failed to achieve their objective. Empires collapsed. In the end, drug enforcement is a slippery slide for everyone into a legal sewer.
Giordano
Legalization of an Herb equivalent to allowing Bank Robbery?
This reminds me of a person who equated Gay Marriage with allowing people to marry their pet snapping turtles?
What an idiotic Leap for a forward thinking person? No wonder this country is all fouled up, we have idiots for citizens.
Legalize the Herb. Make illegal harmful substances...like Ambien, Xanax and Republicans
Duh
Maybe I missed some subtle irony here since English isn't my first language, but I really wonder if you have understodd anything about drug policy.
It is such a common and dangerous mistake to think that "weed should be legal because it's safe" ... and what it would leave us to go after the really dangerous stuff.
The fact simply is: prohibition does not work for ANY drug. The harms from heroin are multiplied manyfold because of prohibition, and a lot less harm would result from a regulated, legal market.
There is a very good post here about "Constructing valid arguments regarding legalization":
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2008/08/17.html
You have simply fallen into a trap set up by those in power, because you actually endorse the basic premise of Prohibition by demanding that Xanax be criminalized.
Mexican Cartels Have Begun Kidnapping Americans
We supported General Polito when he was here, but of course as you all know by now, he was withdrawn. Whether or not he was sincere, or it was all just a setup leading the Mexican people to think their government cares about them, we will never really know.
Not only are the drug wars between the cartels themselves and between the cartels and the government going to increase, but the entire economic base down here is ready to collapse, despite the strong peso at this moment . Tourism and real estate sales to foreigners is dead, and there is no reviving it, despite what the Baja Tourist Board would like you to believe.
According to Nouriel Roubini, Mexico is headed for a huge fall in the first quarter of next year, and the Mexico Bank will be unable to prop the system. So, it would make sense to the Mexican Government to keep the drugs flowing. Everybody is in on it, from the guy who changes the tires, the guy who loads the stuff up, the guy who smuggles it, to all levels of government, on and on.
In addtion, the cancer of organized crime and resultant violence not only here, but in the United States, along with failed immigration policies of both countries is exascerbating extreme nationalism on both sides, from the Minutemen to the Raza.
Meanwhile, Blackwater and groups like Blackwater, are just waiting in the wings to intercede.
These are frightening times you guys, I'm afraid for all of us. Legalize the drugs and create treatment centers, the only solution. Oopsie, too much money in it NOT to do the obvious, too many dirty hands on both sides of the Border.
Keep up the fight everyone, we probably won't see this legalization happen in our lifetime, but maybe we can try to make a better world for our kids and grandkids.
http://marjorieanndrake.blogspot.com/
Mexican Cartels, etc
P.S. As a footnote, we don't use drugs, we don't even smoke pot....and I only found this site by reading the CNN article. Anyway, good luck.
Maggie
You're welcome
Hi Maggie - you're most welcome here anyway. The drug reform movement is - paradoxically - made up of those who really like drugs, those who really hate drugs because they killed some of their dear loved ones and even those who don't give a hoot about drugs, they just don't want their tax dollars wasted.
Drug policy reform is a weird bunch of people :)
Drugs & Money
Bottom line is, The power of the drug cartels comes from the demand of people in the us that desires to use them. To eliminate their main basic power of drug transporting and making and selling of, is to leagalize the drugs to an extent in the united states. By doing so you then removed the marketing of drugs by the cartels. May not be the right thing to do, But seems to be the best option to put the ball back in our court.
Post new comment