ShareThisWASHINGTON - Planning a trip to Mexico? Forget it.
In the days when my company had a newspaper in El Paso and I used to visit there on a regular basis, it always was a treat to cross the river for a few hours, have dinner and shop at the colorful markets of Juarez where haggling over prices was half the fun. There is no more haggling. Most of those caught in the crossfire while just minding their own business aren't even afforded the opportunity to barter for their lives.
The big Mexican city on the border -- in fact that country's entire northern region -- has become an anarchic site of murder, mayhem and viciousness. It is a huge mortuary of a city where no one is safe and the silence is broken only by the sound of gunfire. Northern Mexico is the Somalia of the Western Hemisphere with killing fields cultivated and sustained by an enormous flow of cash and weapons from the United States, a steady revenue produced from this nation's huge appetite for drugs.
In Monterey recently, U.S. State Department officials there were told to evacuate their children after a private school came in harm's way amid signs the drug cartels now have control of the city.
Earlier in the week, 72 migrants, 58 men and 14 women, from Central America making their way north were massacred and within 24 hours of being assigned to investigate this horrific tragedy, two top Tamaulipas state officials disappeared. The body of one of the missing officers reportedly was found along a road. At about the same time, two explosions led authorities to speculate that the drug thugs had entered a new phase in their war with the government and society.
The unstable situation now is threatening to spill over into resort areas, adversely impacting Mexico's vital tourist industry already suffering from fears generated by the constant news of slaughter.
Next to the economy, the escalating death and destruction toll in Mexico linked as it is to escalating alarm over immigration is increasingly becoming America 's leading domestic issue. It has serious political ramifications for the Obama administration, which is faced with mounting questions about how to keep the violence from spilling into U. S. border cities and to curtail the mass of money headed south every day. U.S. customs agents are trying desperately to inspect any suspicious vehicle, including trucks carrying materials for U.S plants in Mexico, but the task is herculean given the length of the border and the enormous flow of traffic. Also, U. S. authorities know that the money is probably never going to be stopped until the market is disrupted.
Since 2006 when President Filipe Calderon took office and declared war on the drug cartels, 28,500 have died in drug-related violence and he recently said there would be more before it is over. There is an endless supply of cartel-owned police officers at the federal, state and local levels. Law enforcement officials, including judges and prosecutors as well as police administrators, have been thoroughly intimidated and those who haven't have been eliminated.
Currently critics of the U.S. response, which seems negligible at best, contend that it has overemphasized trying to stop everything at the border by constantly increasing the number of Border Patrol officers instead of providing the manpower to the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive to attack the problem of drugs and guns in this country. Lining up patrolmen shoulder to shoulder obviously isn't the solution. Both DEA and ATF already have programs on the Southwest Border but are obviously hamstrung in major northern cities where legal firearms are diverted and drugs dispensed.
"It's not all that complicated," a source knowledgeable with the problem said recently. "The drugs go up and the same guys who brought them bring back guns and in certain cases money. Cartel A ships drugs to Chicago or wherever and brings home the weapons the same way. It's not 15 guys bringing back one or two weapons each. It's two or three guys bringing back 100. More agents on the northern end could do a lot of damage to the success of these groups."
But until then it seems wise to stay out of Mexico.
(E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan(at)aol.com.)
COLUMN
We must act now.
$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S., and because of the prohibition *every* dollar of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. Far from preventing people from using marijuana, the prohibition instead creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand.
According to the ONDCP, two-thirds of the Mexican drug cartel's money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., and they protect this cash flow by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering thousands of innocent people.
If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so now, but if we can't then we need to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other, we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate their highly lucrative marijuana incomes - no business can withstand the loss of two-thirds of its revenue!
To date, the cartels have amassed more than 100,000 "foot soldiers" and operate in 230 U.S. cities, and the longer they're able to exploit the prohibition the more powerful they'll get and the more our own personal security is put in jeopardy.
Yeah, right, as if they will
Yeah, right, as if they will just go away if we legalize marijuana. This is so typical of the over simplified pro-legalization argument. Anyone with half a brain knows that if successful in removing the revenue stream from marijuana, the cartels will just massively expand their efforts to flood the US with cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and ecstasy to make up for the lost income. As the pie gets smaller, violence and bloodshed will increase dramatically. That's what makes the legalization argument a straw dog, in the end it will make the problem much, much worse. Using illegal drugs kills innocent people, that's what we need to get the word out about. Legalization is not the answer.
drug legalization
The big cartels already deal primarily in cocaine, heroin, and meth, since that's where the big money is; marijuana is small potatoes for the little guys. By not wasting our time chasing after pot, we can more effectively focus our resources on the truly damaging (and highly profitable) drugs.
Hey Dave, you're off the talking point
The talking point is that marijuana represents 60% of the cartels income and that legalizing it will deal a death blow to the cartels. You say it's small potato money. Better get back on message with all the other pro-dopers, you're blowing it for them.
The mistake is to think that
The mistake is to think that the crimes would stop if we legalized pot. This is not just about drugs, it is about smuggling. And while pot is a moneymaker, just as Canadian whiskey was for Joe Kennedy back during Prohibition, if we took away all the restrictions on pot tomorrow, the cartels would still be in business. They would ramp up to heroin, cocaine or other pills that mimic prescription drugs. They would, perhaps to make up for loss of revenue, ramp up their human trafficking and become more entrenched in prostitution and slavery than we now see. And the deaths would not stop. Because this is not just about pot, it is about a criminal gang, just like Al Capone, that insists on subverting laws and police to their will just like Capone did in Chicago. I would like to know why RICO laws have not been applied. I would like to know why the DOJ continues to look away as heinous crimes are being perpetrated by armed thugs that fade across the border. Is it any wonder that while Washington sues Arizona, 70% of the rest of the nation supports them?
Prohibition Sucks!
We can either ask the Tooth Fairy to stop people taking drugs or we can decide to regulate them properly. Prohibition is not regulation, it's a hideous nightmare for all of us and our families, except of course for the lowest lifeforms amongst us.
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation.
By its very nature, prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model - the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous and ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved. Thus the allure of this reliable and lucrative industry with it's enormous income potential that consistently outweighs the risks associated with the illegal operations that such a trade entails, will remain with us until we are collectively forced to admit the obvious.
There is therefore an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. Anybody 'halfway bright', and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem, it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand. If you are not capable of understanding this connection then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. So put away your pipe, lock yourself away in a small room with some tinned soup and water, and try to crawl back into reality A.S.A.P.
Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you support the Kool-Aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, tortured corpses, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, economic tribulation, unemployment and the complete loss of the rule of law.
"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!
So what do we do when cocaine
So what do we do when cocaine becomes the next horizon of problems after we legalize the wacky weed?
Then, after we legalize cocaine, what would we say to the meth and heroine dealers in Mexico who are getting out of control? Why fight them either?
Then, after we legalize every drug imaginable and our families and kids have drugs leaking out of their ears and noses and driving into other people on our streets and barfing up their guts and stealing everything they can steal, lets talk about legalizing prostitution so we can create new Mexican cartels for kidnapping women and illegally smuggling them to the US where prostitution is legal? Why fight them?
I mean, humans are doomed to break any and every rule, right? Why fight evil and make laws if people are just going to break them anyway? Why not promote evil so we can overload on it and die chocking on our throw-up of destroyed civilizaiton.
bad thinking
Most people who use pot don't use cocaine, or heroin, or meth. This is the classic "gateway drug" myth, that access to pot inevitably leads to access to stronger drugs. It's nonsense.
what are you implying
Are you implying that Americans are all a bunch of drug addicts, just waiting to get their hands on legal stuff? Or a bunch of drooling perverts dying to get their hands on legalized flesh-for-money? You obviously don't think much of your fellow Americans, or humanity in general.
reply to Keep it Together
Before the prohibitions all drugs including coca were legal. Coca was in Coca-Cola. The US had a small addiction problem but there were private clinics that addressed it.
There were no drug cartels and there was no drug related crime issue. Then came the prohibition.
If they had left coca in Coca-Cola we would not have cartels today.
The real purpose of the marijuana prohibition was the destruction of the hemp industry.
The federal gov't wanted no part of marijuana prohibition because such a law would be unconstitutional. I'm sure a few senators were paid off to get the law passed. Then the Supreme Court shot it down because it was - guess what?
The gov't has no business controlling people's lives like a big freaking nanny. I don't use drugs nor alcohol nor nicotine. But I consider it my right as a human being to do with my body whatever I choose, including drug use.
It's ironic that, in a country where it's legal to kill a fetus, it is illegal to smoke a joint. What happened to constitutionally protected privacy and choice???
Keep it Together; Most
Keep it Together;
Most Americans didn't become alcoholics after Prohibition was repealed.
Give some dignity to your fellow humans. Most of us aren't interested in ruining our lives.
Prohibition is not exactly
Prohibition is not exactly the precedent for legalization everyone thinks it is. First, spirits were the national "drug" of choice by the majority of Americans. Secondly, prohibition was the result of an influential minority of progressives, populists, and the women's Temperance Movement during a period of "Puritan" excess. Violent resistance (organized crime) was the logical outcome to those do gooders. However, the current "illegal drug" market services a minority of the population, often celebrity types who are by definition unique and atypical. There is no broad majority drug culture, but there are still residual "hippie" subcultures and minority counter-cultures doing dope. Legalizing drugs means the majority agrees to "live" with mind altered trolls and their social costs, or the majority can get more draconian and start liquidating the drug sub-cultures--after all, there are other "models" for cutting down drug consumption that work. For example, Islamic countries regularly execute dope fiends and pushers, in a speedy due process manner, and they don't have the drug problems and the ancillary social costs we have. Just a thought, in the interest of multicultural foreign precedents for informing local legal policy and procedures.
Guns & Cocaine
Since the Mexican drug mob's weapons of choice are fully automatic assault rifles (AK's and M16's), it should be obvious that they AREN'T getting the guns in the good old USA (where the sale of automatic wepaons is prohibited), but from international gun sellers, the Mexican Army, or countries that want to cause us problems like Venezuala or Iran. Secondly, since people who use drugs are going to do so regardless of any legal restraints, it really does make sense to regulate them, thereby eliminating the middleman. Regulation does not automatically translate to increased usage. Finally, what do you think happened to the mob when Prohibition was repealed? They went into labor racketeering and drug running.
Many of the automatic weapons
Many of the automatic weapons confiscated are from the Middle East via Indonesia.
Huge appetite for drugs?
"Northern Mexico is the Somalia of the Western Hemisphere with killing fields cultivated and sustained by an enormous flow of cash and weapons from the United States, a steady revenue produced from this nation's huge appetite for drugs."
I'm smelling a rat here. Where is this huge appetite for drugs? Where is this huge market? I don't see it. The statistics I see show drug use has declined. I look everywhere for stats on drug use and nothing shows it's so huge. Four percent here, six percent there. This is bupkas. Drug use has gone down in the US over the past fifteen years.
Maybe this isn't about drug use or moving drugs over the border. Maybe this is about setting up a hostile force within our borders.
This makes me nervous.
Perhaps there is more to blame than the US Drug appetite
Part of the issue is the lack of other viable economic opportunities for Mexico's citizens...one thing Caulderon could do is allow for more competition in the economy such that Carlos Slim and his two friends don't own 98% of everything.
Stay out of Mexico, at least
Stay out of Mexico, at least until the open borders policy of Washington allows the drug lords and their private army free reign in the United States.
Open borders with a failed state : Change your getting and you'll like it to.
Mexico's problem is Mexico
The myth that the United States 2nd Amendment is the cause of Mexicos violence is anotheLiberal anti-American lie. Please, where in the US do you buy mass amounts of full auto weapons cheap? They are not getting weapons stocks from the US save for the US supplied Police weapons diverted by corrupt Federales.
The lie that 80% of Mexican weapons are traced back to the US has been debunked.
Mexico has had a closed, corrupt socio-economic system since the days of Pancho Villa spreading vilence across our border. Until Mexico enacts internal reform, nothing we do will cure it.
And allowing tens of millions of poor to flow into our nation will only spread the problem to our society.
Just legalize the stuff for
Just legalize the stuff for people of legal age. Please. Prohibition didn't work with alcohol and it's not working with cocaine and the other stuff. Let's acknowledge the fact that some people are hell bent on messing up their lives no matter what the health effects.
The world will be a much happier place if we all stop trying to micro-manage each other's lives, including what they put into their bodies.