Drug Cartel Whacks Boy Hitman

There are so many killer children working for the Mexican drug cartels that perhaps kiddy network Nickleodeon should launch a comedy series titled I Was A Teenage Hitman or something (hey, it's already making the mob movie Nicky Deuce).

The tortured and slain body of a 13-year-old boy who last month confessed to his involvement with ten murders for Los Zetas was found in the Central Mexican state of Zacatecas as reported by Rafael Romo for CNN:

"After his February arrest, the Federal Police released the boy into the custody of the Mexican Attorney General's Office, which later set him free in compliance with the law. The Mexican constitution prohibits the incarceration of anybody under the age of 14. The constitutional ban also applies to correctional facilities."

The drug cartels increasingly are using juvie killers for their dirty work on both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border.

In December 2010 Mexican authorities arrested Edgar Jimenez a/k/a El Ponchis or The Cloak, an American-born 14-year-old boy who admitted to beheading at least four people on behalf of the South Pacific Cartel, which spotlighted the use of child narcos in the drug trade as reported by Ioan Grillo for Time magazine:

"Youth prisons in Mexico are now full of minors who have been arrested for crimes linked to the drug war. Most of the inmates had been convicted of drug-related murders, kidnapping and drug trafficking. Oswaldo Hogaz, a prison official in Juarez, Mexico, states: 'These kids are cheap, bloodthirsty, and they know the government can't punish them much.'"

In 2009 police in Laredo, TX reported that Los Zetas signed up U.S. teenagers as young as thirteen years old to carry out enforcement hits on the north side of the border as then reported by Ed Lavandera for CNN. Two such teens -- Rosalio Reta and Gabriel Cardona -- now are serving lengthy prison sentences for their roles in several murders, and Reta admitted that he made his first kill at 13: "I thought I was Superman. I loved doing it, killing that first person."

Last month two teen girls -- one 13, the other 15 -- confessed to gunning down a man in Guatemala City as reported by the Deccan Herald: "Criminal organizations are hiring and training minors as contract killers to exploit provisions in Guatemalan law that exempt minors from prosecution for such crimes, Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said."

Of course, no doubt degenerate Americans won't let a few lost childhoods get in the way of their nasty little drug habits.

“Of course, no doubt degenerate Americans won’t let a few lost childhoods get in the way of their nasty little drug habits.”

Having attempted to council or deal with drug/alcohol addicted employees I can tell you that they are built around denial. Trying to get them to confront their problem is like trying to force together two strong south pole magnets. You can get close, but they always slip aside. If you do manage to hold them together, they fly apart as soon as the force is relieved.

People who are addicted are intensely selfish. Incidentally, this is what makes them bad employees even If they are not stoned at work. They’ll make any commitment, but getting high is a much stronger commitment. They promised to come in on Saturday. But they no-show because they got stoned Friday night. They’ll promise anything and deliver on none of it.

You could explain to them all day long about how their habit is killing children in Mexico. You could show them graphic evidence. They don’t care. Oh, they’re incredibly manipulative and they’ll make all the expected noises and facial expressions. But they’ll drive from there to their dealer for a few lines of coke.

I believe that these addicted people have no value to the workplace, as friends, and should be shunned by their families. They will use their family as a prop to enable and continue their addiction. Only when they’ve been demonstrably clean for years and you can detect by their actions that they have really, really changed, would I even consider them as employees. And, then, I’d always be suspicious. I’ve only seen three such meet-with-Jesus conversions in 58 years. (Actually, the conversions were so complete it was like speaking with a different man. Scary, in a way.)

“Which approach would you recommend as national policy, and why:
1. Zero tolerance. Execute all traffickers. (like Singapore)
2. Keep most drugs illegal. Just try to keep a lid on the problem. (like the USA now)
3. Lift the ban on drugs. Anything goes. Allow regulated stores to sell heroin, etc. And should governments be putting resources into rehab programs, or is that just a waste of money? “

None of the above as stated. PET scans can predict with near 100% reliability who will be an addict. If you inject a test subject with a tiny amount of a drug or alcohol, their brains light up like the New York skyline. Once those people start on a drug, they almost never get off it. They have a genetic weakness for addiction. I’d suggest a number of approaches. Perhaps targeting programs to potential addicts so they know almost from birth that they’ll have a problem. Current programs target everybody but so many people have tried something and gone “meh” that those programs have zero credibility.

Another thing is Hollywood glorifies drug use. People see their favorite actor, maybe even portraying a cop, as was so often done in the ‘70’s, using drugs. He’s obviously having a good time. Nothing bad happens to him. Drugs are used to cynically portray the establishment as corrupt and hypocritical. This constitutes “permission giving behavior.” I wouldn’t alter the first amendment right of a filmmaker, but I would suggest a strong multi-level campaign to make the audiences view this behavior for what it is and thus hit Hollywood in the pocket book so they’d stop.

Our mega-schools have become giant liberal propaganda cesspools. All schools should have no more than 250 students and should be local enough that parents can easily be involved. That way children will all know each other and feel less frightened for their survival and thus less susceptible to peer pressure. Students who prove themselves to be drug dealers or overly problematic should be summarily removed. (What to do with them is a different issue. But, some children are evil. They just aren’t old enough for prison yet.) The huge public anti-smoking campaign was enormously successful.

The US has spent uncounted billions trying to interdict drugs. The US wiped out the three cartels that controlled the drug trade and thus created the perfect marketplace where anybody can get involved and not fear (much) reprisal by competitors. The street price of cocaine has come down from $100/gram in 1970 to anywhere from $5-$10 for a rock today. The economics proves the drug interdiction effort has created a hydra that only gets bigger and bigger with each major head that gets chopped off. I suspect the answer is some form of legalization. The user registers and gets his drug of choice for cost. But this can only happen after other vast (and unlikely) societal changes take place.

Incidentally, I’d forbid that registered user from many job types. This is a complex problem and no one “solution” will fix it. There will never be a drug free culture because some people are simply wired to need the drugs. The optimal answer is education and philosophy of life and spirituality.

It is the addiction that drives the cost, not that it is legal or not. Get them on it and they will do anything to find the money to get the next line, bag, rock or whatever. The Narcos know this just as well as our government does, in more effects than just the addiction.

Cigarettes are about $5 a pack, and supposed to be worse (more addictive) than heroin. At 20 'fixes' to the pack, that works out to be about 25 cents a fix. They, mind you are taxed ridiculously, which substantially increases the cost, but are legal.

Heroin, on the other hand, is just a bit more expensive, more difficult to obtain (you just can't walk into a convenience store and buy it), and universally imported through smuggling networks and clandestinely distributed. That makes it more expensive. Ditto the other addictive drugs our government has made an industry of interdicting and regulating. We don't have to use those drugs to pay for the Government side of the industry, and control of our Southern Border would have reduced the availability of the substances long ago, had it been done. The problem has been well known since the Eisenhower Administration, yet our government plays patty-cake with the problem and flirts with rewarding those who have violated our soverignty with legality, not to mention the other benefits we bestow on them.

We aren't fighting the drug war to win (it isn't achieving the desired effect), and the Rights of all (4th, 5th, 14th Amendments, for starters) have been greatly diminished in pursuit of drug dealers.

Contraband is big money. Take the profit out of it and it isn’t worth killing over.

Drug libertarians don’t like to hear this, but the big pharma will not be able to provide narcotics as cheaply as the drug cartels for many reasons and I will list a few -

Regulation - legal narcotics are a controlled drug with tight quality controls approved by the FDA and regulated. The price for a pharmaceutical company to produce approved heroin or cocaine would be far higher than the cartels. Simply legalizing it without regulating it would lead to lots of amateur pharmacists making products that would potentially kill the user because the strength of the product was much higher and the user was used to lower strength - happens frequently with heroin and sometimes with meth or cocaine. I can’t think of any pharmaceutical company that would make methamphetamine (a toxic substance).

Taxes - most arguments for legalization of drugs celebrate the fact that we will tax it and those taxes will pay for prevention and treatment programs instead of incarceration. If you use cigarette taxes as a baseline you will see in some states that excessive taxes create a criminal market of their own. Indian cigarettes are not taxed at the point of sale because the government honors the treaties and allows them to act as sovereign nations. Why would the same not apply to Indian Reservations and would people not seek out “non-taxed” drugs to make money to fund their own habits? Add in taxes and narcotics from Mexico will still be cheaper. Those taxes will mean the black market (crime) will continue to flourish - especially assuming reduced penalties.

Point of sale - what business would want to sell narcotics? Seriously? I have seen lots of clerks, people, and even a family murdered in cold blood for trivial amounts of money to fund someones insatiable desire to get high. Would you work at Walgreens if they sold crack or heroin? They rob them now regularly for oxycontin. No thanks. Would the government set up a point of sale like methadone clinics? Where is the savings with a government dispensary? Methadone (treatment drug) is more expensive for the taxpayers than heroin.

Tort - what company could afford the insurance premiums and attorney’s to fight off lawsuits associated with the inevitable overdose or misuse of the product? This is one of the reasons among many that our pharmaceuticals (and everything else medical) are so expensive in the U.S. Why would it be any different for hard drugs? People sued tobacco companies despite the warnings and lawyers like John Edwards made big money.

Marijuana is the baseline drug used for the libertarian argument for legalization. Marijuana is usually different than heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other hard psychotropic drugs. I would point out that the high-grade weed today is far stronger than the crap that was around in the 60’s. Hard drugs? I can’t see a path to legalize. Marijuana? I don’t really care about it, but for many of the same reasons listed above as well as the simple fact government messes up most everything it touches it is not a magic bullet. As a caveat - I do wish they would legalize industrial hemp. Interesting plant.

I can’t buy the quick easy answers given by libertarians on drugs. “Just legalize it and all the problems are fixed with the war on drugs.” I agree we need to change something, but the problem is far more complex than simple legalization. Study the problems with the medical marijuana programs for a preview. Drug abuse does not occur in a vacuum and it will never occur in a vacuum. There are many costs associated with this problem far beyond the criminal justice system overwhelmed with the problem and current laws.

I am open to trying something new on many different government wars - war on drugs, war on poverty, and the war on terrorism. There will always be profit in drugs and anything with an associated sin tax and regulations will never compete with the black market.

Legalization as promoted by libertarians assumes in one sentence that the problem is fixed. That is a big assumption. In order for it to work based on the classical argument seen here every day - it also assumes the government would not regulate it, tax it, or be involved in any way to dispense it. Furthermore, it would have to assume a level of tort reform unthinkable in America today. We can’t even fix these issues in general healthcare and that problem is so pervasive it is threatening to drag our entire economy over the brink.

Just points to ponder on a complex issue. After two decades in law enforcement I am sick of the war on drugs, but I can’t see the alternative. Prior to that I was an autopsy assistant and some of the corpses from drug overdoses showed unbelievable damage. I still see a few here and there and one recent one with a young lady whose dessicated corpse looked like something out of a concentration camp photo. If we are going to treat addiction as a medical issue under our present system the taxpayers are responsible for treating the addict - how could a tax pay for that? In that sense, legalizing hard drugs won’t save anything because it might be cheaper to incarcerate the hard addict (albeit not the majority of addicts) than pay for organ transplants and associated medical costs.

I am always willing to debate doing something different, but anyone that suggest the answer lies in one sentence is detached from the true reality of narcotics abuse once you get away from the regular Joe that might smoke a little weed every so often that they grow in their basement or buy from a friend.

P.S. - Outside of the casual pot smokers that don’t sell it for profit the simple reality is that criminals are criminals. Don’t assume today’s drug criminals will be asking you “do you want fries with that?” if they were not selling dope or committing crime to afford dope. Another discussion for another day.

Back in 1968, just after the murder of Bobby Kennedy, and the anti-gun hysteria gripped the US. Someone pointed out in a magazine that MEXICO had a greater murder rate with KNIVES than the US had with guns.

The editor wrote back that the reason was the cult of MACHO, which the US did not here.

Well, now it is here.

An excellent point. I have seen enough homicides up close to know it is the heart of a killer and not the instrument that kills. I have personally seen people killed with a screwdriver, hammer, axe, clotheshanger (tamping rod for a crack pipe) in the eye, fists, cars, kitchen knives, a box-cutter, blunt instruments of every kind, strangled, poisoned, a piece of firewood, arson, a pencil (only saw autopsy photos of that one) in the neck, etc etc etc. Those are just some of the ones I can remember and you clearly understand the point.

Liberalism is not grounded in reality. They assume we can take from the working and give to the lazy and the lazy won’t be poor. They never understand that the lazy are first and foremost poor in spirit no matter their standard of living. They apply the same mindset to firearms.

I have interviewed enough killers to know the method is secondary to the intent and they will kill regardless of what is handy. FWIW - I would rather be shot than stabbed.

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