Posted on 06/10/2012 11:42:40 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
MEXICO CITY — The top three contenders for Mexico’s presidency have all promised a major shift in the country’s drug war strategy, placing a higher priority on reducing the violence in Mexico than on using arrests and seizures to block the flow of drugs to the United States.
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“Results will be measured not by how many criminals are captured, but by how stable and secure the communities are,” Ms. Vázquez Mota wrote on her campaign Web site.
Mr. López Obrador — whose security strategy is called “Abrazos, no balazos,” or “Hugs, not bullets” — has criticized how United States officials have approached securing Mexico. “They should send us cheap credit, not military helicopters,” he said. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
History has proven that they can't be stopped - and that trying to stop them by making them illegal does more harm than good. The drug ban is exactly the sort of utopian feel-good policy for which conservatives criticize liberals.
Wasn’t it a NATIONAL program? That article’s just a Boca Raton piece. Again, multiply by 1,000s of locations needing facilities, materials, food, salaries etc etc etc.
*ALL COSTS* GO TO THE BOTTOM-LINE EXPENSE FOR THE PROGRAM. ALL COSTS, PRIVATE AND/OR PUBLIC.
It was publicly hailed as a ‘resounding success’, IINM, but it wasn’t, on a strictly cost/per accounting basis. None of those touchy-feely programs ever are.
I’m glad some were turned from drugs-alcohol abuse, and that they didn’t go thru that hell-on-earth nightmare that many others did. But it wasn’t the universal panacea it was hyped to have been.
I can support marijuana legalization under if:
1. All marijuana sold in the U.S. is grown in the U.S. by licensed farmers through a competitive bidding process.
2. Marijuana cigarettes (which might include filter tips) and other products are produced and packaged by licensed companies under federal and or state law and inspection.
3. Marijuana products are distributed and sold by licensed vendors with a commercial pipeline similar to tobacco and liquor.
4. The marijuana industry and its consumers are subject to taxes and fees at federal, state and local levels.
Though narcotics get the headlines, marijuana accounts for 60 percent of Mexican cartel exports into the U.S.
By legalizing and commercializing the U.S. marijuana market the criminal justice system could narrow its focus to more dangerous drugs. The production of bulk, untaxed marijuana by unlicensed growers would be treated as a tax violation the way moonshine whiskey is.
“Hugs” for the murderous narco-terrorists? Instead of them using “bullets”? Yeah, that’ll work real well, if that’s the purpose. Not. If it’s for the many innocent people getting murdered, that’s not going to work well, either. Minor “details” of the program which are not clearly spelled-out.
So by analogy, you’d be OK with American law enforcement turning a blind eye to toxic waste dumpers using the Rio Grande just as it flows into Mexico ?
As long as a few criminals in Mexico are making money cooperating with the dumpers, why should American law enforcement risk their lives trying to protect the vast majority of Mexicans who do not benefit but are only harmed by such dumping ?
No, I am not saying drugs are toxic waste. I am saying that being a good neighbor means respecting their laws and not helping your people circumvent those laws. Just like the pamphlets the Mexican government provides people advising them how to best illegally enter the US, the Mexican government is proving again it is not a good neighbor.
LOL in fact ROTFL!
Kook - we have tons of laws making illegal the trafficking & transit of thousands of illegal substances, including but not limited to drugs, weapons, prostitutes, and sensitive information.
And police die rather often enforcing those very laws.
Put down the bong for a few weeks...
You are wrong , but why should I argue with you.
That would be a waste of time and effort.
If so, it means that our national drug policy has been an epic failure.
Doesn't the Tenth Amendment mean that the states should decide intrastate drug policy - even if it means legalization of pot in some states?
Congress has legitimate power to prohibit those items from entering the US because the Constitution delegates to it (Congress) the power to regulate foreign commerce.
Where do you believe the Constitution delegates to Congress the power to impose intrastate marijuana prohibition?
The ‘War On Drugs’, like the pathetic and ultra-wasteful ‘War On Poverty’, are both total and abject failures. The Feds have usurped so much Constitutional authority from the States, it’ll be difficult if not impossible to get it back.
A thorough “Liberty Tree Refreshing” will be the only way.
So by analogy, you’d be OK with American law enforcement turning a blind eye to toxic waste dumpers using the Rio Grande just as it flows into Mexico ?
Poor analogy - a better one would be American law enforcement allowing toxic waste sellers to sell to Mexicans for ultimate personal consumption.
No, I am not saying drugs are toxic waste. I am saying that being a good neighbor means respecting their laws and not helping your people circumvent those laws.
Up to a point. But if the only demonstable effect of your neighbor's laws is to make the breaking of those laws so lucrative that your domestic criminals are better armed than your government, it may be time to say, "Sorry, neighbor, we won't pay for your bluenosery with our blood."
LOL in fact ROTFL!
Kook - we have tons of laws making illegal the trafficking & transit of thousands of illegal substances, including but not limited to drugs, weapons, prostitutes, and sensitive information.
Sensitive information is a red herring - the reason we don't want those going to Mexicans is not that other Mexicans disapprove.
And police die rather often enforcing those very laws.
Pick that nit. Would you support a policy of endangering the lives of non-law-enforcement U.S. citizens so that Mexicans could be hampered from ingesting substances of which other Mexicans disapprove?
History has proven that they can't be stopped - and that trying to stop them by making them illegal does more harm than good. The drug ban is exactly the sort of utopian feel-good policy for which conservatives criticize liberals.
You are wrong , but why should I argue with you.
That would be a waste of time and effort.
<snicker> The fine print on the white flag of the drug warrior who has no rational response. (And in the end none of you do.)
“Poor analogy - a better one would be American law enforcement allowing toxic waste sellers to sell to Mexicans for ultimate personal consumption. “
That’s ridiculous. Whether the people in the target country want something for their own amusement or because they want to profit by accepting it is irrelevant. The relevant point is that people on both sides of the border stand to profit off something that a clear majority of the citizens in the target country have outlawed. Shipping toxic waste to Mexico without regard to the harm caused by the Mexican profiteers, and any Mexican laws against such disposal, is exactly analogous.
You are arguing about “personal consumption” of drugs, but that is not the issue. If drugs were legalized in the US, which I favor, then Mexico could do whatever they liked about the cartels because there would be little profit or motive for violence in the US drug trade. (I’d be more than happy to stop spending money trying to prevent people from destroying their own lives. That’s Darwinism and best to let that end of the gene pool kill itself off.) Until we get real about repealing Prohibition, however, making things easier for the cartels to operate in Mexico will increase the violence in the US since the cartels will have more resources to devote to their operations here.
Poor analogy - a better one would be American law enforcement allowing toxic waste sellers to sell to Mexicans for ultimate personal consumption.
That’s ridiculous. Whether the people in the target country want something for their own amusement or because they want to profit by accepting it is irrelevant.
That's not the distinction I'm making. I said "ultimate" personal consumption recognizing that there would also be middlemen making profits. The distinction is that, unlike toxic waste dumping, putting drugs in one's own body violates nobody else's rights.
The relevant point is that people on both sides of the border stand to profit off something that a clear majority of the citizens in the target country have outlawed. Shipping toxic waste to Mexico without regard to the harm caused by the Mexican profiteers, and any Mexican laws against such disposal, is exactly analogous.
As I said, past a certain point, it may be time to say to that clear majority of the citizens in the target country, "Sorry, neighbor, we won't pay for your bluenosery with our blood."
If drugs were legalized in the US, which I favor, then Mexico could do whatever they liked about the cartels because there would be little profit or motive for violence in the US drug trade. (I’d be more than happy to stop spending money trying to prevent people from destroying their own lives. That’s Darwinism and best to let that end of the gene pool kill itself off.)
Agreed.
Until we get real about repealing Prohibition, however, making things easier for the cartels to operate in Mexico will increase the violence in the US since the cartels will have more resources to devote to their operations here.
Possibly - but if Mexico decides it's not worth the price in their blood to enforce our laws, I think a better course than demanding their continued bloodshedding is for us to wise up about our laws.
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