If any FReepers would like to hear from a source more credible than a Holocaust-denying Web site:
"The lush traffic in alcohol beverages during the violent years of 1920 to 1933 had laid the base of organization for a number of criminal gangs. The termination of the ban on liquor deprived these gangs of their most lucrative source of money and they were obliged to turn to some other avenue of activity." - Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce
http://www.nolanchart.com/article3151-john-mccains-mob-connections.html
If you do the research you can find arrest records of Jim Hensley and his background of working directly for Greenbaum, a mobster who set him up in the beer business now valued at $200 million and which was used to finance McCain’s political career.
Without these connections McCain would have gone nowhere and certainly his daughter would have never been allowed a national forum to display her low IQ.
It’s not hard to understand.
When a mobster sees a drop in revenue because of legalization, they step up other criminal businesses to bridge the gap while working to secure distribution rights under a newly legalized enterprise.
Long and short, the repeal of Prohibition did not put mobsters who ran alcohol out of business. It legitimized them and allowed them to enter politics or influence politics which means they had even more of an effect on people lives after legalization.
Case example in point: Kennedys.
The drive to legalize pot will bring in all the other recreational drugs as well. If you don’t believe that you won’t believe that investors are persons that put money into businesses. Legalization will legitimize the criminals but these criminals are foreign with hatred of Americans and who will use terrorism to make people bend to their will.
Note in the original article of this thread that it says that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is finally acknowledging a connection between terrorists Hamas and Hezbollah and the Mexican (actually Colombian) Cartels.
Note also that it is the Colombian Cartels that were exiled from Colombia that bought their way into Mexico and have for nearly 10 years now terrorized that country. They will do the same in the USA.
Note that it was multi-billionaire Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar that was in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons to be used against the USA.
Note that Hamas and Hezbollah are surrogates for Iran and what is Iran doing? They are busy developing nuclear weapons. And these are the people that are in the camp of the drug lords in Mexico.
And to think legalization would defund them is extreme naivete. It will provide them a beachhead on US soil. These people don’t care about your legalization idea. It does not matter to them. They are going to murder their way to power in any way they can and legalization or not, the violence will never stop until someone puts them down.
Did legalized gambling in Las Vegas stop the mob from controlling that city in the 50s, 60s and 70s? No! It made it easy for them and they still raked in the profits even more so because now they could advertise and expand the customer gambler base.
What made the mob less influential in Las Vegas? It was the pushback, the war by the federal government using the FBI, the IRS and RICO that allowed Las Vegas to emerge with little to no mob influence. But there is always the risk they will come back.
So legalization has nothing to with stopping crime or defunding it. You look at Las Vegas of the 50s,60s and 70s and there was a ton of violence, of hits and horrors and yet the gambling was legal!
Legalization has nothing to do with it.