Posted on 11/12/2012 5:16:33 AM PST by AtlasStalled
With little pushback from law enforcement within its borders the United States increasingly is serving as a global distribution hub for the Mexican drug cartels.
Last week police in Melbourne, Australia busted two suspects including a reputed "high ranking member of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club" for their alleged roles in receiving cocaine shipments from an unidentified Mexican drug cartel in the United States as reported by Andrew O'Reilly for Fox News: "while it is unclear which cartel the outlaw motorcycle club members were working with, it is well known that Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel has a major stake in Australia's burgeoning cocaine market."
Earlier this month Quebec police charged more than 100 individuals for their alleged roles in a drug conspiracy which used a trucking firm to bring cocaine into Canada from the United States, and the arrested include those with suspected ties to the Italian Mafia, the Irish West End Gang and Hells Angels motorcycle club as reported by The Canadian Press.
The 'Ndrangheta or Calabrian Mafia also has developled a partnership with the Mexican cartels in the United States for moving cocaine from New York City into Italy. Nicola Gratteri, a top anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy warns that "this mafia is quickly spreading in the United States, particularly in Florida and New York" as reported by Beatrice Borromeo for The Daily Beast: "Gratteri's latest operations . . . uncovered a new route in the mafia's international drug trade, centered in New York City, where the crime syndicates can secure easy access to cocaine shipped in by Mexican cartels."
Security analysts are at a loss to explain why law enforcment has failed to break the distribution infrastructure which the Mexican drug cartels have established within the United States as reported by Sari Horwitz for The Washington Post:
"The success of the Mexican cartels in building their massive drug distribution and marketing networks across the county is a reflection of the U.S. government's intelligence and operational failure in the war on drugs, said Fulton T. Armstrong, a former national intelligence officer for Latin America and ex-CIA officer. 'We pretend that the cartels don't have an infrastructure in the U.S.,' said Armstrong, also a former staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now a senior fellow at American University's Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. 'But you don't do a $20 billion a year business . . . with ad-hoc, part-time volunteers. You use an established infrastructure to support the markets. How come we're not attacking that infrastructure?'"
Let's face it: the U.S. is just a druggie nation.
obama at the hub
“Let’s face it: the U.S. is just a druggie nation”
Not possible without large measure of official corruption.
When the keyboard libertarians argue for drug legalization they are willfully blind to the results of a self indulgent society that will not curb its appetites for its own good and that of the next generation.
The War On Drugs has not demonstrably curbed any appetites - but it has hyperinflated drug profits and channeled those profits into criminal and terrorist hands.
During my life time I've watched American society deteriorate at an increasing pace and the willing of a large segment of the population to drug themselves endlessly and the willingness of others to defend it is but one example of a widespread moral decline.
The so-called War on Drugs was/is an attempt to curb supply not appetites.
No fence no poor congressman.
The War On Drugs has not demonstrably curbed any appetites - but it has hyperinflated drug profits and channeled those profits into criminal and terrorist hands.
The same could be said of the laws against child pornography, etc.
I'd be interested to know what your "etc." is. As a rule, laws against real crimes with actual victims are far more successful than laws against victimless "crimes" - because victims and their loved ones avoid or resist the crime beforehand, and cooperate with law enforcement and prosecution afterward.
Lamentably, this is less true of crimes against children - but despite the difficulties, in those cases there remain real unwilling victims that must be protected ... whereas the only "victim" of drug buying/using is the willing buyer/user.
The so-called War on Drugs was/is an attempt to curb supply not appetites.
It has not demonstrably curbed supply either - but, again, it has hyperinflated drug profits and channeled those profits into criminal and terrorist hands.
What has equally hyperinflated drug prices is the willingness of the criminals who buy and use drugs to pay any price to feed their own desires.
A lack of restraint in the personal lives of the population has always been the mark of decay and there is no reason to think widespread drug use today is not part of that decay.
Are you implying I break any drug laws? You're mistaken.
Your claim that the only victims are users and buyers of drugs is ludicrous on its face. How much damage has been done to families,
SOME drug users - inlcuing users of the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol - victimize their spouses and children by rendering themselves unable to meet their responsibilities. Why should ALL users - including those with no spouses or children - be punished?
how much of a burden on the rest of society is imposed by an underclass of impaired unemployables.
Society has accepted that burden (through its elected representatives); I recommend society reverse that decision.
What has equally hyperinflated drug prices is the willingness of the criminals who buy and use drugs to pay any price to feed their own desires.
Yes, it takes both users and laws against sale. We've seen for alcohol and other drugs that such users can't be eliminated - the living-in-reality choice is to eliminate the laws.
A lack of restraint in the personal lives of the population has always been the mark of decay and there is no reason to think widespread drug use today is not part of that decay.
Nor is there any reason to think that banning drugs has done anything to arrest that decay, or done anything but hyperinflate drug profits and channel those profits into criminal and terrorist hands.
“Are you implying I break any drug laws? You're mistaken”
I'm implying no such thing. If you took it that way, I'm sorry.
“Yes, it takes both users and laws against sale. We've seen for alcohol and other drugs that such users can't be eliminated - the living-in-reality choice is to eliminate the laws”
Given abuse of alcohol is a problem why on earth add fuel to the fire?
“SOME drug users - inlcuing users of the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol - victimize their spouses and children by rendering themselves unable to meet their responsibilities. Why should ALL users - including those with no spouses or children - be punished?”
Why punish speeders who have never had a wreck?
I don't know what that has to do with anything - but it's obviously wrong: pot is readily available to anyone who wants it AND is willing to pay the drug-war-hyperinflated price.
Of course the “real crimes” are those someone else is committing.
Are you implying I break any drug laws? You're mistaken.
I'm implying no such thing.
Good to know. What did you mean by that statement about "someone else"?
Yes, it takes both users and laws against sale. We've seen for alcohol and other drugs that such users can't be eliminated - the living-in-reality choice is to eliminate the laws.
Given abuse of alcohol is a problem why on earth add fuel to the fire?
Because continuing the War On Drugs fuels a different, bigger fire.
Do you support removing fuel from the substance-use fire by re-banning alcohol?
SOME drug users - inlcuding users of the addictive mind-altering drug alcohol - victimize their spouses and children by rendering themselves unable to meet their responsibilities. Why should ALL users - including those with no spouses or children - be punished?
Why punish speeders who have never had a wreck?
Speeders pose a clear and present danger to others; this is not the case for users of alcohol or other drugs. Also, speed laws apply only on public roads whereas drug use takes place in private bloodstreams.
Legalize drugs and take the profit and crime out it, right?
California has legalized pot and the profit and crime are still there.
If you’re going argue privacy for drug use then it should be private and in private. No drug shops or hidden plots in the national forests with guards willing to shoot the wandering hiker.
“Speeders pose a clear and present danger to others; this is not the case for users of alcohol or other drugs”
Really? I guess some naked guy trying to break into a school was just there for sex ed.
Because continuing the War On Drugs fuels a different, bigger fire.
Do you support removing fuel from the substance-use fire by re-banning alcohol?
No answer to the question?
Legalize drugs and take the profit and crime out it, right?
California has legalized pot
Only for medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation - a mini-"legalization" that nobody has ever claimed would take the profit and crime out of pot. Greatly reduced prices, profits, and crime can be expected when and only when drugs are available to any adult who has the money (as is currently the case for the mind-altering drug alcohol).
and the profit and crime are still there.
If you’re going argue privacy for drug use then it should be private and in private.
I'm A-OK with laws against public use and public intoxication such as apply to the mind-altering drug alcohol.
No drug shops
Does that include the mind-altering drug alcohol?
or hidden plots in the national forests with guards willing to shoot the wandering hiker.
Those are creations of the War On Drugs; legalize, and they'll be as common as hidden alcohol stills.
Speeders pose a clear and present danger to others; this is not the case for users of alcohol or other drugs.
Really? I guess some naked guy trying to break into a school was just there for sex ed.
15% of Americans used illicit drugs last year - how many of them got naked and tried to break into a school? The standard for "clear and present danger" is not it-happens-once-in-a-blue-moon.
Also, speed laws apply only on public roads whereas drug use takes place in private bloodstreams.
So you say. That would be “mind altering drug alcohol”, right?
The advocates of drug legalization trot out the “mind altering drug alcohol” is equal to pot argument time after time yet alcohol can be used without impairment of mental ability and judgment while such impairment is the whole purpose of drug use.
So no I don't favor returning to the Prohibition Era.
“Only for medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation - a mini-”legalization” that nobody has ever claimed would take the profit and crime out of pot. Greatly reduced prices, profits, and crime can be expected when and only when drugs are available to any adult who has the money (as is currently the case for the mind-altering drug alcohol).”
The “Only for medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation” rule has in fact made pot available to anyone who wants it and has the price. This de facto legalization has not taken crime out of the equation.
And the forest plots are still there.
I have no doubt that legalization of pot will continue with other drugs to follow.
I see it simply as part of the rot of a society that is becoming more accepting of every kind of vice, homosexual “marriage”, pornography, prostitution.
So you say.
So history says - stills were common when the mind-altering drug alcohol was illegal and became rare when it was legalized. Conservatives learn from history ... liberals cling to utopian fantasies (like a drug-free society).
alcohol can be used without impairment of mental ability and judgment
But is very often used otherwise.
while such impairment is the whole purpose of drug use.
Such impairment was the whole purpose of alcohol use when that mind-altering drug was illegal. (Or do you think many patrons of illegal speakeasies were there only to drink ceremonial toasts?)
So no I don't favor returning to the Prohibition Era.
Nor should you favor our current drug prohibition, which is having all the negative effects that alcohol Prohibition did.
The “Only for medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation” rule has in fact made pot available to anyone who wants it and has the price.
So long as suppliers don't have to compete in an open legal market - as they still don't in California - prices will remain hyperinflated and profits restricted to criminal hands, fueling crime by both sellers and addicted users.
Most illegal alcohol during prohibition came from Canada and what didn't was garbage and poisonous.
“Conservatives learn from history ... liberals cling to utopian fantasies (like a drug-free society).”
Then you think it is the moral conservatives that want relaxation of drug laws and the liberals oppose drug use?
Evidence?
What killed most stills was a superior commercial product
And there could be a commercial product only because of legalization. I don't know what you think your hairsplitting proves.
since many of the stills were just making sugar whiskey contaminated with wood alcohol and fusal oil.
Illegal pot is not infrequently laced or contaminated; thanks for another parallel between Prohibition and the War On Drugs.
That plus the tax man.
He'll be around when pot is legalized; thanks for another parallel between Prohibition and the War On Drugs.
Most illegal alcohol during prohibition came from Canada
A lot of illegal drugs come across the border; thanks for another parallel between Prohibition and the War On Drugs.
and what didn't was garbage and poisonous.
Conservatives learn from history ... liberals cling to utopian fantasies (like a drug-free society).
Then you think it is the moral conservatives that want relaxation of drug laws
Conservatives learn from history - whether "moral conservatives" learn from history or cling to utopian fantasies remains to be seen.
What's the next drug(s) that should be legalized? Coke? Meth? Barbiturates? Which ones?
What's the next drug(s) that should be legalized? Coke? Meth? Barbiturates? Which ones?
Whichever ones are still enriching criminals after pot has been removed from that equation for a few years.
There will always something that is claimed criminals are making money from so any law that restricts them must be removed, right?
I don’t choose to join the libertines the in downward spiraling parade.
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