And many usa places.
That’s why you focus on their operations in CONUS. You don’t have to go into Mexico. When you catch the bad guys, you deport them.
The drug cartels (networked in with the Mexican government) are small stuff, amateurs compared to big US pharma right in your face, supposedly legal, ethical...
Pfizer makes more in a year on Covid alone than all the drug cartels in Mexico combined.
One’s a semi-scam with government mandates and tax paid for (applying product life cycle extension techniques now to milk it as long as possible - literally buying politicians), the other a free market driven enterprise that became demonized for political reasons years past, with things going crazy under Nixon in 1969. Ironic on where US so-called conservatives sit on this one.
***Let me ask this one simple question: do you think since 1969 we have made any progress, even after we “declared war” on drugs in 1971?
https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/images/2023-Drug-od-death-rates-6.jpeg
In the grand scheme, what has been accomplished? Has drug use been reduced? Do we spend less today than 10, 20, 40 years ago on this war on drugs?
Has the crime associated with drugs gone down?
This is allegedly the criminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_%22El_Chapo%22_Guzm%C3%A1n If you go to many parts of Mexico, people love him! That’s why it’s so hard to catch these guys. He provided people jobs, paid them well, donated graciously... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/americas/safe-haven-for-drug-kingpin-el-chapo-in-many-mexicans-hearts.html He’s not regarded as the bad guy: https://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-popularity-in-mexico-2015-7
We don’t want to hear that. But that is the truth.
And worse yet, the US government pushing Mexico to go after these guys is only making itself ever more unpopular. The Gringo which is telling the Mexicans what to do, in their country.
-The border isn’t going to do $h!t.
-Harder sentencing isn’t going to do $h!t. The clown in charge today is who brought us the 1994 Crime Bill: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/us/joe-biden-crime-laws.html
-Hiring more cops and spending more isn’t going to do $h!t.
-Going after all these drug cartel bosses doesn’t do $h!t.
All of that has already been done. All of it failed. Repeatedly.
All that will happen is the routes will change, new cartel bosses will come to power, new methods of transporting will evolve... But using the force of the law to stop the drug problem we have (and that is undeniable, we have a problem), will not fix it. It’s all been done before, since 1969: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Intercept
Build a border wall, and they dig tunnels and fly drones. Maybe go a different route altogether. Miami Florida used to be the primary entrance point for many drugs now coming through Mexico.
Take out a cartel boss, and he is replaced the next day.
Make sentencing tougher and you simply end up with 1/3 of your incarcerated population being there for drugs.
Spend more on the DEA, FBI and local police and you simply have more fat wannabe tough guys annoying citizens and accomplishing zero while costing the tax payer dearly.
This is a hard concept to understand for modern conservatives: a market has two sides, one of them is demand.
When you have something with which you can make a lot of money, quickly, which does not require super specialized skills and training, nor massive investments in equipment, do you really think you’re going to stop people by saying it’s bad and wrong to do that?
When you have a massive “demand” with huge profit potential, SOMEONE will supply it.
I am not denying the issue, in fact I will claim it’s even worse than claimed, because there is a huge interest in downplaying it (real-estate values, bureaucrats/politicians that are in charge of what is an abject policy failure), but the question is how do we fix it?
One thing I can assure you of. You will not fix it for real with more money, cops, walls, taking out cartel bosses or tougher sentences. When we arrest a cartel boss, it’s no more than a small inconsequential battle won, which everyone talks about, while we’re losing the greater war.
On another note.
Not all of the cartels are the same. Some have a unwritten/unspoken agreement where as long as they play nice (no shootings, stabbings, kidnapping etc.) the government stays off their back. The locals want a job and the cartels provide that. The Gringo tourists want these drugs, they are actively looking for them. So it’s a win-win situation as long as things stay free of violence. However, there are other cartels which will murder folks and hang them from bridges, or chop people up, etc. The point being is that they are not all the same and this issue has been oversimplified and dumbed down, like anything which gets into the media spotlight and politicians latch onto.
