Posted on 01/23/2009 8:14:05 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
Shortly before his inauguration President Barack Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and discussed, among other things, the need for greater international cooperation in reducing drug trafficking and the associated violence. Although drug-related violence in Mexico is nothing new, the past couple of years have been especially turbulent.
Not only has there been a substantial increase in drug-related homicide, the methods of murder have become nightmarishly macabre with drug traffickers decapitating their rivals and scattering the heads in public places.
The drug cartels have also become increasingly brazen in their assaults on Mexico’s justice officials. Last year, several high-ranking Mexican officials were assassinated including Edgar Millan Gomez, the acting chief of Mexico’s federal police forces. Making matters worse, the drug cartels have amassed military-grade arsenals replete with automatic assault rifles and grenades. In a recent travel alert, the State Department noted that skirmishes between the drug cartels and Mexican authorities “have taken on the characteristics of small-unit combat.” To date the carnage has been concentrated in Mexico, but given that drug traffickers operate on both sides of the border it would be naïve to believe the mayhem will not spill over into the United States. The question is thus how the Obama administration can best help the Mexican government reduce the violence.
The conventional wisdom has been that it is best to fight fire with fire and over the past decade Mexico’s leaders have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to curb drug trafficking. Mexico’s past President Vicente Fox oversaw the creation of a quasi-military federal police force, which was assigned the responsibility of reducing drug smuggling, and Calderon has gone a step further by charging the military with the task of combating the drug cartels. U.S. officials have supported such efforts by providing technical assistance, training, and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Mexico. Nonetheless, the flow of drugs across the border has continued and the bloodshed has gotten worse.
It is time for our nation’s leaders to take an honest look at international drug trafficking and the role the American consumer plays in exacerbating the problem. Although estimates of how much the American public spends on illicit drugs vary, there is no question that we are the primary clientele of Mexico’s multi-billion dollar illegal drug industry. As long as Americans are spending billions of dollars on illicit drugs, the cartels will continue their reign of terror. The “War on Drugs” has been one of the most miserable policy failures in our nation’s history. Our focus on reducing the supply rather than the demand for drugs has fueled the evolution of combative organizations that control feudal empires throughout Latin America and other regions of the world (e.g., the Golden Crescent); organizations which pose threats to our nation’s security.
The good news is that there’s a new sheriff in town. Time and time again Obama has eloquently emphasized the need for change in governance. If ever there was a set of policies in need of change, it is our national drug control policies. Let us hope that Obama is a man of his word.
Ben Brown is an associate professor in the Criminal Justice Department of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.
I told my kids that many years ago. Using illicit substances gives more power to the criminals that supply them. Makes common sense to me.
Whether or not the decriminalize it to rid the criminal activity, is mute. The use of these drugs while they are illegal is promoting criminal activity.
Just think of the billions made from marijuana arrests alone. It's staggering.
MUTE?
Back to school for you.
U.S. drug users fuel Mexican cartels.....
Does that include all the ‘blow’ consumed by the ‘hope and change’ crowd in hollywood?????????
Here’s an idea! Keep the Mexican drugs out of the Us along with their citizens and US citizens won’t use them!
“MUTE?
Back to school for you.”
...either that, or moot court ;-)
Doh! Who knew?
Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
The failed drug war is causing the cartels.
We have also seen the impact in Mexico and other countries. What's amazing is that some people still think that making something illegal will make it go away.
This is the biggest example of collateral damage and unintended consequences ourside of war. Every first year econ student can figure it out.
As well as the MSM’s W.O.T.T.T. / W.O.G. too fun and profitable for them to change. They love slant and deceit and elitist atheistic socialism.
(oil is needed to make condoms)
Legal drugs.
Billions made from marijuana arrests? How is our government is making billions from marijuana arrests? There were arrested 872,720 marijuana arrests in 2007, 775,137 were for possession alone. Most all of those people were fined, with fines ranging from less than a hundred bucks on up. I don't know what the average fine was, but lets say it was $500 for possession. Multiply that by the number of people arrested and the total is less than $400 million, not billions. And you have to bear in mind that a lot of people don't pay those fines. Assessing fines and collecting them are two different matters entirely. The government would have also made money in fines from some of those less than 100,000 who were arrested for something other than just possession, but the prison costs alone for those they sent away would eat up any fines paid by those who didn't go to prison, easily.
And when you start factoring in all the costs involved in marijuana possession arrests and more serious marijuana arrests, it's really going to cut into what little they make on all the fines. Even for just a simple possession arrest there were costs involved in making the arrest. The officers are off the streets and processing the arrestees. In most states they're going to have to get these people booked into the jail, adding more expense. The expenses are higher if the people don't quickly bond out and I've seen simple possession cases where folks didn't bond out for weeks, and a few days is not uncommon. That's more expense. The officers are generally going to have to show up in court. The case will take up the time of the officers involved, the judge and his staff, a prosecutor, in many cases a public defender, and so on. When people don't pay their fines or don't take some class they are supposed to take or don't show up for probation visits or whatever a warrant will likely issue for their arrest, which means additional expenses, they're back in court again after another arrest and may be going to jail for an extended period, costing the government even more.
The more you dig into this the more you see that this is really a very expensive mess for our government. The only way they'd actually make good money on this is to regulate it similar to the way they regulate alcohol and tax it. That would save them a fortune in enforcement costs, legal system costs, prisons and jail costs, etc., and they really good bring in billions every year in revenues.
WOD in a nutshell-
-Make a plant that has been used for thousands of years illegal. Therefore forcing its value to go higher than gold.
-Prohibit police protection and make it a crime to report theft from producers, dealers and users. This makes it a crime and violence magnet. Imagine if people and jewelry stores were prohibited from reporting theft of gold or denied any protection.
-Profit!
How about setting an example by having unpredictable random sampling and testing on the occupants of the Oval Office combined with displays of the noses of the One and Teddy K on public TV with expert commentary on the damages of sniffing to the nasal membranes?
First it’s the US guns causing grief. Now it’s our appitite for drugs.
Just can’t please these people.
I agree. Prohibition gave us Capone et al. Didn’t work out so well did it? Meanwhile, we spend a kajillion dollars on one side trying to stop it via more police, the DEA, and bursting at the seams prisons. We might as well pass a law for all rivers to start flowing the other direction for all the good it does. I say leagalize it all and tax it. If people off themselves through overdose than so be it. As to “the children”, that’s the job of the parents....not the school, or the government. At some point you have to ask yourself...How is it that it is easier for a kid to get a joint than it is for them to get a six pack of beer? BECAUSE ITS NOT CONTROLLED. Making it illegal doesn’t make it controlled, it just makes taxpayers broke. Leagalize and regulate then the gangs, cartels and everything they touch pretty much dries up, or is seriously diminished. Then they’ll have to go into something else...like politics.
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