U.S. to blame for much of Mexico violence: Clinton [Hillary Clinton]

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - An "insatiable" appetite in the United States for illegal drugs is to blame for much of the violence ripping through Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

Clinton acknowledged the U.S. role in Mexico's vicious drug war as she arrived in Mexico for a two-day visit where she discussed U.S. plans to ramp up security on the border with President Felipe Calderon.

A surge in drug gang killings to 6,300 last year and fears the violence could seep over the border has put Mexico's drug war high on President Barack Obama's agenda, after years of Mexico feeling that Washington was neglecting a joint problem.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians," Clinton told reporters during her flight to Mexico City.

A good response, i must admit. But my thinking is that with legalization, and therefore mainstream supply of drugs, the drug smuggling will whither on the vine. No reason to cause havoc at the border if there is no money in it. And there is no market for the street dealer or street gang to sell his wares when one can go to the “liquor store” and buy them. Druggies will not need to steal (as much) to afford their habit.

Eliminate all the funding of the drug market ... smugglers, dealers, street gangs. Not only that, but there would be no reason for the providers to promote the use of their drugs. If one is to start using, it will be his own doing rather than being pushed into it by others.

We seem to spread the grief into the community with the associated crime to distribute and afford the drugs. Perhaps it is best to let the burden of all this fall only on those stupid enough to use them. Drug abuse treated just like alcohol abuse.

Use the money saved to provide help for those wanting to “clean up” and prisons for those that don't.

Perfect... certainly not. good... not really but to me, it seems better than what we are doing now.

“Taking a different (faulty) line of reasoning:

I agree. I personally want nothing to do with murder, but there comes a time when it is obvious that we will never win the war on murder...NEVER... then the only other option is to legalize and tax murder. Then you apply the same laws to murders as we now have for alcohol. Murderers are going to be murderers whether it is legal or not. We have to live with that, but we can make a profit from the murders.”

You are comparing apples and oranges. With a every murder there is at least one victim, the person who is killed, and there are other victims, the loved ones left behind and even the people in the community that did not know the victim who have to fear this murderer on the loose who might kill them or someone they care about. Even if we can't stop all murders, it is worth it to fight against murder. And we do probably deter lots of murders because most of the time murders result in someone being arrested. Most people who kill another person will get caught.

We don't have the same success with drug crimes. We deter very little of it. I think drugs like meth and cocaine and heroin are so addictive and so prone to causing harm to innocent people that they should remain illegal. It's kind of like driving while intoxicated. Most of the time people make it home fine without hurting anyone, but they do by driving drunk create a substantial risk of harm to innocent people and it is an unjustifiable risk. I think the same sort of thing is going on when people mess with super addictive drugs like meth, cocaine or heroin. A lot of them are going to become addicted and cause real problems for innocent people. They are putting innocent people at risk and it is not justifiable.

We can't stop all risky conduct though. We can't and we shouldn't even try to do that. Personally, I don't think that by smoking marijuana people are putting people at much risk. Marijuana smokers just don't really tend to cause a lot of problems for innocent people. Some do, but only a very tiny minority of them. I certainly do not see it as being as risky to innocent people as drinking alcohol. It's in the ballpark, but it doesn't cause the same level of impairment leading to accidents. It doesn't cause so much risk taking behavior leading to accidents. It doesn't make people violent like alcohol too often does. It might make people stupid and useless but I'm not so sure that ought to be a crime because plenty of people are that way without any sort of intoxicants.

It's worth it to keep up the ban on murder. It's worth it I think to try to keep up the ban on drugs like meth, cocaine and heroin because at least we are keeping those drugs expensive and in some cases not so easy to find, and because so few do them that it wouldn't take many new users to substantially increase the number of addicts. It's not worth it to try to keep up the ban on pot though. We aren't making it too expensive for even low income people to use regularly. We aren't making it hard to find at all. We aren't deterring a lot of people because the vast majority will never get caught even if they smoke the stuff regularly for years and if they do get caught not much will happen to most of them. We're just spinning our wheels trying in vain to keep up this ban. It's costing us a fortune, and we're really just doing more harm than good with our laws. Some laws make sense. Some are worth keeping even if we will never accomplish much with them. The ban on marijuana doesn't make much sense and it's not worth it to keep up the ban any longer. We're doing more harm than good.

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