Posted on 06/25/2011 6:39:45 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
MEXICO CITY — Once praised lavishly by the United States for waging a war on drugs, Mexico's last two presidents now say legalizing them may be the best way to end the rising violence the U.S.-backed campaign has unleashed.
Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox led efforts to crush drug trafficking gangs in Mexico between 1994 and 2006 but the rapid escalation of violence over the past four years under President Felipe Calderon has convinced them a change of tack is needed.
"As a country, we are going through problems due to the fact that the United States consumes too many drugs," the 68-year-old Fox told business leaders in Texas last month. "I would recommend to legalize, de-penalize all drugs."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Taxes would be at least equal to cigarettes in local markets. And there are already black markets blossoming in certain areas of the country due to those high cigarette taxes.
Making, storing, transportation and distribution are all much more difficult trying to produce black market alcohol than marijuana.
I'll say again that a well regulated market deprives a black market of its revenue. Do you agree or disagree?
In the last bolded part, you seem to be saying the cost to our liberties is too high to continue the drug war, therefore restore our liberties even if it means more addicts.
Would you clarify?
We will have more addicts of “big drugs” and liberals and conservatives will set out to “save” them and save us from them by stripping us of our liberty and our property along the way. There are all kinds of twisted freak things the nanny staters will do to the innocent of society if people have the choice of doing drugs in the name of controlling the people who partake in and retail legalized drugs. The schemes will never end. For example, they will work diligently to make drugs too difficult to get through punative taxation, leaving open a black market for addicts who will do whatever they have to do to get the drugs. See big tabacco.
On the other hand, addicts are soulless creatures who act to harm themselves and the people around them. They do a lot of crime and violence from their state of being - not just the act of buying illegal drugs. There is brain and character or soul damage that comes with drug use and that results in a lowering of performance or of competence in society and abuse of the innocent. We will have more of these folks to deal with. They will be interacting with us openly, driving, interacting with our children and doing jobs under the influence. They will be loud and proud instead of hiding like they do now. They will be voting and you can imagine how that will go as politicans contort reality and goodness to get big drug money and the drugie vote. See homosexuality.
If we look at the use of booze as a start to project what a society would be like that permits the use of drugs, we see the young in America tend to abuse the only drug we permit until they get out of college. If the drug of choice was cocaine instead of booze, we would have a lot of addicts and brain damaged young people (with criminal records) who would not be able to recover their mental potential from the brain damage they incurred in their youth. One drug are more damaging to the human than another. Crack is worse than cocaine and nanny staters will look to curtail and ban the use of some drugs opening black markets for the cartels. Should our international socialists, like George Soros, the guy who funds the drug legalization movement, permit drug users to own guns? Since they can now track everything you buy, this would be a great way to deny people individual freedom. There is always an angle to their dangle.
Libertarians have a Utopian social ideal that is unreal when they look at legalizing drugs. They have the idea that if you want to do drugs and kill yourself, fine, just leave me alone. They do not realize that people will never live in a bubble of their lofty choices surrounded by people who do not make lofty choices and who do not and will not leave them alone. Legalizing drugs will halt one set of terrible problems but will be followed by another set of problems which libertarians have not thought through and deny with magical thinking.
As a conservative, when I look at the future of a society where drugs are legal, I don’t have the luxury of entering into anything without forseeing the consequences of change we make as a people. Things are not so black and white for me. People are twisted freaks all around and we no longer have a society built on moral rights and wrongs. We no longer have an elite dedicated to freedom rather they are dedicated to overcoming freedom to the lofty goal of achieving global rule (like Hitler and Stalin). What is good is said to be evil and what is evil is said to be good by the internationalists who run our business, government and private institutions. They will use drug legalization to advance their cause of oppression just as they use illegal drugs to advance oppression.
Oregon just busted an open-air, in plain sight, 91,000 plant grow operation run by 5 Mexican citizens on public land. The pot farm ran through a ravine for over 3 miles, had irrigation piping and had been there for at least 5 years. Some drug war we're fighting.
Name a successful black market for anything commonly used in the United States. They don't exist because they can't compete with Safeway, Walgreens, Costco, etc.
Bottom line, of all the recreational drugs, we must legalize marijuana now and put American farmers to work instead of Mexican farmers.
Remember, the addicts and young people you talk about, as excessive users, are our own families and friends whom suffer far more from getting caught than from getting high on marijuana.
The hard drugs such as cocaine, meth, and opiates I am not ready for full legalization because the producers are largely foreign and often military enemies and our government is unwilling to take the drug war fully to them.
The hard drugs such as cocaine, meth, and opiates I am not ready for full legalization because the producers are largely foreign and often military enemies and our government is unwilling to take the drug war fully to them.
I don’t think you mentioned the division between state and federal government. Should decisions about legalization within a state’s borders be left up to the states under the Tenth Amendment, or should fedgov continue its involvement via the New Deal Commerce Clause?
Sure. Just like Karl Marx theorized that a "well-regulated" economic system would bring everyone unicorns and rainbows.
Can you at least agree that decisions over legalization of marijuana within a state's borders should be up to the states rather than fedgov? Or, do you support fedgov continuing national marijuana prohibition under the New Deal Commerce Clause?
You have a problem with reading comprehension, don't you? Where have I ever stated that I was for or against legalization of pot? I simply asked how legalizing it would make the cartels go away.
You kept throwing out the phrase "well-regulated" to support your case that the cartels would simply melt away in the face of a smooth operating government program, but failed to provide any specifics.
So there you go. Your "well-regulated" licensing, manufacturing, distribution and sales model for pot has been compared to a well-oiled Marxist machine and you make fun of me? LOL!
I gave you the specific example of alcohol being a well regulated market. It has reasonable taxes and controls, so a black market does not thrive. There would simply not be enough profit for a black market in marijuana to be worthwhile if it were taxed and controlled like alcohol.
So there you go. Your "well-regulated" licensing, manufacturing, distribution and sales model for pot has been compared to a well-oiled Marxist machine and you make fun of me? LOL!
You were the one that played the Marxism card. I made no mention of it all, other than to ridicule your bringing it up.
So I ask you: Do you support federal drug laws based on the New Deal Commerce Clause... YES or NO?
Perhaps you could share your brilliance at answering why a government would declare any war against its own people.
Before you comment on my thoroughness, tell us how you would solve the problem and answer the challenges I made to your concerns about government power over us.
I for one would appreciate your brilliant answers over your cheap insults.
They would not go away, but they would have new names like R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Safeway, Costco, Associated Grocers, Walgreens, Walmart, etc.
Cartels are just an efficient business model to control the production and sale of any commodity.
If marijuana were legalized, Mexican growers would have to compete with American farmers and they would lose, adios Mexican cartels.
Obviously I insulted you. I am sorry.
Agreed. CA's medical marijuana program is an example. Business is absolutely booming. IIRC, I read that they made $1B in sales and collected $100M in taxes last year.
It's a known, high quality product and it's legal under CA law. It is nonsense to argue the cartels could compete against a market like that.
I ask this of many posters: disagree, politely, and tell us why. Nothing is gained by singing with the choir.
I appreciate your concerns of the nanny state that liberals are driving us to. In the same regard, leadership can't get hung up on a point of morality such as the wrong of getting high, and offer medicine that is overall, worse than the complaint.
Vicente Fox urges legalization of all drugs in Mexico — and worldwide
Yep, that’s Vicente Fox — still crazy, after all these years.
http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/10/vicente-fox-urges-legalization-of-all.html
Rab
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