Posted on 03/30/2010 7:53:02 AM PDT by AIM Freeper
The conservative Townhall.com website, owned by the Salem Communications company, a Christian firm, is distributing a column by Steve Chapman claiming that the legalization of marijuana will somehow undermine the power of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations and usher in a new era of peace and tranquility north of the border. The silly column more appropriately belongs on a website associated with George Soros, the moneybags behind the drug legalization movement.
"Mexico is the biggest supplier of cannabis to the United States," he writes. "Control of that market is one of the things that Mexican drug cartels are willing to kill for. Legalizing weed in this country would be their worst nightmare. Why? Because it would offer Americans a legitimate supply of the stuff."
What he fails to realize is the fact that the Mexican drug cartels have already infiltrated the U.S. and are growing the "stuff" in the United States. Hence, legalization could have the effect of making these criminals into "legitimate" businessmen. "Big Marijuana" could join "Big Pharma" as another powerful special interest group. In order to be consistent, "Big Cocaine" and "Big Meth" would have to follow.
"Mexican DTOs [Drug Trafficking Organizations] have expanded their cultivation operations into the United States, an ongoing trend for the past decade," notes the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010. "Well-organized criminal groups and DTOs that produce domestic marijuana do so because of the high profitability of and demand for marijuana in the United States. These groups have realized the benefits of producing large quantities of marijuana in the United States, including having direct access to a large customer base, avoiding the risk of detection and seizure during transportation across the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders, and increasing profits by reducing transportation costs."
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
And, all states have a right to outlaw drug usage as they should be.
That doesn't mean that the Federal government doesn't have the authority to stop drug trafficking.
I never disagreed that states should be the one to outlaw drugs. Drug trafficking, however, crosses state lines and is coming across our borders from other nations and the Federal government should and must deal with that problem.
Ahhh yes, there’s the solution lets use the commerce clause to outlaw drugs because they can move between states. Great idea, oh wait that’s how they justify ObamaCare, ooops! That judical activism by the SCOTUS permitting the commerce clause to be used in such a manner. Let’s just cross out the 10th amendment entirely it doesn’t look like it’s very useful anyway.
The Fed does have the job of protecting the borders and deciding what comes into the country. I don’t see where it says they can prevent Joe pot head from growing in his backyard.
Thanks to the invention of Federal power to make drugs illegal through a “living constitution” we’ll be seeing a lot more of our rights taken away to protect us from dopers. At least we’ll be doing the right thing for our fellow man.
Sounds like we might be agreeing this is a state problem. I conceed the Fed has the right to prohibit drugs from entering the country in any manner they see fit. Make it a local problem and all the stoners will move to Kalifornia. That will empty a lot of homeless shelters and unemployment offices in my state.
And just like the mobsters after the repeal of prohibition, they'll just move on to something else. They don't suddenly become law-abiding citizens. Sheesh.
There are always people that are going to do things that are against the law. That isn't a failure of the law - it's a failure of human nature.
But back to my original point, it's simply assinine to think that the drug lords in Mexico are suddenly going to become law-abiding citizens if pot is made legal. They'll just go to something else. Do we continue to legalize everything they take up until there's no other illegal thing they can benefit from? I would say no. What say you?
I agree. We all know the mobsters just stopped being mobsters after prohibition was repealed. There is no more mob. They all became law abiding citizens.
Sheesh.
So you believe the drug lords would actually become law-abiding citizens if pot were made legal? Do you honestly believe that?
“And just like the mobsters after the repeal of prohibition, they’ll just move on to something else.”
hrm...isnt that the whole point?
“They don’t suddenly become law-abiding citizens. Sheesh.”
Right..they become the head of the Kennedy clan...
Sheesh indeed...
Stripped of all emotion, drugs are a commodity. That means money. When you have a problem involving money you get control of the money and hence you get control of the problem. Moralism will not end the desire to do drugs. Until the criminal profit is taken out of it, it will continue. And no one is expecting Mexican criminals to straigetn up and fly right if marijuana were legalized.
See, I don’t use drugs, and I would rather no else use them, so I’m opposed to the big drug machine and lying WOD that makes them possible. And I’m opposed to all the lyers who are making their living in some way on this giant scam, then pretend they are opposed to drugs, using threats like, “oh your going to “live in house next someone using PCP, crack or LSD.”
It’s just a scare tactic to keep the scam going, just like the global warming scam. Evidently you’re part of it, spreading all the scare malarky.
It’s you and your government goons that are spoiling everyone’s quality of life. Take government out of the equation, and nothing anyone does with their own life, has anything to do with anyone else’s. Some people just cannot live without meddling in other people’s lives—they are the real destroyers of the quality of life.
I have much more to fear from some storm-trooper narco agents getting the wrong address and breaking into my house in some misplaced drug bust and shooting me and my family than from any drug addict.
Hank
“I have much more to fear from some storm-trooper narco agents getting the wrong address and breaking into my house in some misplaced drug bust and shooting me and my family than from any drug addict.”
That is insanity. How many times do people rob and mug for drug money? A whole hell of a lot more than what you’re paranoid about!
You’ve convinced me. You are either DEA, part of some police department drug division or involved in the drug cartel. They are the only ones pushing the WOD, because they are the only ones profiting from it.
Hank
They've already moved on to 'something else':
Los Zetas: Evolution of a Criminal Organization
11 Mar 2009
-snip-
They operate a range of illicit businesses from the regular extortion of street vendors to charging other groups for passage through their territory, to gun and drug smuggling, human smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, money laundering and the operation of a vast network of illegal businesses."
-snip-
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security-Watch/Detail/?id=97554&lng=en
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How much profit potential could be left in these enterprises? Their money still comes overwhelmingly from the illegal drug trade and nothing would come close to replacing it. Legalization would be a severe blow to the cartels.
I ask again the question you ignored:
Suppose CA votes to legalize. Do you think CA has the legitimate prerogative under the 10th Amendment to enact such a program? Or do you think the Commerce Clause authorizes fedgov to shut it down?
Lay off the pipe.
“So you believe the drug lords would actually become law-abiding citizens if pot were made legal? Do you honestly believe that?”
Not at all but it would cut off a large income stream.
Nice attempt to change the subject. Unless they’re still shooting each other up over bathtub gin in Chicago.
Prohibition = Black market *enriching* the criminals and allowing them to better organize.
Sheesh.
So, so you're so paranoid of the government, you want government to cease doing what it should be doing -- stopping losers from using recreational drugs and endangering innocent people's lives?
And, you're dumb as a box of rocks if you can't do some research and figure out that intoxication kills more Americans than murder does each year.
I'll be damned if my life or the life my loved ones are endangered by those getting high or drugs because you're a paranoid.
So which are you, DEA, drug enforcement law officer, or member of the drug cartel. If you were a freedom loving American citizen, your wouldn’t be spreading these lies about all these false dangers.
I’ve lived seventy years and have never been threatened by a druggy. I only feel sorry for those who think they can find meaning in life in a drug, but believe every individual has to choose for themselves where their meaning in life comes from. It’s what the founders meant by that liberty to “pursue happiness.” Perhaps you don’t believe in liberty.
I’m sorry you cannot find it in yourself to be confident enough to be secure in your own ability and knowledge. If you need a bunch of thugs to protect you and make your feed “safe,” that’s fine with me, only don’t make me pay for them, and stay out of my life.
Hank
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