Mexico drug wars and the USA

[sdmsanjose]

Three-hour gun battle leaves 43 dead in Mexican cartel territory
http://nypost.com/2015/05/23/three-hour-gun-battle-leaves-43-dead-in-mexican-cartel-territory/

ECUANDUREO, Mexico (AP) — The latest in a series of clashes between Mexican authorities and a powerful, fast-growing drug cartel turned into the deadliest confrontation in recent memory, with 42 suspected gang gunmen and one Federal Police officer killed during a three-hour firefight at a remote western ranch.

The battle on Friday followed two other recent unprecedented attacks by the cartel, one that killed 15 state police officers and another that shot down an army helicopter with a rocket launcher for the first time in Mexico's history. The death toll from all three is at least 76 people at a time when the Mexican government claims crime is falling dramatically and the interior minister recently insisted the country "is not in flames."​

I am very glad that the Mexican authorities seem to be making progress on the terrible drug gangs in Mexico. The top drug lord of Mexico was Chapo Guzman but the Mexico authorities captured him a few months ago. Chapo was the number one “Most Wanted” on the USA list after Osama bin laden was killed.

Mexico is the main gateway for drugs into the USA and 90% of all cocaine in the USA comes in from Mexico. The drug cartel killings are almost on level with the Nazis and ISIS in the area of brutal killings. More people have been killed in the last 9 years of the drug wars in Mexico that all those USA soldiers killed in 51 years of USA wars from 1964-2015;----including Viet Nam, both Iraq wars plus Afghanistan. A summary of the Mexico Drug war is in the CNN link below:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas/mexico-drug-war-fast-facts/

More than 60,000 people have been killed from 2006 to 2012, according to the most recent data available from Human Rights Watch.

Ninety percent of the cocaine that enters the U.S. transits through Mexico. Mexico is also a main supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines in the U.S.​

 

[wing2000]

Mexico is the main gateway for drugs into the USA and 90% of all cocaine in the USA comes in from Mexico. The drug cartel killings are almost on level with the Nazis and ISIS in the area of brutal killings.

....and who is fueling the drug traffic and horrific violence in Mexico (and many other Latin American countries)? American drug consumers.

 

[football5680]

This is a difficult war to fight because there is a huge amount of money to be made which will always intrigue people and the Cartels are heavily armed. They also recruit soldiers from the Mexican army so the government isn't fighting against amateurs.

 

[Douger]

The Jalisco cartel originally gained a lot of ground by acting boldly and ruthlessly and they must have naively thought that they could "teach the government a lesson" by murdering so many police and politicians in a short period of time.
Well, all they've done is bring down the same hammer on themselves that has obliterated every other cartel that's tried the same thing.

 

[Armoured]

So why not legalise and regulate drug production and strip the cartels of their power over night?

 

[SuperCloud]

....and who is fueling the drug traffic and horrific violence in Mexico (and many other Latin American countries)? American drug consumers.

As a former Marine that served in the 1st Gulf War, as a crack cocaine addict, and as one that generally supports American's rights to bear arms, I prefer to blame American gun rights advocates like myself. Because the drug cartels get most their guns from the USA.

You see... drug cartels shot bullets--not crack rocks--from those guns they bought from the United States.

 

[SuperCloud]

This is a difficult war to fight because there is a huge amount of money to be made which will always intrigue people and the Cartels are heavily armed. They also recruit soldiers from the Mexican army so the government isn't fighting against amateurs.

Naw, it's not really rocket science how to win this chess match against greedy thugs in organized crime.

White Chicago gangsters invented the drive-by shooting. And they carried it out with a ruthless fully automatic rifle that fired the beefy .45 caliber rounds. All over selling beer and cocktails. But Miller Brewing Company isn't run by high school dropouts that are ruthless, greedy, thugs that would chop up a 10 year-old child for $100.

Not surprising Portugal doesn't have Mexico's or even the United States violence problems because Portugal decriminalized heroine, cocaine, marijuana use et cetera. Kind of like the USA stopped walking like an ape and legalized alcohol after losing their wars against Sicilian-American, Irish-American, and Jewish-American gangsters on bootlegging. In fact, Lisbon the largest city in Portugal is not only relatively safe but it's the safest capital city in Europe. Yeah, it's safer than London.

Most the dead in Mexico's drug wars were actually involved in the illegal drug trade. Okay, it should not take a rocket scientist among the intellectual elite in the USA and Mexico running this fiasco of a war to ask this simple question: "Why are so many in Mexico not more afraid of death or going to prison than being materially poor but rich in sunshine?"

They don't fear death too much. Or fear too much the possibility of eternal damnation in hell. If they feared those things you would usually not need prison. Not often anyways. But so... herein prison enters the sociological world and fulfills a purpose. Presumably. But then why do Mexican gangster not have a substantial (they may have some but not a substantial) fear of being sentenced to prison in Mexico?

Could it be because Mexico's prisons are so poorly financed and operated that whilst the nobodies and weak in prison live in states of sheer hell, the powerful in Mexican prisons, and those in drug gangs live like kings with respect and lots of oral sex and vaginal sex if and when they want it?

Why kill gangsters that don't fear death too much? What do they fear? How about life in prison in an actual prison where they live like captive nobodies?

Not rocket science.

How would want to join a drug cartel just so they could be sent to prison for 60 years or more, locked in a plain cell 10, 15, or even 23 hours a day, eating sucky food, not able to get oral sex from men or women, and no women to look at other than the fat female guards walking by doing their rounds.

That's why the American mafia can't find many young Sicilian-American and Italian-American men to join their ranks today. Most mafia men are in their 60s and 70s now. The US Government made joining the American mafia unattractive to young Sicilian-American and Italian-American men. The young guys in their 20s know if they joining the American mafia some other mafia man is going to eventually snitch on them, by age 30 or 40 they will be sent to prison and won't get out until they're 60 or 70 years-old. And all the vaginal sex and enjoying the sunshine and beaches will be had by the Sicilian-American and Italian-American men working honest jobs.

 

[SuperCloud]

So why not legalise and regulate drug production and strip the cartels of their power over night?

You see, that would actually make too much sense. It's more fun being stupid and pretending to me Einstein while morally pontificating from on high while simultaneously over complicating the manner.

Drug addiction and alcoholism is complicated (per epigenetic modification produced in the brain) and therefore "cunning and baffling" to the actual addict trapped in a dilemma for which they find themselves enslaved. Literally enslaved. What philosophers of liberty/freedom with respects to positive liberty (as opposed to "negative liberty") term as "first order" and "second order" desires and "third order" and so on desires. (e.g., "I don't want to," and immediately following the thought/desire, "I do want to" and immediately following the thought/desire, "I do want to," and so on in a trapped cycle, lacking freedom).

Combating greedy thugs that use violence and money to persuade people because they're not smart enough to persuade people like a Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, or Martin Luther King Jr. can or could, is not too complicated. We just over complicate it. But I suppose it keeps a lot of people in government and law enforcement employed.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

You see, that would actually make too much sense. It's more fun being stupid and pretending to me Einstein while morally pontificating from on high while simultaneously over complicating the manner.

That's because drug use is still considered a moral as well as a legal issue.

Drug addiction and alcoholism is complicated (per epigenetic modification produced in the brain) and therefore "cunning and baffling" to the actual addict trapped in a dilemma for which they find themselves enslaved. Literally enslaved. What philosophers of liberty/freedom with respects to positive liberty (as opposed to "negative liberty") term as "first order" and "second order" desires and "third order" and so on desires. (e.g., "I don't want to," and immediately following the thought/desire, "I do want to" and immediately following the thought/desire, "I do want to," and so on in a trapped cycle, lacking freedom).

I tripped out on prescribed oxycodone while recovering from bypass surgery, just once. I never took it again. It wasn't a difficult or complicated decision. My thought process went like this:

1.This was a terrible experience.
2. I don't ever want it to happen again.
3. I never took oxycodone again.
4. Problem averted/solved.

Combating greedy thugs that use violence and money to persuade people because they're not smart enough to persuade people like a Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, or Martin Luther King Jr. can or could, is not too complicated. We just over complicate it. But I suppose it keeps a lot of people in government and law enforcement employed.

I think that the government calculated that the consequences of legalizing/decriminalizing drug use would be worse than keeping it illegal.

 

[SuperCloud]

From the guy who is self described as a "sanctimonious old crackpot," LOL. Said:





"I tripped out on prescribed oxycodone while recovering from bypass surgery, just once. I never took it again. It wasn't a difficult or complicated decision. My thought process went like this:

1.This was a terrible experience.
2. I don't ever want it to happen again.
3. I never took oxycodone again.
4. Problem averted/solved."





I was speaking about addiction (more specifically dysfunctional addiction). Drinking a cocktail or glass of whiskey is not alcoholism. Tripping out on oxycodone is not drug addiction. I was hooked up to IV injected pain medication when I was in the hospital recovering from surgeries from multiple gun shot wounds (organ removals, shattered humerus etc.). I was high throughout the time consequently.

Leaving the hospital I was prescribed oxycodone. I never got the prescription filled even though I was often in excruciating pain. Does that make me more stoic or Spartan or singly determined of mind than you or something? My thinking went like this:

1. I already have substance addictions and I need no other.

No need for 2 through 4.

I've also snorted heroin a number of times on different occasions in my mid 20's. Just for about a month or so. Never got addicted. I'm glad. And I enjoyed every high I got from heroin. In fact, alcohol is more a problem for me than heroin. So, I'd be safer snorting heroin on 5-25-2015 than I would be drinking a single can of beer.

But I don't snort heroin. And it's an easy choice for me not to. I have no addiction to it therefore it's easy not to do it. It's as easy for me to stay away from heroin as it is for a thoroughly heterosexual dude to stay away from having gay sex.

I know people hooked on prescription pain medications (which now kill more Americans in overdoses than cocaine and heroin combined). It's one of the new drugs popular among younger generations too. Crack cocaine is old school now and mainly only has older addicts/users and doesn't pick up many younger new users. But prescription pain medication--I'm told at least--supposedly has some of the same withdrawal characteristics as heroin. Quite a number of them move to using heroin when they find it difficult to score pain meds.

On a scale of power from say 1 to 20 with 20 being the highest and 1 being the weakest. Having been heterosexual loooooong before I got hooked on crack I would score things this way:

Crack cocaine = 15

Heterosexuality and heterosexual sex = 3

Well... in relative terms to one another. To the average person there heterosexuality and sexual intercourse itself and the drive to have it is like way past a score of 20 and in the 100s astronomical range of power and craving.

In actuality heterosexuality and sexual intercourse are pathetically weak drives. Again, relative. Relative to true crack addiction or heroin addiction. It's easy or a heterosexual man to give oral sex to another man or to be sodomized by another man or to get an erection looking at the bare butt of another man. Again, easy in relative terms. Relative to getting your butt off crack cocaine.

But people get addicted to crack cocaine via the "gateway" "drug" of arrogance and self deception about their own will power and ability to reason themselves off of crack if they "get in trouble" with it. Marijuana is not the "gateway drug," I'm afraid to tell you but it is people having your kind of attitude. It's the same attitude I had when I first got to using (and originally I was staunchly opposed to using hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, very rarely did I smoke marijuana--which to this day is a drug high I dislike and therefore I don't smoke it--I was 99% an alcohol/beer drinker).

The great lie creating new, young drug addicts year after year is this: sex and heterosexuality are enormously strong and drug addiction is less so, therefore, people can't abstain from sex per sheer reasoning but drug addicts can stop using by sheer reasoning alone.

Utter B.S.

But I'm not mad at you. I once thought like you because I was not drug addicted and therefore I was in those terms as ignorant as Adam and Eve before their fall from grace.

Ignorance is bliss and I wish I had remained ignorant of what it is that keeps drug addicts going and going "destroying" themselves. I used to want to know what it was that kept them going. Curiosity. I was stupid enough to bite into the apple and I found out.

Ergo... I don't want to know what it is that keeps pedophiles going (even knowing people want to kill them, even knowing the hell that may await them in prison). Well... not "know know." I'm find keeping some ignorance.

 

[Douger]

I'm glad this thread didn't get weird.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

From the guy who is self described as a "sanctimonious old crackpot," LOL. Said:





"I tripped out on prescribed oxycodone while recovering from bypass surgery, just once. I never took it again. It wasn't a difficult or complicated decision. My thought process went like this:

1.This was a terrible experience.
2. I don't ever want it to happen again.
3. I never took oxycodone again.
4. Problem averted/solved."





I was speaking about addiction (more specifically dysfunctional addiction). Drinking a cocktail or glass of whiskey is not alcoholism. Tripping out on oxycodone is not drug addiction. I was hooked up to IV injected pain medication when I was in the hospital recovering from surgeries from multiple gun shot wounds (organ removals, shattered humerus etc.). I was high throughout the time consequently.

Leaving the hospital I was prescribed oxycodone. I never got the prescription filled even though I was often in excruciating pain. Does that make me more stoic or Spartan or singly determined of mind than you or something? My thinking went like this:

1. I already have substance addictions and I need no other.

No need for 2 through 4.

I've also snorted heroin a number of times on different occasions in my mid 20's. Just for about a month or so. Never got addicted. I'm glad. And I enjoyed every high I got from heroin. In fact, alcohol is more a problem for me than heroin. So, I'd be safer snorting heroin on 5-25-2015 than I would be drinking a single can of beer.

But I don't snort heroin. And it's an easy choice for me not to. I have no addiction to it therefore it's easy not to do it. It's as easy for me to stay away from heroin as it is for a thoroughly heterosexual dude to stay away from having gay sex.

I know people hooked on prescription pain medications (which now kill more Americans in overdoses than cocaine and heroin combined). It's one of the new drugs popular among younger generations too. Crack cocaine is old school now and mainly only has older addicts/users and doesn't pick up many younger new users. But prescription pain medication--I'm told at least--supposedly has some of the same withdrawal characteristics as heroin. Quite a number of them move to using heroin when they find it difficult to score pain meds.

On a scale of power from say 1 to 20 with 20 being the highest and 1 being the weakest. Having been heterosexual loooooong before I got hooked on crack I would score things this way:

Crack cocaine = 15

Heterosexuality and heterosexual sex = 3

Well... in relative terms to one another. To the average person there heterosexuality and sexual intercourse itself and the drive to have it is like way past a score of 20 and in the 100s astronomical range of power and craving.

In actuality heterosexuality and sexual intercourse are pathetically weak drives. Again, relative. Relative to true crack addiction or heroin addiction. It's easy or a heterosexual man to give oral sex to another man or to be sodomized by another man or to get an erection looking at the bare butt of another man. Again, easy in relative terms. Relative to getting your butt off crack cocaine.

But people get addicted to crack cocaine via the "gateway" "drug" of arrogance and self deception about their own will power and ability to reason themselves off of crack if they "get in trouble" with it. Marijuana is not the "gateway drug," I'm afraid to tell you but it is people having your kind of attitude. It's the same attitude I had when I first got to using (and originally I was staunchly opposed to using hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, very rarely did I smoke marijuana--which to this day is a drug high I dislike and therefore I don't smoke it--I was 99% an alcohol/beer drinker).

The great lie creating new, young drug addicts year after year is this: sex and heterosexuality are enormously strong and drug addiction is less so, therefore, people can't abstain from sex per sheer reasoning but drug addicts can stop using by sheer reasoning alone.

Utter B.S.

But I'm not mad at you. I once thought like you because I was not drug addicted and therefore I was in those terms as ignorant as Adam and Eve before their fall from grace.

Ignorance is bliss and I wish I had remained ignorant of what it is that keeps drug addicts going and going "destroying" themselves. I used to want to know what it was that kept them going. Curiosity. I was stupid enough to bite into the apple and I found out.

Ergo... I don't want to know what it is that keeps pedophiles going (even knowing people want to kill them, even knowing the hell that may await them in prison). Well... not "know know." I'm find keeping some ignorance.

That prompts the question of what is the responsibility of non-drug using society to those who crash and burn from voluntarily using drugs?

 

[SuperCloud]

That prompts the question of what is the responsibility of non-drug using society to those who crash and burn from voluntarily using drugs?

The libertarian would answer: none.

But libertarians are the harbingers "negative freedom." So, they in general don't think cocaine and heroin should be criminalized.

Portugal is socialist and no libertarian. So, tax funds are used to help fund drug rehabs. I think. But in Portugal they reduce some of the financial burden on tax payers by offering--and not mandating--drug addicts enter rehab. That can reduce some of the costs involved in in and out court ordered rehab stints.

In the USA alcohol is legal and to my knowledge courts often order problem drinkers into rehabs.

I don't get the fears that workers are all going to be high or all driving cars. Aside from the fact they can do those things even when say... marijuana, cocaine, or heroin are illegal. But more importantly, alcohol is legal, somehow business and road laws function perfectly well. They merely mandate you are not drinking or intoxicated doing x, y, z. Which includes working on the job or driving a car.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

In the USA alcohol is legal and to my knowledge courts often order problem drinkers into rehabs.

Court ordered rehab is usually limited to a two-week drying out stay at places like REBOS ("sober" spelled backwards).

 

[ThatRobGuy]

So why not legalise and regulate drug production and strip the cartels of their power over night?

I was just about to say this...

You legalize the product and regulate it up here...thus removing the demand for their current product.

However, there needs to be a two pronged approach as well. There are certain powerful people who do need to be taken out at the top of the cartel foodchain. Otherwise, when you legalize drugs, they'll just switch to another illegal black market product (usually sex slavery).

However, as you mentioned, legalization is the logical first step.

 

[dgiharris]

There are multiple problems here...

You can't legalize all drugs for the simple mathematical fact that the harm done to society would be too great. Not all drugs are created equal. Drugs that are "too addictive" would/could destroy a society.

What you could do is legalize weaker and non-addictive versions of similar drugs. Why would I spend $200 for a hit of cocaine when I could legally buy a hit of Soma-A for $15? Why would I spend $50 for meth/heroin that I have no idea was made correctly and safely when I can spend $15 on Soma-B that has a nice shiny FDA sticker on the box and I know is safe.

However, there is another dimension to the problem here that at first glance seems a bit tin-foil-hat ish but if you stop to truly think about it, the argument has merit. And that dimension is one of the money made on the War on Drugs.

Prisons, Drug Enforcement, etc is a multi-BILLION dollar business. Not small billion, but big billion, hundreds of billions. Not only are billions being made by Security and Defense corporations enforcing the War on Drugs, but it is a safe, familiar, and "stable" war to wage. What I mean is the politicians in power have been fighting and losing this war for so long that the public no longer holds politicians accountable for this war. Basically, politicians don't have to produce any results. The War on Drugs is the PERFECT war to wage from their perspective. I mean, lord forbid if politicians actually had to make progress and solve real problems. The War on Terror or War on Drugs or War on "Whatever" is the perfect political vehicle enabling a type of "stability" that ensures politicians can keep doing nothing for decades while having the appearance of doing "something".

More than anything, politicians fear change. Change is unpredictable. Change leads to rocking the boat. Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I submit the War on Drugs is the devil you know, the devil everyone is comfortable with, the devil that doesn't show up in your neighborhood. So why rock the boat? Why change anything? Just keep making speeches and paying lip service and let the War on Drugs continue in the background...

 

[OldWiseGuy]

There are multiple problems here...

You can't legalize all drugs for the simple mathematical fact that the harm done to society would be too great. Not all drugs are created equal. Drugs that are "too addictive" would/could destroy a society.

What you could do is legalize weaker and non-addictive versions of similar drugs. Why would I spend $200 for a hit of cocaine when I could legally buy a hit of Soma-A for $15? Why would I spend $50 for meth/heroin that I have no idea was made correctly and safely when I can spend $15 on Soma-B that has a nice shiny FDA sticker on the box and I know is safe.

However, there is another dimension to the problem here that at first glance seems a bit tin-foil-hat ish but if you stop to truly think about it, the argument has merit. And that dimension is one of the money made on the War on Drugs.

Prisons, Drug Enforcement, etc is a multi-BILLION dollar business. Not small billion, but big billion, hundreds of billions. Not only are billions being made by Security and Defense corporations enforcing the War on Drugs, but it is a safe, familiar, and "stable" war to wage. What I mean is the politicians in power have been fighting and losing this war for so long that the public no longer holds politicians accountable for this war. Basically, politicians don't have to produce any results. The War on Drugs is the PERFECT war to wage from their perspective. I mean, lord forbid if politicians actually had to make progress and solve real problems. The War on Terror or War on Drugs or War on "Whatever" is the perfect political vehicle enabling a type of "stability" that ensures politicians can keep doing nothing for decades while having the appearance of doing "something".

More than anything, politicians fear change. Change is unpredictable. Change leads to rocking the boat. Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I submit the War on Drugs is the devil you know, the devil everyone is comfortable with, the devil that doesn't show up in your neighborhood. So why rock the boat? Why change anything? Just keep making speeches and paying lip service and let the War on Drugs continue in the background...

Excellent points!

The single greatest point of (political) ignorance of the American people is that crime, along with escalating medical costs, and our military spending, don't 'cost' us anything, but provide much of our economic activity. And that much of our national debt is simply the printing of money needed to sustain the domestic economy in the face of the hemorrhage of capital into the global economy.

 

[dgiharris]

Excellent points!

The single greatest point of (political) ignorance of the American people is that crime, along with escalating medical costs, and our military spending, don't 'cost' us anything, but provide much of our economic activity. And that much of our national debt is simply the printing of money needed to sustain the domestic economy in the face of the hemorrhage of capital into the global economy.

I watched a few tin-foil type youtube videos in which some nutball was outlining how America created many of its own problems...

And then a question was posed, if America could solve the problems of the Middle East and Domestic problems like drugs or increasing prison population... Would we do it? Or more to the point, would the corporations that make 100s of billions per year "allow" our politicians to solve those problems? And as tin-foil crazy as it sounds, I now actually believe the answer to that question to be no.

Truth is, 100s of billions per year are made by the Defense Industry (to include domestic defense and crime). We climbed in bed with this industry out of necessity back in the 40s and it grew to be a giant, a giant that got used to eating 3, 4, even 5 square meals a day... No way in hell that giant is going to let you put him on a diet.

It's not rocket science, we could easily solve 50% maybe even 75% of our problems if we actually really wanted to. But the sad tin-foil-crazy truth is, we don't want to

way too much money and incest involved...

 

[SuperCloud]

There are multiple problems here...

You can't legalize all drugs for the simple mathematical fact that the harm done to society would be too great. Not all drugs are created equal. Drugs that are "too addictive" would/could destroy a society.

In the world of social and natural science case studies are required as opposed to blind faith propositions.

Portugal is a case study. Likewise the City of Lisbon in Portugal. How do you account for Lisbon frequently being ranked the safest capital city in Europe and Portugal as a country not being "destroyed"?

I see no evidence that Portugal is being "destroyed" and Mexico "saved" and blossoming in peace and prosperity. The death total in Mexico is absurd. And the cost on the whole social fabric of Mexico has been high do to an asinine "war on drugs" lasting how many decades and proving a massive fail?

Fortunately, a number of leaders in Latin America are now considering ending the drug war.

What you could do is legalize weaker and non-addictive versions of similar drugs. Why would I spend $200 for a hit of cocaine when I could legally buy a hit of Soma-A for $15? Why would I spend $50 for meth/heroin that I have no idea was made correctly and safely when I can spend $15 on Soma-B that has a nice shiny FDA sticker on the box and I know is safe.

It was two non-addicts that radically changed my views on things. Once upon a time even as a crack cocaine addict I staunchly believed crack cocaine should remain illegal. Then again once upon a time even many black slaves thought blacks were born inferior to whites.

The 1st person to begin to change my mind was a mulatto man that's a practicing lawyer. He said in his view drug addiction is a medical problem like alcoholism, not a criminal problem, and therefore should addressed as such and drugs decriminalized.

The 2nd was a white male libertarian. And he contradicted my point about the expensiveness of cocaine. He was correct once I thought about it. The price of cocaine is artificially inflated because it is made artificially rare, due to it's illegality and need to be smuggled in. Kind of like diamonds. Precious metals and precious stones like gold and sapphires are not expensive--relative to semi-precious materials (e.g., Swiss Topaz) or pretty cheap and abundant material like cooper.

Per the laws of economic, more product available than consumers to buy it drives the price of the product down, and high consumer demand for limited product availability skyrockets the price up.

A single cigarette costs less than a single quantity of a $10 rock bag of crack. Which is absurd. Their is fare more manufacturing cost in a single cigarette which is wrapped in paper and filter. A crack rock is bare and packed in cheap plastic sandwich bags (one bag using all corners can wrap at least for rocks).

Plus, given the stuff is illegal it is cut (mixed) with all sorts of impurities that may well be more harmful to human biological systems than the natural cocaine itself.

So, this libertarian persuaded me that if cocaine were made legal--not merely decriminalized--the $10 rock bag of crack would likely plummet to something like 50 cents. So, where as 10 $10 rock bags will cost a person $100 now, if legalized and at the cost of 50 cents it would cost a sum of $5. A massive reduction in cost for a person working and making $350 a week.

However, there is another dimension to the problem here that at first glance seems a bit tin-foil-hat ish but if you stop to truly think about it, the argument has merit. And that dimension is one of the money made on the War on Drugs.

Prisons, Drug Enforcement, etc is a multi-BILLION dollar business. Not small billion, but big billion, hundreds of billions. Not only are billions being made by Security and Defense corporations enforcing the War on Drugs, but it is a safe, familiar, and "stable" war to wage. What I mean is the politicians in power have been fighting and losing this war for so long that the public no longer holds politicians accountable for this war. Basically, politicians don't have to produce any results. The War on Drugs is the PERFECT war to wage from their perspective. I mean, lord forbid if politicians actually had to make progress and solve real problems. The War on Terror or War on Drugs or War on "Whatever" is the perfect political vehicle enabling a type of "stability" that ensures politicians can keep doing nothing for decades while having the appearance of doing "something".

More than anything, politicians fear change. Change is unpredictable. Change leads to rocking the boat. Besides, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I submit the War on Drugs is the devil you know, the devil everyone is comfortable with, the devil that doesn't show up in your neighborhood. So why rock the boat? Why change anything? Just keep making speeches and paying lip service and let the War on Drugs continue in the background...

I don't have any felony. Many black men my age do. Felonies prevent you from obtaining Federal student loans for x number of years, likely prevent you from being accepted into law school, medical school, pharmacy school, and many graduate programs statistically correlated with high income professions.

Being mulatto probably benefits me sociologically with respects to the force of the law too, as opposed to dark skinned black males that don't have one white parent. White enforcers of the law see me as closer to them and their kind than the darker skinned blacks with no white parent.

So, given I'm a biology major and have no felony why should I really care? The more black men sent to prison and sucked out the high income job markets the less competition I have with them for upward mobility.

Of course, even if mass incarceration of black males were to benefit me over the long run, maybe something are just wrong and dumb.

 

[SuperCloud]

Yeah, I know, not an academic source, but I don't care.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Portugal

"Crime in Portugal is characterized by low levels of gun violence and homicide, compared to other developed countries. Crime statistics are compiled annually by the Portuguese Ministry of Internal Administration and the Polícia de Segurança Pública which represents crimes reported to the police."

*

"Tolerance of drugs

Main article: Drug policy of Portugal

Portugal has arguably the most liberal laws concerning possession of illicit drugs in the Western world. In 2001 Portugal decriminalized possession of effectively all drugs that are still illegal in other developed nations including, but not limited to, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and LSD. While possession is not a crime, trafficking and possession of more than "10 days worth of personal use" are still punishable by jail time and fines. Since decriminalization was implemented, Portugal has seen rapid improvement in the number of deaths from drug overdoses as well as a decline in new HIV infections. [8]"