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"It's a War": Mexico Under Siege

The war on drugs is really starting to get ridiculous. Having a destabilized country on our border is far more dangerous than all the hard drugs combined. I can't say I am fan of what many drugs do to people, but organized crime capable of destroying a nation state is a worse consequence. Marijuana is so tame by comparison its not even close.

The military option is a more complicated issue. Although we would be fighting another insurgency, it might not turn out quite as badly. Drug gangs are motivated more by money than anything else, and might not show the same suicidal tenacity. On the other hand, it is quite risky to assume that they won't give it everything they got. Underestimating the enemies will to fight rarely leads to victory.

Other complications include exactly what the Mexican government does during all this. One would hope they would be motivated out of self-interest to invite us to help, but you can't really count on that. Going in without consent might work in the short term, but the long term consequences of it would be rather unappealing.
 
a777pilot said:
As to legalizing these drugs.........

STUPID!
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Sustaining the black market for drugs which funds the narcotrafficantes is an intelligent thing to do?

If you want less of something, you tax it, you don't ban it. Legalize drugs and put some decent sin taxes on them. Less drug use, more government revenue, and less money for drug cartels. That's a win-win-win scenario.

As long as we make drugs illegal, there will be people attempting to supply drug users illegally. Prohibition has never worked.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
Mexico's Drug War - Stories, Photos, Videos - Mexico Under Siege - World News - Los Angeles Times

If you aren't taking this seriously, you aren't paying attention. What should the U.S. be doing?
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There are only a few viable options. The easiest is legalize the cartel's two biggest money makers: Pot and cocaine. The only other option is a coordinated U.S.-Mexican operation to fight them. But that will not be easy in terms of the politics and would last a long time.
 
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celticlord said:
Legalize drugs. Kill the market, deprive the cartels of their funds. If they still manage to pose a threat to Calderon, troops on the border ASAP.
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Realistically, it's simply not going to happen any time soon. That is a pie in the sky type solution.
 
Redress said:
Realistically, it's simply not going to happen any time soon. That is a pie in the sky type solution.
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Realistically, it's the only solution that will put the drug cartels out of business.

La Familia took root in the Michoacan (sp?) state after Calderon began his narco-war. For every cartel Calderon takes out another is going to take its place. The longer this narco-war continues, the weaker Calderon becomes.

The "War on Drugs" has been around since the 1970s--over 30 years. It is no closer to being won than in the 1970s--strongly suggesting that it can't be won. If it can't be won, here or in Mexico, the rational thing is to end it.

It may not be a politically palatable solution, but it is, I suspect, the inevitable one. It is the only solution left--or soon will be.
 
Redress said:
Realistically, it's simply not going to happen any time soon. That is a pie in the sky type solution.
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True. But like usual it's the one that will work best. We are not sending American troops or police into Mexico. Over a long period of time that might work, but it's going to happen given the lack of troops, the shortage of police and the fact Mexico simply won't go for it. The problem is that we are the largest illegal drug market on Earth, while also having some of the stiffest penalities outside Asia and the Middle East. Which makes drug's VERY profitable, leading to what we see in Mexico. It's frankly Econ 101.
 
celticlord said:
Realistically, it's the only solution that will put the drug cartels out of business.

La Familia took root in the Michoacan (sp?) state after Calderon began his narco-war. For every cartel Calderon takes out another is going to take its place. The longer this narco-war continues, the weaker Calderon becomes.

The "War on Drugs" has been around since the 1970s--over 30 years. It is no closer to being won than in the 1970s--strongly suggesting that it can't be won. If it can't be won, here or in Mexico, the rational thing is to end it.

It may not be a politically palatable solution, but it is, I suspect, the inevitable one. It is the only solution left--or soon will be.
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I think the drug war COULD be won. But it would take a level of resources we simply don't have. Otherwise, hell no. It's been a total failure for 30+ years and will remain one. It costs us billions, floods our jails and stresses the legal system and yet drugs are still readily available. It's been one of the biggest governmental failures ever. So, of course, we keep doing it.
 
winston53660 said:
Yeah if had a Gestapo like secret police.
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Among other things. If we threw massive resources at the problem, resources we don't even have, we could start to win it. But we would need to keep it up forever, too. It's really not worth it just to keep people from smoking weed or snorting a line of coke.
 
stekim said:
Among other things. If we threw massive resources at the problem, resources we don't even have, we could start to win it. But we would need to keep it up forever, too. It's really not worth it just to keep people from smoking weed or snorting a line of coke.
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I haven't seen the numbers lately, but iirc, drug lords have more resources allocated to selling drugs than the US has to spend fighting illicit drug sales.
Ironically, both are mostly funded by US citizens.
 
stekim said:
I think the drug war COULD be won.
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There is no historical precedent to sustain that argument. Criminalization of vice historically does essentially nothing to reduce the appetite for vice.
 
stekim said:
Among other things. If we threw massive resources at the problem, resources we don't even have, we could start to win it. But we would need to keep it up forever, too. It's really not worth it just to keep people from smoking weed or snorting a line of coke.
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We'd also have to toss out the constitution.
 
A Primer on how to stop the violence in Mexico

A Book by DanaRhea

Chapter one

Legalize marijuana and tax it to raise revenue.

End of book
 
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celticlord said:
Realistically, it's the only solution that will put the drug cartels out of business.

La Familia took root in the Michoacan (sp?) state after Calderon began his narco-war. For every cartel Calderon takes out another is going to take its place. The longer this narco-war continues, the weaker Calderon becomes.

The "War on Drugs" has been around since the 1970s--over 30 years. It is no closer to being won than in the 1970s--strongly suggesting that it can't be won. If it can't be won, here or in Mexico, the rational thing is to end it.

It may not be a politically palatable solution, but it is, I suspect, the inevitable one. It is the only solution left--or soon will be.
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That is a good reason why I hate the term "war on drugs". It then leads to a logical question: how do you win the war? That is a problem since it is unwinable, and that is not a realistic goal. The goal should be(and I believe actually is) to reduce drug use and drug trafficking as much as possible.
 
Redress said:
That is a good reason why I hate the term "war on drugs". It then leads to a logical question: how do you win the war? That is a problem since it is unwinable, and that is not a realistic goal. The goal should be(and I believe actually is) to reduce drug use and drug trafficking as much as possible.
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The problem is that we are not even coming close to realizing that goal.

If you want to reduce drug trafficking legalize drugs.

If you want to decrease usage, treat the problem instead of exacerbating the problem with legal repercussions.

Why does it make sense to keep control of dangerous substances in the hand of dangerous unscrupulous people?

IF we want to control drug use, then we should not be relinquishing control of drugs to criminals.
 
celticlord said:
Sustaining the black market for drugs which funds the narcotrafficantes is an intelligent thing to do?

If you want less of something, you tax it, you don't ban it. Legalize drugs and put some decent sin taxes on them. Less drug use, more government revenue, and less money for drug cartels. That's a win-win-win scenario.

As long as we make drugs illegal, there will be people attempting to supply drug users illegally. Prohibition has never worked.
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The problem with this is that it will no longer be legal to screen job applicants for crack cocaine. Your child's teacher might be on heroin, and there'll be nothing you can do about it. The president of the U.S. might be a former narcotics distributor.

No thank you.
 
Erod said:
The problem with this is that it will no longer be legal to screen job applicants for crack cocaine. Your child's teacher might be on heroin, and there'll be nothing you can do about it. The president of the U.S. might be a former narcotics distributor.

No thank you.
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Truck Drivers get screened for alcohol which is legal. And I think some companies will not hire drivers with a bad record.
 
marduc said:
The problem is that we are not even coming close to realizing that goal.

If you want to reduce drug trafficking legalize drugs.

If you want to decrease usage, treat the problem instead of exacerbating the problem with legal repercussions.

Why does it make sense to keep control of dangerous substances in the hand of dangerous unscrupulous people?

IF we want to control drug use, then we should not be relinquishing control of drugs to criminals.
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And again, this country is not even close to legalizing any drugs soon. It is possible that weed might be legalized in my lifetime, but I doubt it, and it won't be for at least 10 to 20 years from now.
 
Erod said:
The problem with this is that it will no longer be legal to screen job applicants for crack cocaine. Your child's teacher might be on heroin, and there'll be nothing you can do about it. The president of the U.S. might be a former narcotics distributor.

No thank you.
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What they do outside of their work is their business; however employers can and do reserve the right to demanding that people are not intoxicated at their workplaces.

Your child teacher might be drunk, if that teacher gets caught she gets fired.. quite simple. If that teacher goes home after school, and has a cocktail, no big deal.

red herring
 
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