View Full Version : Social Media and Mexican Drug Cartel
This is pretty scary. Seems like we should be more worried about this than some things overseas.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/09/14/mexico.violence/index.html?iref=allsearch
Prohibition didn't seem to teach us anything. As they say, history might not repeat itself but it often rhymes.
Peace
So are you saying if we legalize all these drugs, the problems will go away??
I don't think "the problems" will go away with drug legalization or decriminalization but I do think that it might be something that would eliminate much of this present conflict.
This "war on drugs" has been going on since I can remember and I find it hard to find anything that looks like success or decreased demand. The problem is economic and just like in the US if someone can capitalize on that they will. The corruption and billions of dollars that are associated with this problem are the root cause of the violence.
However, when and if this problem goes away it will be replaced quickly with some other form of lucrative business based upon contraband. Let's face the facts - lack of economic opportunity is probably the biggest issue on the planet.
Distribution of wealth is a worldwide issue.
Peace
loosechickens
9-15-11, 10:50pm
We should probably remember that for most of this country's history, drugs WERE legal. Cocaine was once a part of the formula for Coca Cola, and marijuana was legal for pretty much all our history up until a blue nosed government enforcer teamed up with the DuPont company which didn't want the competition to their new nylon rope from hemp fibers, and the Fox News type journalist of his day, Randolph Hearst......remember "Reefer Madness"????????
We have CREATED this criminal money making machine, just as we really created and enriched organized crime during Prohibition, and have made it powerful and can't control it, while actually increasing the percentage of Americans using and/or addicted to drugs, just as alcohol drinking actually increased during Prohibition.
At this point, we have a huge criminal element, awash in billions of dollars of illegal profits, a population that laps up drugs in far larger amounts than it did when the stuff was legal, and by a far larger percentage of the population, have ramped up a huge prison industry to house drug offenders, and here we are........with a major problem.
Aren't we proud of our War on Drugs? What a boondoggle. And at this point, the narco-guys are practically running Mexico, with the Mexican government unable (and in some cases unwilling, being on the take) to stop it, and a huge market of eager buyers here in this country. And a lot of the weaponry that is being used by the drug cartels in Mexico has come right across the border from the U.S.
What do we expect? We made drugs really, really, really profitable, so the free market worked, suppliers created ever more powerful marijuana, introduced more and more people to drugs to increase their customer base, the criminals are now awash in money and power, and now we have an out of control situation that we've pretty much created ourselves.
It's kind of pathetic, but we really are a people who have never seemed to learn from history, so we keep doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. And at this point, there is such an industry in THIS country of fighting that "War on Drugs" that they don't really seem interested in really ending it. Lots of people here making lots of LEGAL money on this mess, from private prisons, attorneys, corporations operating drug treatment facilities for profit, etc. The last thing many of these people really want is for the merry-go-round to stop.
But in Mexico, it is REALLY a problem that dwarfs the problems here and threatens the very structure of government there, and if Mexico becomes a failed narco-state, if you think we have illegal immigration problems now, just wait.......JMHO, and YMMV
Who in fact is laundering all this drug money?
I don't think laundering is an issue in most of the world. The drug lords in South America don't seem to have any problem leading lavish lifestyles and I'm fairly certain most people know what they do.
I have to agree with LC. If the Mexican government fails, which is a very real possibility, our problems in the US will increase exponentially. The US created this situation with our insatiable appetite for the drugs. The only way to limit the power of the cartels is to limit their income. The only way to do that is to reduce or eliminate the demand for their product. Actually the demand will be there, but I think most people would rather buy from a supplier that is legal and has some form of quality control. At this point it wold be difficult for me to argue that legalization is not the least of the evils. The business analogy would be something like the cartels as the small town hardware store when Wal-Mart moves in. For the record Zig, I've been in favor of legalized marijuana since the 70's, its the coke, et al, that I have more of a problem with.
My Libertarian alter ego says legalize it all. One evil drug cartel (Pharma) is enough.:devil:
We really need to balance the drug issue against the "making money illegally" issue. People kill each other over money all the time. But it appears to be much more prevalent in situations dealing with money made illegally.
Some substances are much worse than others - they should be considered separately. We've done this with alcohol. I expect they could do the same with pot. For this one, at least, I think pulling all this money from dealers and cartels could only be a good thing.
Its an interesting concept.......what would the drug cartels turn to, if not the drugs to make money? I know money is their bottom line, but they seem to have some ingrained violence in them.......some robot-like cruelty that gets expressed in the drug trade. I wonder what they would do next, to release that violence?
Look at the violence that surrounded the alcohol industry during prohibition. Once prohibition ended, that violence ended. The reason teh violence exists is because the people dealing drugs (or alcohol during prohibition) were/are already outside the law and thus had no reason to follow it because 1) they'd be going to jail if caught doing their main business, and 2) they had no societal support to enforce contracts so they had to enforce business deals on their own, through force. If marijuana and other drugs were legalized the businessmen who sell them would be as upstanding as the people who run anheiser busch or any other alcohol seller.
iris lily
9-20-11, 12:35am
I certainly would like to think that legalizing drugs would make all of that bad stuff go away. hmmm. But I think there would be unintended consequences that we cannot forsee. But I always say, sure, I'm game for legalizing them, just don't make me pay for social service programs to deal with unforseen consequences, in fact, that should be a money saver: cut down on drug treatment programs and on law enforcement and prison costs.
I imagine we could pay for a lot of drug treatment with the money we'd save in interdiction, enforcement, and incarceration costs--with plenty left over.
But I wonder how many of us might have dead children if it were easy to obtain drugs.
Zigzagman
9-20-11, 12:41pm
But I wonder how many of us might have dead children if it were easy to obtain drugs.
I would not advocate legalizing all drugs but definitely think that the criminalization of marijuana is just stupid. BTW - weed is very easy to obtain almost anywhere in the US.
I think our children would be healthier, less inclined to hurt others under the influence of weed vs alcohol.
Peace
But marijuana isn't really the bulk of what the drug cartels are selling, is it?
Its an interesting concept.......what would the drug cartels turn to, if not the drugs to make money? I know money is their bottom line, but they seem to have some ingrained violence in them.......some robot-like cruelty that gets expressed in the drug trade. I wonder what they would do next, to release that violence?
Just as now, there will still be an illegal black market for...well, everything - drugs, weapons, humans, cigerettes, alcohol, clothes, exotic animals, etc... Black markets and the violence - and law enforcement - that goes along with it will continue to exist even if drugs are legalized.
There are very few deaths from marijuana, and if heroin were regulated as to purity, there would be fewer deaths by overdose there, too. As to Absinthe, I couldn't say...
I'm not worried about weed. Although when I heard about kids in middle school smoking it, it concerns me. True, its MUCH safer than alcohol, but anything that changes your normal state of consciousness.....especially in young kids, can lead to trouble.
I'm more worried about cocaine and heroin. I think that's where the drug cartel's interest is.
But it is strange how lightly we treat alcohol when it can have such horrible consequences, especially among young people.
And I agree if drugs were legalized, people would find a way to continue being greedy and violent about something.
I'm not worried about weed. Although when I heard about kids in middle school smoking it, it concerns me. True, its MUCH safer than alcohol, but anything that changes your normal state of consciousness.....especially in young kids, can lead to trouble.
I'm more worried about cocaine and heroin. I think that's where the drug cartel's interest is.
But it is strange how lightly we treat alcohol when it can have such horrible consequences, especially among young people.
And I agree if drugs were legalized, people would find a way to continue being greedy and violent about something.
From NYT articles - marijuana makes up 60 percent of the cartels’ profits, that still leaves another 40 percent, which includes the sale of methamphetamine, cocaine, and brown-powder and black-tar heroin. If marijuana were legalized, the cartels would still make huge profits from the sale of these other drugs.
Still, legalization would deliver a significant short-term hit to the cartels — if drug trafficking were the only activity they were engaged in. But cartels derive a growing slice of their income from other illegal activities. Some experts on organized crime in Latin America, like Edgardo Buscaglia, say that cartels earn just half their income from drugs.
Indeed, in recent years cartels have used an extensive portfolio of rackets and scams to diversify their income. For example, they used to kidnap rivals, informants and incompetent subordinates to punish, exact revenge or send a message. Now that they have seen that people are willing to pay heavy ransoms, kidnapping has become their second-most-lucrative venture, with the targets ranging from businessmen to migrants.
Another new source of cartel revenue is oil theft, long a problem for the Mexican government. The national oil company, Pemex, loses hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of petroleum every year to bandits and criminal gangs who tap into pipelines and siphon it off. Now the cartels are getting involved in this business, working with associates north of the border to sell the oil to American companies at huge markups.
It concerns me when I hear about kids in middle school smoking pot or even using drugs of any kind. That is not acceptable and I think that most adults should know that.
Peace
That's why I think we should fear Mexico's potential threats to us than some other countries.
I imagine we could pay for a lot of drug treatment with the money we'd save in interdiction, enforcement, and incarceration costs--with plenty left over.
Well but in my plan for Legalizing Drugs to Save America we take those savings and apply it to the national debt, ya know? Revenue going to the debt, free up some cash, apply it to debt. That's what would happen in my household. Not revenue to spend on yet more social programs. Plus revenue gained from taxing these legal sales, yeah, that's the ticket.
Well but in my plan for Legalizing Drugs to Save America we take those savings and apply it to the national debt, ya know? Revenue going to the debt, free up some cash, apply it to debt. That's what would happen in my household. Not revenue to spend on yet more social programs. Plus revenue gained from taxing these legal sales, yeah, that's the ticket.
Well, but we're certianly going to HAVE to provide extended unemployment insurance programs for all the 100s of thousands of law enforcement people that would become unemployed if we ended the war on drugs. After all, what job skills do they have that could be transferred to something productive. [/sarcasm]
But in all seriousness, I'd much rather spend the money on drug treatment programs for people who want to stop using drugs then on punitive and pointless incarceration of people who use them either because they enjoy them or because they can't get help to get off them.
Personally I'm completely comfortable fully legalizing marijuana. Nothing I've read/heard/whatever anywhere has convinced me that pot is harmful. Alcohol, from what I can tell, seems to be a much more destructive drug, and society gets along just fine with millions of people using it. I'm somewhat less comfortable with the idea of legalizing 'harder' drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth. But truthfully, the worst damage I've seen to people I know caused by those drugs have been the effects of the war on drugs. The real question is how many more people would use them if they were legal. The truthful answer is probably more but we don't really know how many more since no tests have been done on this subject.
The concept of pot being a 'gateway' drug to harder drugs is in reality likely only truthful because you buy them all from the same person/cartel. For that reason I'm inclined to fully legalize pot and its sale but only decriminalize possession of small amounts of harder drugs. That way the gateway connection is severed and people no longer go to jail just for using harder drugs.
But I don't expect any of this to happen anytime soon. Just as the military industrial complex insures that we'll continue to have a lot of pointless wars so they can get rich, the prison industrial complex, as well as big pharma, will never let the war on drugs end since there's too much money to be made continuing it.
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