18 killed in bloody Acapulco shootout as Mexican drug war spreads – Times Online — Once a vacation hotspot. Now a charming hell hole.
Sixteen gunmen and two soldiers died in a bloody five-hour shootout in Acapulco at the weekend as the Mexican drug war erupted in the heart of the beach resort.
Members of a drug gang hurled grenades and opened fire on troops laying siege to a house in the city’s hotel zone, where four police officers were apparently being held hostage.
The fierce two-hour gun battle took place late on Saturday night after the army received a tip about the presence of armed men at a gated house. Up to nine soldiers and three Mexican bystanders were injured, while several Mexican tourists were evacuated from nearby hotels.
yes, this is so obviously safer than the horrors of legalizing drug use.
@brm well said
Mexico risks becoming a failed drug state like Afghanistan. And right on our border. Good thing our armed forces are tied down in two land wars in Asia.
Legalize drugs and the cartels disappear overnight, since they only exist to skim the massive risk premia in the drug trade.
And two of the kids from the day care fire are now in the US!! with visas waived!!
More like North Western Africa, than Afghanistan. Many of the gunmen are addicts, fighting for their next fix. Making it legal, probably will not make much of a difference.
The solution to this problem is super obvious so the leaders have to be corrupt or REAAAAALLY stupid to let this go on.
#5–Bob==you pose a quandary. Tough call.
I almost went to Acapulco just about this time but decided against it more for having been there already than for generalized crime violence. I think Mexico is on my “DO NOT VISIT” list until DRUGS ARE LEGALIZED.
Would love to do the same for USA==but whats a citizen to do?
Before I can support legalization of drugs, I want to know the costs of increased drug use.
The legal-drugs advocates I’ve talk to claimed that usage won’t go up this strikes me as nonsense. Legal behavior is always much more prevalent than illegal behavior.
Domestic violence, sex crimes, fighting, rage, car wrecks, theft, and all kinds of anti-social behavior is associated with drug use — legal or not.
I want to know if the INCREASE of these behaviors will be less onerous and expensive than crime associated with the illegal drug trade.
I am open-minded about this — really I am — but I just can’t accept that legalizing drugs will have no downsides as the pro-drugs crowd pretends.
#7:
“Before I can support legalization of drugs, I want to know the costs of increased drug use.”
I’d be very, very surprised if the costs of legalized drug use included having GRENADES lobbed around innocent bystanders.
It’s probably going to be similar to what happened after prohibition.
Yeah, more cases of public drunkenness and drunk driving, but in exchange for not having Al Capone tommy-gunning it up all over town.
#4:
“Many of the gunmen are addicts, fighting for their next fix. Making it legal, probably will not make much of a difference.”
They’re ‘fighting for their next fix’ because they’re working for a drug lord selling the shit on the illegal black market.
Were there gangsters shooting people after prohibition ended because they were looking for a bottle of booze?
Your logic is ridiculous.
@ Greg A.
Lookit man. If you’re the type to get high then you probably already do. The drug laws aren’t stopping you. If the drug use became legal then sure – it would become more prevalent – but only because it wouldn’t be hidden anymore.
Even if there is an increase in individual crimes they should always be considered less onerous than those committed by organizations.
As to expense? Howz about all the money we’d stop pissing away on the ‘war’ on drugs?
The Prohibition should have taught us the folly of criminalizing such things…the corruption…crime…death of innocents caught in the cross fire.
Regulate it as we do alcohol. If the experiment fails…we can always go back to what never worked.
This presumption that use won’t go up when it’s cheap and legal simply defies common sense.
And, I’ve heard that “ending prohibition reduced crime” argument all my life but I don’t buy it.
As I see it, ending prohibition reduced my chance of getting shot by Bugs Moran or Al Capone a teeny-bit closer to near-zero.
But it increased my chance of getting killed by an intoxicated driver or beat to death by an ugly drunk — a far more likely scenario.
Don’t get me wrong — I honestly don’t how much drug-induced crime will go up if we legalize drugs but it strikes me as folly to say it won’t.
I think it’s pretty reasonable to ask for an expert estimate before we start selling crack and meth at our liquor stores.
#12:
“This presumption that use won’t go up when it’s cheap and legal simply defies common sense.”
The presumption isn’t that it won’t go up – it’s that it won’t go up a lot over the long run. You’ll probably see people already using use more, but it’s unlikely that normal people are going to go out and try crack or heroin just because it’s legal.
“And, I’ve heard that “ending prohibition reduced crime” argument all my life but I don’t buy it.”
You don’t have to believe the sky is blue either. The fact is that a big reason why prohibition was repealed is because it generated so much violent organized crime.
“I honestly don’t how much drug-induced crime”
Yeah, drug *induced* crime probably will go up.
But this is dwarfed by the fact that almost all of our violent crime is a result of the drug *trade*, not drug *consumption*.
Like, geez, a few thousand more DUI’s a year in exchange for eliminating EVERY SINGLE gang drug turf war and EVERY SINGLE mugging and robbery to pay for an artificially high priced habit seems worth it to me.
#12 Crack and meth are dirty unsafe drugs that are largely a result of drug illegality.
#14:
Excellent point.
It’s like arguing that the 21st Amendment was going to unleash a plague of blindness and death because it legalized bathtub gin.
WOW, if Acapulco is like this, then there is absolutely no place safe left in Mexico. This plus swine flu is gonna totally finish what little tourism they had left.
I really don’t give a shit about Mexico. Fuck them.
I don’t do drugs because they are illegal. I don’t care about law breaking, I do care about getting caught, associating with criminals to get the drugs, and the unknown/non-recourse quality of what is being bought.
Already in my life, friends, family, and myself have been negatively affected by the illegality surrounding drugs.
Morally, it makes sense to me that on legalization, only those CHOOSING to ruing their lives by taking drugs will primarily suffer the negative impacts, and those not wishing to will not–just the way it should be. Even if drug addicts increased, so would freedom.
People correctly identify that new/different people will be harmed by legalized drugs but they turn a blind eye/to dogma to ignore the harm that is done by illegality now.
The pres of Mexico wanted to make drugs legal about 5 years back.
Then Dumbass sent some of his DEA thugs dowm to Mexico to put a end to that.
Just one more thing Dumbass screwed up.
#18 Well said.