pedro says:

#21 I think there’s a fail, alright. But the fail is the US as a society. But hey, don’t let facts get in the way of your beliefs on drugs.

bobbo, the law is an ass===get on and RIDE!!!! says:

Chris–you are going to have to wait a long time for Pedro to ever explain himself. He is in Editor Mode when it comes to backing up what he posts.

A year or so ago he had some interesting things to say on developments in South America, but he declines even that any more.

Behind it all, I sensed the boy had some common sense. Why he’s a stooge for the status quo on this one escapes me.

FREEDOM===someone else doing something you don’t like.

chris says:

#25 I have nothing against South American Indians, but I don’t defend their drug intake either.

There is one group that has a person use a tube to blow a psychoactive substance up the medicine man’s nose. Then the medicine man goes into a trance and usually comes back with the name of somebody who needs to be killed. Would you really argue against that? Damn, I don’t need some tripping medicine man coming after me!

Back to the world we understand: The geopolitical aspect is reason enough to end drug prohibition. Would you rather have angry third world military groups or the same with state of the art weaponry?

This is big money stuff. Once gangs get large money flows they start to resemble governments more than gangs. All of this to stop a bunch of domestic junkies that are going to get high anyway.

The “Drug War” has absolutely destroyed Mexico. Much legal market development there is financed by drug money. Without those revenues Mexico ceases to function. I would even argue Mexico has ceased to be a nation-state, properly speaking.

You can trivialize it all you want, but the US position on drugs is an absolute flop. It creates civil, criminal, and national security problems well in excess of any problems caused by drug use/abuse.

chris says:

It makes walking a couple of pounds a few miles worth 1000%. No way is any amount of soundbytes going to stop that.

smartalix says:

Pedro,

Drugs are like guns. It depends on the user, not the tool.

Blanket dismissals of all drugs as the same is stupid and myopic. Pot is not coke, just as alcohol is not jet fuel. Trying to treat them the same diminishes us both.

Personal freedom trumps all unless it impacts the lives of others, then the question needs to be about the behavior of the individual, not the opinion of some elements of the community.

A person with drug problems would have problems no matter the legality. Legalizatino in fact allows us to help those people by decriminalizing addiction and allowing us to treat it.

People without problems that use soft drugs like alcohol and pot (Carl Sagan the pothead springs to mind) should be left the hell alone.

smartalix says:

That logic only applies to those who abuse. What about the kid who is OK who just likes to eat candy now and then?

ECA says:

29,
NOT open the gates..
HOW about, LET them all in, with FULL registration and bio..ALl prints and Body markings.
Give them 1-3 MARKS…if they FAIL..they NEVER come back.
It works BETTER then shipping jobs to MExico, JOBS that still pay LESS then in the USA.

AND before you jump the BAND WAGON and say “they are taking jobs away” I will ask if you will replace one of them.. AND I know where also, you can have the job.

But you need to understand 1 fact. THEY DONT WANT the CHEAP jobs. They want MONEY, they want to SAVE as much as they can. The higher the pay, the BETTER. they are the Entrepreneurs of the 21st century. THEY are the competition.

RESTRICT TOP WAGE, not MIN WAGE.
THAT gives competition.
FAT CATS, have NO REASON to improve. to give better products that DO something. They can SELL CRAP and you like it.

chris says:

#29 You aren’t much on basic reading comprehension.

The US isn’t Mexico, but we do have to deal with them. Mexico is the largest national security threat to the US. There are many areas in Mexico that are no-go areas for the Mexican army, because the drug gangs are powerful enough to hold them off. The Mexican government, military and police are widely corrupted. Most people in the Mexican border regions who are dealing with the kidnapping of a relative don’t call police, because so many of the kidnappings are done BY police.

There are historical reasons, unrelated to drugs, why Mexican authorities are especially prone to corruption. I can explain those if you’d like.

The overwhelming cause of the evaporation of the Mexican state today is because they sit on the part of the illegal distribution chain where the biggest markup happens: the US-Mexico border.

As to the South American Indians, which you you brought up originally, note my use of “one tribe.” That would presumably not refer to all tribes.

chris says:

#36 “You’re … the one who brought Mexico as an example of why the drugs should be legalized in the US.”

No, I was arguing that the current state of affairs is creating incentives that are tearing Mexico apart. You aren’t reading my words, just looking for key words. “US” and “Mexico” in the same post, well he must be saying they are the same…. no, not remotely.

I’d be happy to explain the idea that historical factors have prepped Mexican officials for corruption.

Mexico is a great example of the old saw: “A politician who is poor is a poor politician.” Going back to the Spanish colonial model local officials were not paid much, they were expected to extract their salaries from the population they governed. Early in the 20th century Mexican governmental positions were sold for generally stable amounts based on the expected ability of that position to extract revenues.

If you were close to the border you’d have to pay more, out in the hinterlands you’d pay less. Drugs were a business even in the early 1900s, but not nearly on the scale they are today.

Most of the revenue came from “taxes” on smugglers bringing goods into Mexico. Radios, kitchen gadgets, and eventually TVs were all very heavily taxed in Mexico. The border officials would tax goods coming in which would then be sold to stores throughout Mexico.

It was common to for Texans in the 60s to take trips to Mexico with a car trunk full of blenders and stuff. After visiting a Mexican department store they would have enough profits to pay for a beach vacation. This even grew to shipments of personal electrics brought by small aircraft INTO Mexico. These same airstrips got heavy use in later decades by planes departing to the US with cargoes of drugs.

Drug importers didn’t often use Mexico as an entry to the US until the 1980s because Mexican officials were so adept at extracting taxes from smugglers. The shift to Mexico came because the US deployed AWACS radar aircraft into the Caribbean making that route more dangerous.

Once Mexican smugglers became the go-to guys they quickly demanded payment in kind, rather than in cash. The majority of the value in illegal drugs comes from hopping the border. Or in another way, at least 80% of the domestic street price comes because a Mexican group got it into the country.

Mexican cartels, even though they merely provide transport, get the lions share of the profits. They have become the major criminal force in the western hemisphere.

The Columbians realized how badly they screwed up, but the Mexican groups aren’t going to be displaced. Columbian groups have settled for controlling the spigot into Europe through North Africa.

Columbia is a different animal than Mexico. Compare the intense US interest there to the total lack of interest in Mexico. It suggests, to me at least, that drugs are not the reason for US involvement in Columbia.

That is a topic for another day, though.

Alcoholism not a Disease a says:

One of the biggest problems my group has isn’t convincing folks that they have a problem. It’s convincing them to address the biggest one first and then deal with the other stuff. Nobody seems to want to do that. Everyone wants a reason or an excuse. They want to worry about the big bruise on their arm when there leg is cut off and they are bleeding out.