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But then drug hurt no one but the person ;so many say. If you buy illegal drugs you are doing a lot of harm; plain and simple.If they tax it do you not think there will be a black market. at cheaper price?
But then drug hurt no one but the person ;so many say. If you buy illegal drugs you are doing a lot of harm; plain and simple.If they tax it do you not think there will be a black market. at cheaper price?
I believe that there will always be people who cheat the system, there's a black market for cigarettes, purses, shoes, cancer medicine, so yes, I think there would be a black market for drugs. BUT, if we cut down the Cartel's cash flow from 29 Billion down to say, 25 million, then I believe that we would have won a huge victory.
Please think about your answers before you respond...
What's the solution?
I have heard arguments for legalizing drugs, building higher fences, funding the corrupted Mexican government, etc etc. None of which are working are can't be pushed through our voting system.
If you've been to a California State prison, take a look inside, what you will find is gang members that have no sense of morality, would kill you if you say something wrong, or live on the wrong block, most are associated with either the Mexican Mafia or MS13 which both traffic high amounts of illegal drugs into the US.
Do we sit by and let people die? Or do we form militias and go to war? Or do we build a higher fence and forget the innocents that die everyday in Mexico?
Thanks for listening....
In the current state of affairs, there really is no solution, because for the most part it isn't our problem. As horrific and horrifying as it is, the sickening violence committed by the cartels is almost exclusively committed by Mexicans against Mexicans in Mexico, and as long as they keep it on their side of the border, it's none of our business. We don't have the moral or legal standing to send our police or military into another country to stop their citizens from torturing and killing one another. Unless the Mexican government asks for our help, we have no choice but to sit by and let the innocents die.
Like you, I'm deeply concerned that some of this violence does spill across the border and directly affect American citizens in the United States, but the degree to which this is happening is probably not yet not sufficient to justify what amounts to invading a sovereign nation and an ally. If the problem you're trying to solve is the problem of cartel violence against Mexican nationals in Mexico (as your OP suggests), then there simply isn't anything we can do about it. Federal legalization of drugs is politically impossible in this country for the foreseeable future, and harsher laws against either dealers or recreational users is not practical when our prison systems are already packed orders of magnitude beyond capacity. So I don't see any way to make a realistic impact on the demand side.
However - if the Mexican government asks for (or simply agrees to accept) our assistance, I have no problem with declaring the Mexican cartels a "clear and present danger to the national security of the United States of America" and waging war against them. Smart bombs, drone strikes, special ops teams on the ground, even full-scale military assaults against cartel targets would be entirely appropriate as long as we are acting in cooperation with the Mexican government. Kill them all, as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather have our military defending our own border and helping stabilize a neighboring ally than a lot of the other missions with which they're currently tasked.
Ok let me pose this question. If this was say, Iraq, and the military power in Iraq was committing human rights violations by way of rape and genocide, or if it were one of the many other African nations, would we send troops or not? Our history has told us that we have sent troops into zones of mass murder to protect citizen of nations other than our own. I honestly think that at this point, our administration is afraid of the cartels. I think they are afraid of stirring up a hornets nest. But the only way this is ever going to stop at this point in my view is 1) take away their money by legalizing the drugs they import and 2) go to war with them with the full might of our Army.
I would rather see our Army fighting for a real cause like genocide and rape, than a ideological cause like Muslim extremism.
Legalize all drugs; go full-on Portugal with this and throw a lot of money at the medical/scientific side rather than the punitive side. Unintended consequences will be better and intended consequences will be better. Control/prohibit the most dangerous, because you have a supply of something less harmful on hand. Can the heroin demand be stifled by offering an endless supply of cheap methadone? Just an example--there may be better ones.
With the advent of MJ legalization, the profit has gone out of MJ for the cartels. The result has been a collapse in price of heroin down to $4 a hit in many markets. As a result, heroin use is up. However, in the grand scheme of things it is still a very small portion of the population involved in heroin.
There is actually more money in cigarette smuggling. For example almost 60% of all cigarettes sold in NY are smuggled in.
But then drug hurt no one but the person ;so many say. If you buy illegal drugs you are doing a lot of harm; plain and simple.If they tax it do you not think there will be a black market. at cheaper price?
Yeah and how big is the black market for cigarettes and alcohol in comparison to the legal market? It is minuscule and definitely not big enough to support cartel wars. Nobody is dying over the black market on cigarettes.
Even if the black market is cheaper, would you rather wait 45 minutes in a dark parking lot to save a fraction of the price by cutting out taxes? Or would you rather buy from professional staff in a nice building who is actually concerned with you having an expedited and pleasant experience? Legal weed has a guarantee of quality backed by people who could be sued in the court of law if they provide an unsafe product... If you buy on the streets you have no guarantees of quality or recourse if they misrepresent the product.
If what you were saying was true, people in Colorado would mostly smoke crappy Mexican weed to avoid taxes. People around here always have high quality cannabis that they paid taxes on.
Quote:
But then drug hurt no one but the person ;so many say. If you buy illegal drugs you are doing a lot of harm; plain and simple.
No, purchasing a substance, regardless of legality, hurts nobody. Prohibition creates a scenario where that money could be used later to hurt somebody, but that does not mean the person buying the substance has harmed anyone. I mean, really, if you buy a car off of a guy who gets his cars from a group that kills people, you did not kill anybody, the actual murder did.
This line of logic you use could be an excuse to ban literally anything... and it would make the situation worse.
I think that it's time America starts to pay attention, this senseless violence is a direct result of American drug consumption (mainly in Mexico it is marijuana and crystal meth), and their wars over territory and traffic routes into the United States. It's already begun to spread into southern US.
The senseless violence is a direct result of America's "war on drugs", not it's drug consumption. It's the illegality that allows the cartels to sell their product, which then spurs on violence. Cut off their revenue stream and they will either move elsewhere or will go away. Humans have been partaking in intoxicants since the dawn of time, it's not going to stop anytime soon. Making it illegal is ridiculous given our long history of use, and that is what is causing the issue.
With the advent of MJ legalization, the profit has gone out of MJ for the cartels. The result has been a collapse in price of heroin down to $4 a hit in many markets. As a result, heroin use is up. However, in the grand scheme of things it is still a very small portion of the population involved in heroin.
There is actually more money in cigarette smuggling. For example almost 60% of all cigarettes sold in NY are smuggled in.
I would guess that is because NY is idiotic and over-taxes cigs, thereby creating a black market for them. The whole point of legalizing substances is to make a black market not profitable or worth the hassle. You would think people running states and countries would understand such a basic premise.
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