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Posts Tagged ‘drug war’

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The Drug War: An Irrational Crusade | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on May 25, 2023

The European Union’s average rate of drug-related deaths is five times higher than Portugal’s. From 1998 to 2011, drug treatment attendees in Portugal increased by 60 percent. This result is encouraging because Portuguese citizens are seeking help, rather than fearing incarceration.

Even the diabolical Charles Manson distributed drugs while imprisoned. Does one honestly think the government will eradicate drugs off the streets?

https://mises.org/wire/drug-war-irrational-crusade

Donavan Lingerfelt

It’s been over five decades since the war on drugs began in the United States, and billions of dollars coerced from taxpayers have been spent on this frivolous operation. The General Accounting Office’s report found that the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program did not deter youth from drug abuse. How exactly has this war benefited taxpayers when drug use has increased, and more potent drugs are being consumed? Even the diabolical Charles Manson distributed drugs while imprisoned. Does one honestly think the government will eradicate drugs off the streets?

The mere suggestion of legalizing drugs causes many to accuse me of advocating drug abuse. I do not have any inclination to consume harmful drugs, and neither do I condone such behavior. My motivation for writing this article, however, is grounded in freedom. I hope that after reading this, people across the political spectrum will understand this objective. For people on the right, they should realize this war is unconstitutional. The Constitution does not grant the government control of what someone injects into their body. The state continues to extend its tentacles of power over its people, and the war on drugs is just one facet of that reality.

The state believes it has the prerequisites to decree what can and cannot be allowed, not just regarding drug policy but in our private lives as well. Lysander Spooner, the nineteenth-century theorist, argued that vices are not crimes: “Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.” You have total autonomy of your body, not the government or anyone else. This should hopefully register with individuals on the left. Today’s political climate has forced citizens into a political dichotomy with no room outside the uniparty’s parameters. Most politically passionate people fail to realize that they share quite a bit of similarities with their supposed “enemies.” It’s not Left versus Right; it’s the state versus you!

See the rest here

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Watch “Why Brittney Griner’s Arrest Should Cause Us to Examine the Drug War Here” on YouTube

Posted by M. C. on August 5, 2022

Why should basketball star Brittney Griner’s arrest in Russia cause us to examine the drug war here at home? Join FFF president Jacob G. Hornberger and Citadel professor Richard M. Ebeling, as they discuss this incident.

Discussion starts @ 06:00

https://youtu.be/kB1OcyN3v0M

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A New Way to Fight the Drug War?

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2022

Settling for reform can, at best, only result in an improvement of our condition as serfs. To achieve the free society, we have to dismantle and repeal, not reform, all infringements on liberty. That necessarily means making the consistent, principled case for the free society, including ending, not reforming, the drug war.

by Jacob G. Hornberger

A letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun yesterday shows how important it is to raise people’s vision to higher level — one that goes beyond reform and instead goes to the principles of a free society.

The letter was written by a man named Michael Westerhaus. His letter brings up some of the important points about the government’s decades-long war on drugs:

1. “Our failed war on drugs” has brought on deaths of people from corrupted black-market drugs.

2. Charging the sellers of drugs with murder is just political posturing.

3. No-knock raids have killed innocent people. 

4. Drug laws bring into existence drug cartels and gang wars “with more murders.”

5. Drug laws are not going to prevent addicts from doing whatever is necessary to get drugs. 

To those points I would add the following one: People have the fundamental, God-given right to ingest whatever they want to ingest, no matter how harmful it might be. That’s an essential aspect of a free society.

But then here’s the kicker. Westerhaus cannot bring himself to see the solution to all this drug-war mayhem. He writes, “We need to find a better way to solve the medical problem of addiction.” The title of his letter to the editor is, “Find a new way to fight drug war.”

Oh so close, but yet still so far. Westerhaus is clearly on the verge of recognizing the only solution to America’s drug-war woes, but obviously still can’t bring himself to see it. The solution is not to find a new way to fight the drug war. The solution is to end the drug war. That necessarily means repealing all laws that criminalize the possession and distribution of drugs. 

Prohibition of alcohol produced the same consequences as the prohibition of drugs. While there were those who called for new ways to enforce Prohibition, Americans finally came to the realization that the only solution was to end Prohibition. That’s what we need with the drug war. 

Thus, the importance of raising people’s vision to a higher level — not on reforming the drug war but instead to the principles of a free society. Settling for reform can, at best, only result in an improvement of our condition as serfs. To achieve the free society, we have to dismantle and repeal, not reform, all infringements on liberty. That necessarily means making the consistent, principled case for the free society, including ending, not reforming, the drug war.

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Watch a Cop Intentionally Damage a Car While Executing a Search Warrant – Reason.com

Posted by M. C. on May 8, 2021

A Messina, New York, police officer is under investigation after video showed him intentionally slamming a door into a car several times.

Anyone know a good home surveillance system?

https://reason.com/2021/05/06/watch-a-cop-intentionally-damage-a-car-while-executing-a-search-warrant/

C.J. Ciaramella

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Police Problems? Embrace Liberty!

Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2021

The drug war is a major reason police have increasingly looked and acted like an occupying army. Police militarization threatens everyone’s liberty. Black people have been subjected to drug war arrests and imprisonment at relatively high rates.

Those interested in protecting and enhancing black people’s (and all people’s) lives should embrace liberty. Libertarians reject the use of force to achieve political, economic, or social goals, Therefore, in a libertarian society, police would only enforce laws prohibiting the initiation of force against persons or property.

Free markets, individual liberty, limited government, sound money, and peace are key to achieving prosperity and social cohesion. Those sincerely concerned about improving all human lives should turn away from the teaching of Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes, who advocated expansive government power, and, instead, embrace the ideas of pro-liberty writers such as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2021/april/26/police-problems-embrace-liberty/?mc_cid=74f313367e

Written by Ron Paul

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Many Americans saw former policeman Derek Chauvin’s conviction on all counts last week as affirming the principle that no one is above the law. Many others were concerned that the jury was scared that anything less than a full conviction would result in riots, and even violence against themselves and their families.

Was the jury’s verdict influenced by politicians and media figures who were calling for the jury to deliver the “right” verdict? Attempts to intimidate juries are just as offensive to the rule of law as suggestions that George Floyd’s criminal record somehow meant his rights were not important.

The video of then-policeman Chauvin restraining Floyd led people across the political and ideological spectrums to consider police reform. Sadly, there have also been riots across the country orchestrated by left-wing activists and organizations seeking to exploit concern about police misconduct to advance their agendas.

It is ironic to see self-described Marxists, progressives, and other leftists protesting violence by government agents. After all, their ideology rests on the use of force to compel people to obey politicians and bureaucrats.

It is also ironic to see those who claim to want to protect and improve “black lives” support big government.

Black people, along with other Americans, have had their family structure weakened by welfare policies encouraging single parenthood. This results in children being raised without fathers as a regular presence in their lives, increasing the likelihood the children will grow up to become adults with emotional and other problems.

Those at the bottom of the economic ladder are restrained in improving their situation because of minimum wage laws, occupational licensing regulations, and other government interference in the marketplace. They are also victims of the Federal Reserve’s inflation tax.

Many progressives who claim to believe that “black lives matter” do not care that there is a relatively high abortion rate of black babies. These so-called pro-choice progressives are the heirs of the racists who founded the movement to legalize and normalize abortion.

The drug war is a major reason police have increasingly looked and acted like an occupying army. Police militarization threatens everyone’s liberty. Black people have been subjected to drug war arrests and imprisonment at relatively high rates.

Those interested in protecting and enhancing black people’s (and all people’s) lives should embrace liberty. Libertarians reject the use of force to achieve political, economic, or social goals, Therefore, in a libertarian society, police would only enforce laws prohibiting the initiation of force against persons or property.

A libertarian society would leave the provision of aid to the needy to local communities, private charities, and religious organizations. Unlike the federal welfare state, private charities can provide effective and compassionate aid without damaging family structure or making dependency a way of life. In a libertarian society, individuals could pursue economic opportunity free of the burdens of government regulations and taxes, as well as free of the Federal Reserve’s fiat currency.

Free markets, individual liberty, limited government, sound money, and peace are key to achieving prosperity and social cohesion. Those sincerely concerned about improving all human lives should turn away from the teaching of Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes, who advocated expansive government power, and, instead, embrace the ideas of pro-liberty writers such as Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

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The Destructive Futility of the Drug War – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on March 15, 2021

 It’s a money maker for federal judges, federal prosecutors, federal agents, federal clerks, and the entire federal drug-war bureaucracy. That’s why these people love it so much. And they all know that there is no end to it. The drug war is as perpetual as the federal “war on terrorism,” another great big perpetual money-making racket that keeps the entire military-industrial complex in high cotton.

https://www.fff.org/2021/03/12/the-destructive-futility-of-the-drug-war/

by Jacob G. Hornberger

The U.S. government’s drug warriors have recently made another drug bust, adding to the countless number of drug busts it has made since the drug war was launched decades ago. Their latest target is Emma Colonel Aispuro, the wife of the famous Mexican drug lord El Chapo, who the feds convicted and incarcerated for life for drug-war violations. Although Coronel attended her husband’s trial in 2019 in Brooklyn, the feds, for some unexplained reason, waited until 2021 to bust her while she was at Dulles Airport.

One possibility, of course, is that they plan to squeeze her into squealing on other Mexican drug lords who they can import from Mexico and put into American prisons. Regardless, it really doesn’t matter whether they target her or people they get her to snitch on. The drug war will just continue on with more drug busts and incarcerations.

In other words, no matter who they bust or how many people they bust, things will remain the same. They always have. There is no end to this federal government program. It’s a money maker for federal judges, federal prosecutors, federal agents, federal clerks, and the entire federal drug-war bureaucracy. That’s why these people love it so much. And they all know that there is no end to it. The drug war is as perpetual as the federal “war on terrorism,” another great big perpetual money-making racket that keeps the entire military-industrial complex in high cotton.

For decades, drug-war proponents exclaimed, “If only they would really crack down and really enforce these drug laws, we would win!” But over the years, they have cracked down, viciously, and yet the drug war just keeps going and going and going. Of course, the federal people who thrive off the drug war are the ones who continue winning.

Let’s assume though that the feds were given the omnipotent power to really crack down in the war on drugs by being empowered to kill whoever they suspected of being a drug-war violator. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate way to crack down and finally “win” the war on drugs?

Well, that’s not really a hypothetical. It’s a reality. That’s what happened in the Philippines. Since 2016, the government’s drug agents have been empowered to win the war on drugs by simply killing drug-war violators. Since then, over 12,000 Filipinos have been killed, mostly poor people.

So, there you have it — the ultimate way to win the war on drugs by cleansing society of drug-war violators by simply killing them. What better way to win the war on drugs than to crack down like that, right? We could get the U.S. military to perform that task here in the United States.

Except for one thing: They still haven’t won the war on drugs in the Philippines. They are still waging the drug war more fiercely than ever. It seems that the ultimate crackdown can’t win the war on drugs after all. The war just keeps continuing and continuing and continuing.

There are two groups of people who benefit from all this government mayhem: the drug lords and government officials. They both thrive off of drug illegality. If drugs were legal, both groups would be out of business and would have to find meaningful work elsewhere. That’s why they both have a vested interest in keeping the drug war going, no matter how destructive and no matter how futile.

The fact is that government has no more business controlling what people ingest, buy, or sell than it does controlling what they read. It’s simply none of the government’s business. And as we learned during the war on booze, and as we have learned in the war on drugs, when government crosses the line and begins controlling what people ingest, buy, and sell, the results are horrific.

The federal prosecution of Emma Colonel Aispuro will generate big headlines and press coverage, just as so many other drug busts have since the drug war was launched long ago. Regardless of whether Colonel is convicted or acquitted, the drug war will go on, in perpetual search for the next person to target, prosecute, and incarcerate.EMAIL

This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Judicial Tyranny in the Drug War

Posted by M. C. on August 28, 2020

It makes you wonder how someone who is intelligent enough to get a law degree can end up with such a ludicrous and illogical mindset. Wood’s draconian sentences accomplished nothing. And neither did the draconian sentences metered out by other federal judges in the 1970s.

Some might argue that the solution to this drug-war madness is better education in American law schools. I say that the solution is to legalize drugs. In that way, it won’t matter how much federal judges want to do their part to“win” the war on drugs through the imposition of  draconian jail sentences because there no longer will be drug-war prosecutions in federal court.

Judicial Tyranny in the Drug War

by

If you still have any doubts about the tyranny of the federal government’s beloved “war on drugs,” perhaps the case of Juan Carlos Seresi, Vahe Andonian, and Nazareth Andonian will remove them.

Back in 1991, a federal judge named William D. Keller sentenced these three men to 500 years in jail for a non-violent drug offense—i.e., laundering drug money.

Yes, you read that right — 500 years!

Why, that’s just plain stupid. Any lawyer that has gone to any decent law school knows that most people die before they are 200 years old. What law school did Keller attend?

Or maybe it’s just plain vicious. Making known his intention to play a role in “winning” the “war on drugs,” Keller, who was appointed to the bench by conservative President Ronald Reagan, declared, “I intend to deter forevermore anybody doing anything like this.”

Wouldn’t you love to ask the honorable Judge Keller how his draconian policy of deterrence has worked out for him? I mean, exactly how many people did he deter from engaging in drug-law violations with his 500-year jail sentences for those three men? Correct me if I’m wrong but there have been countless people engaging in the drug trade since 1991, when Keller imposed those 500-year jail sentences. Obviously, none of them was deterred by Keller’s tyrannical jail sentences.

The fact is that Keller policy of deterrence accomplished nothing. All it did was ruin the lives of three men and their families. Even if a few people were deterred by his 500-year jail sentences, it didn’t make any difference because there were more than enough people who were not deterred to ensure a plentiful supply of drugs for American drug consumers.

Other federal judicial tyranny

Of course, Keller isn’t the only federal judge who has vowed to do his part to “win” the war on drugs. There have been many other federal judges over the years who have had the same mindset.

When I was a young lawyer back in Texas back in the 1970s there was a federal judge in San Antonio named John Wood. His moniker was “Maximum John.” Why did lawyers and others call him that? Because his policy was to mete out the maximum possible jail sentences to drug-war violators. Like Keller some 15 years later, Wood was determined to “deter” people from engaging in the drug trade. Like Keller, Wood was doing his part to “win” the war on drugs with his maximum jail sentences.

It makes you wonder how someone who is intelligent enough to get a law degree can end up with such a ludicrous and illogical mindset. Wood’s draconian sentences accomplished nothing. And neither did the draconian sentences metered out by other federal judges in the 1970s. Wasn’t Keller aware of this phenomenon when he meted out those 500-year jail sentences to those three men in the 1990s? When Keller was in law school, didn’t they teach him about Judge Wood and other federal judges doing the same thing that Keller would be doing when he would later become a federal judge. Didn’t they teach him the futility of such judicial tyranny?

Early release from prison?

According to an article on CNN.com, recently federal prosecutors agreed with defense attorneys that Seresi, Andonian, and Andonia should now be released from prison, after spending some 30 years there. The reason revolves around the original prosecutors in the case failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defendants that revolved around special treatment having been accorded a prosecution witness in the case.

You would think that that would be the end of the matter, right?

Not so. It turns out that a federal judge has to approve the deal. In the case, the federal judge, whose name is Joseph V. Wilson, is a former federal prosecutor who served under Judge Keller when he was a federal prosecutor before becoming a federal judge. Wilson ruled that the exculpatory evidence wasn’t enough to affect the outcome of the original trial. He denied the defendants’ motions for release. Seresi, Andonian, and Andonia are now appealing his order.

Some might argue that the solution to this drug-war madness is better education in American law schools. I say that the solution is to legalize drugs. In that way, it won’t matter how much federal judges want to do their part to“win” the war on drugs through the imposition of  draconian jail sentences because there no longer will be drug-war prosecutions in federal court.

This post was written by:

Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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Three Ways Law Enforcement Must Be Reformed Right Now | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on June 11, 2020

https://mises.org/wire/three-ways-law-enforcement-must-be-reformed-right-now?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=8b216a96ca-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-8b216a96ca-228343965

I don’t know which acts of police abuse and brutality are motivated by racism and which are not. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that we could end all racial bias immediately through some magic spell or button we could press. Would this end police abuse, or even most of it?

Experience tells us no. The data is clear that police abuse is not limited to any particular group. Indeed, a majority of those shot by police are white.

For example, when police officer Phillip Brailsford gunned down Daniel Shaver, it’s unlikely that he was motivated by some sort of ethnic or racial bias. The same was probably true when police shot Duncan Lemp in his sleep during a no-knock raid, or when police pinned Tony Timpa to the ground until he died. After Timpa died police joked about it, and apparently found the situation quite hilarious. This is not limited just to local police personnel. When federal agents massacred more than eighty (mostly white) men, women, and children at Waco, law enforcement officers probably weren’t motivated by the race of their victims, either.

Police also appear to have no aversion to being callously indifferent toward victims of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. When police elected to cower outside Stoneman Douglas High School rather than face the gunman slaughtering children inside, it’s unlikely that they paid much attention to the racial makeup of the student body (a majority of which was white.)

Unfortunately, anecdotes like these could be recalled for hours and hours.

“But nonwhites are more often targeted proportionally!,” some might say. This may be so, and indeed some may decide that turning police into equal-opportunity abusers is a type of progress in itself, but it hardly addresses the systemic foundations of police abuse.

And the underlying problems are substantial. They are systemic and built into the law enforcement community in the United States for several reasons.

First, police are protected from accountability both by laws granting them legal immunity and by police labor unions that shield abusers. Secondly, the proliferation of laws designed to target nonviolent people for petty offenses (most commonly drug offenses) provides police with nearly endless opportunities to stop and harass people who have committed no real crime.

Murray Rothbard has illustrated how the ideal in this situation would be a type of police privatization. But for those who are not yet ready for such a radical reform, much can be done in the meantime through more mild, yet very necessary, reforms.

One: End Legal Immunity for Police

At the core of the issue is a lack of accountability and legal liability on the part of government employees who enforce the laws. Thanks to activist progovernment judges and legislation designed to shield police, it is extremely difficult to hold abusive law enforcement agents accountable.

Chris Calton explains:

The doctrine of qualified immunity essentially says that for a police officer to be held accountable, there must be a statute specifying all the particularities of his or her unique situation. Anything even remotely ambiguous falls under the broad category of “discretion.” In theory, legal immunity is “qualified,” but in practice, it is effectively absolute.

This way of thinking, however, is only a few decades old. It was solidified in American law by activist Supreme Court judges in 1967. Their ruling essentially created new law which erected new barriers against holding police accountable for abusive behavior.

As ABC reported this week:

While the Civil Rights Act of 1871 gives Americans the unambiguous ability to sue public officials over civil rights violations, the Supreme Court has subsequently limited liability to only those rights that have become “clearly established law.”

Critics say the standard is near-impossible to meet.

“In order for a plaintiff to defeat qualified immunity, they have to find a prior case that has held unconstitutional an incident with virtually identical facts to the one the plaintiff is bringing,” said UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz. “And over the last 15 years, the court has made it a more and more difficult standard for plaintiffs to overcome to go to trial.”

Last month, a Reuters report noted that “the doctrine has become a nearly failsafe tool to let police brutality go unpunished and deny victims their constitutional rights.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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Regime Change through the Drug War – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2020

U.S. officials knew that it would look bad to simply invade the country and effect a regime-change operation through force of arms. Undoubtedly, they considered a state-sponsored assassination through the CIA, which specialized in that form of regime change, but for whatever reason that regime-method wasn’t employed.

https://www.fff.org/2020/04/01/regime-change-through-the-drug-war/

by

The Justice Department’s securing of a criminal indictment of Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro reminds us that when it comes to the U.S. government’s regime-change operations, coups, invasions, sanctions, embargoes, and state-sponsored assassinations are not the only ways to achieve regime change. Another way is through a criminal indictment issued by a federal grand jury that deferentially accedes to the wishes of federal prosecutors.

The best example of this regime change method involved the president of Panama, Manuel Noriega.

Like many corrupt and brutal dictators around the world, Noriega was a partner and ally of the U.S. government. In fact, he was actually trained at the Pentagon’s School of the Americas, which is referred to in Latin America as the School of Assassins. He later served as a paid asset of the CIA. He also served as a conduit for the U.S. government’s illegal war in Nicaragua, where U.S. officials were using the Contra rebels to effect a regime change in that country.

But like other loyal pro-U.S. dictators, Noriega fell out of favor with U.S. officials, who decided they wanted him out of office and replaced with someone more to their liking.

The big problem, of course, is the one that always afflicts U.S. regime-change aspirations: Noriega refused to go voluntarily.

U.S. officials knew that it would look bad to simply invade the country and effect a regime-change operation through force of arms. Undoubtedly, they considered a state-sponsored assassination through the CIA, which specialized in that form of regime change, but for whatever reason that regime-method wasn’t employed.

So, the regime-changers turned to the U.S. Justice Department, which secured a criminal indictment against Noriega for supposedly violating America’s drug laws. The U.S. rationale was that the U.S. government, as the world’s international policeman, has jurisdiction to enforce its drug laws against everyone in the world.

On December 20,  1989, the U.S. military invaded Panama to bring Noriega back to the United States to stand trial on the drug charges. One might consider the invasion to be one gigantic no-knock raid on an entire country as part of U.S. drug-war enforcement.

An estimated 23-60 U.S. soldiers were killed in the operation while some 300 were wounded. An estimated 300-800 Panamanian soldiers were killed. Estimates of civilian deaths ranged from 200 to 3,000. Property damage ranged in the billions of dollars.

But it was all considered worth it. By capturing Noriega and bringing him back for trial, U.S. officials felt that they had made big progress in finally winning the war on drugs. Equally important, they had secured the regime change that had been their original goal. At the same time, they sent a message to other rulers around the world: Leave office when we say or we’ll do this to you.

Noriega was convicted and received a 40-year jail sentence. When his lawyers tried to introduce evidence at trial of his close working relationship with the CIA and other elements of the U.S. national security state, not surprisingly federal prosecutors objected and the judge sustained their objections. Better to keep those types of things as secret as possible.

Alas, Noriega’s conviction and incarceration did not bring an end to the war on drugs, as this crooked, corrupt, failed, and racially bigoted government program continues to this day. Moreover, as Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro might soon find out., the drug war continues to provide an effective way for U.S. officials to effect regime change.

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How To End the Drug Cartel Violence in Mexico – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 7, 2019

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/11/john-j-baeza/how-to-end-the-drug-cartel-violence-in-mexico/

By

Nine Americans-including three women and six children-were gunned down by drug cartel members in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora. Eight young children survived the gunmen’s attack. Although violence of this type occurs in Mexico on a regular basis this attack caught the attention of the American news media due to the citizenship of those killed.  They were U.S. citizens with dual Mexican citizenship.  And it was a horrible attack.

Both President Trump and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) have come up with solutions to stop the cartel violence.

President Trump made his solution very clear in the following tweet:

“If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively,” Trump tweeted. “The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused the offer and proposed his own solution-“hugs not bullets.” Obrador also thinks that helping the poor is in some way going to affect the way the drug cartels operate.

Both leaders are dead wrong. There is only one way to end the drug cartel violence in Mexico and that is to end the drug war by legalizing all drugs immediately. This would also end the drug violence we see in cities across the United States. When alcohol prohibition was ended we didn’t see Coors and Budweiser shooting it out on the street for territory. They had courts to take care of business. They no longer needed mobsters. And when drugs are legalized we will see the same peaceful transition.

The drug war industrial complex is very big and very powerful. There are only a few politicians who would dare to propose legalization of all drugs. But this is what is needed if we want to end the cartel violence in Mexico and here in the United States.

The cartel violence we have seen take thousands upon thousands of lives in Mexico is blowback from our failed domestic policy on drugs. It is the U.S. demand for drugs that drives the market and the violence. We are at least partially responsible for the failed Mexican state. A state where every politician and every policeman are corrupt.

As a former frontline drug warrior I know ending the drug war is the only way out of this mess. All the task forces, narcotics courts, and military cooperation will not stop it.

End the drug war now!

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