'War on Drugs' Gives Way to the Dangerous New Face of Narco-Politics

People think that if you legalize drugs the problem will go away. Anyone who has worked the Mexican border will tell you its about smuggling to survive. If it weren't drugs it would be something else. People smuggle Cuban sacks of sugar, prohibited turtle oil cream, parrots, eggs, poultry,etc. We could say tomorrow that toothpicks are prohibited and by evening that will be the item of choice for smugglers. They are in it for the money. With education stopping at age 12 the Mexican people smuggle, nothing new. Perhaps Mexico could shut down their 35 consulates in the United States and build 35 schools in Mexico.

The amount of revenue generated by drugs is unbelievable people!! The sad thing is, both sides are raking it in, while the innocent bystanders and users, pay the freight!! Both sides are profiting from this epidemic, if the public only understood who is getting paid, they would then realize why things are the way they are presently!!!

Legalisation is a complex issue and should be debated based on hard evidence and not on fallacies, prejudices or ill-founded arguments. Personally, I do believe that the war on drugs is one of the most heinous policies ever engineered, and should be stopped.

Perhaps the debate could be moved forward by acknowledging the high level of responsibility our countries, the US and the UK, or any other drug consuming country for that matter, have for sustaining and stimulating the market for narcotics and therefore, for fuelling the violence, corruption and destabilisation of the democratic institutions of drugs producing countries south of the US border — more than 30,000 drug related deaths have been recorded in Mexico alone over the past four years.

Only by recognising it, would we be able to repel the so-called War on Drugs and start thinking in more rational, effective and practical policies to deal with the devastating effects the market for illicit drugs is having on both producing and consuming countries.

Gart Valenc
http://www.stopthewarondrugs.org

The problem with the War on Drugs is simple - it doesn't change the supply and demand of the drugs. As long as Americans want to get high on drugs, there will be a constant supply of these drugs. Since the 80's, we have been fighting a losing battle. By making drugs illegal, we have boomed the illegal drug trade. By locking up people with mandatory sentencing for drugs, we have created a major expense and over population in our prisons. This is why we have murders, rapist, pedphiles, etc walking the streets while crack cocaine users and distributors are still serving life in prison. Personally, I'd rather have murders, rapist and pedophiles put to death immediately, but no one seems to want to change the current laws! The entire policy should be reviewed and changed. Drugs should be decriminalized and pot should be outright legalized. Addicts should be sent to a clinic like the methodone clinics and controlled there. Mandatory sentencing should be undone and each case should be reviewed by the judge as once was done. And all of this would cut directly into the profits of the druglords who would have to become legal businesses in order to fill the demand of the clinics. Pot would simply be grown here as it is now and would become an entirely new tax paying business. Playing it stupid for another 30 years will simply continue to be a losing battle allowing druglords to become even stronger. America needs to stop pretending it can control drugs by just say no or some other ignorant statements. Face the facts.

Drug addition shouldn't be viewed as a criminal problem but as a medical one. When a person is caught with drugs send them to treatment, not prison. Yes, legalize all drugs, stop the cartels. Stop this insane "war". Educate about all drugs, then if a person decides he wants to use them, it's on him, if he kills himself with them, it's still on him. As far as pot, no treatment is needed. It is far less additive than anything else out there and is safe to use, not one death reported from it. Tax and regulate just like alcohol is.

Everyone has always made money with the "War on Drugs", Cartels, DEA, local Police, the prison systems, the smugglers, our elected officals. The War on Drugs has been a great industry for the US. There is still plenty more money to be made now that the violance is esclating and spilling over into the US. Look at all of the possabilites. The War on Drugs is the best thing that has happened to this country sence sliced bread. Thank our Government for seeing the possibilites by passing laws aginst drugs. If they would have made them legal no one would have made a cent.

I commend Politics Daily for admitting there is a problem, and shedding some light on a subject that is usually ignored by the mainstream media. As Terry Anderson said many years ago, -"If you ain't mad, you ain't paying attention." For those people who know Mexico, outside of what the mainstream media has been telling us, this article could have been written 4 years ago. There is a lot of pro-illegal propaganda, one example is that some 'studies' say the vast majority of guns come the U.S.A. -One thing the Mexican Government does well is take pictures of their gun and drug seizures. In those Pictures, you see guns, and weapons from Russia, China, Israel, left over weapons from the El Salvadore conflict, suspected weapons from Colombia. -With Billions of dollars, the Cartels can easily get weapons from anywhere on earth. Do they get weapons from the U.S.A., -of course they do, but not to the extent that the Mexican Government says they do. They like to try to blame the U.S.A. for Mexico's problems with the Cartels, it makes for good propaganda.

Clearly people are going to use drugs illegally...the drug cartels are getting rich, the jails are overcrowed,and paid for by tax dollars...Legalize marijuana the most profitable drug in the world...the most beneficial product in the world...hemp saves trees...the one the drug that's less lethal than alcohol and the one cartels are getting rich off of, and the one that lawmakers are being paid not to legalize by drug cartels, and take the wind out of their sales.

These drug cartels have literally billions of dollars. They can readily buy weapons off the world market. Liberals, predictably, will attempt to use this as leverage for additional gun control laws in the U.S. It's absurd. Many U.S. made vehicles are used to smuggle narcotics. Maybe we should outlaw those too...

legalize hemp/Marijuana and save the environment, cut into the profits of these powerful/terroristic drug cartels