Well, drug consumers can stop purchasing drugs that you know that involve the cartels. But most people that talk about the "War on Drugs" would rather blame the US drug policies instead, rather than the own up to the fact that they are contributing to the problem.
I would also like to point out that legalizing drugs would not solve the problem. The problem is corruption, not the drugs themselves. Look at Miami in the 1970s. It was a war zone, just like Mexico is today. The reason is because you could buy off any cop or government official in the city (check out the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" for some real news footage from the time).
If drugs are legalized tomorrow, what do you think would happen? If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico). My power would continue or increase, because I could just buy off any cop and/or government official and the violence would continue (ruling by fear).
Fix the corruption..and you fix the cartel issue. At this point, the US would need to bring the military in there to fix the problem.
I also don't think people would stop buying drugs in the black market if drugs were made legal. Why? MJ will not ever be legal in the sense that you can just grow it and sell it out of your house with no government intervention. It will be taxed and regulated, which means much higher prices. Many people won't want to pay those higher prices and there will still be a demand for a black market (just like software and music piracy).
I'm not against the legalization of drugs, I'm against the dishonesty. Supporters were dishonest about "medical marijuana"..which is quite honestly, a joke. There are 10 doctors in my area that will give you a prescription for MJ for pretty much anything..it will just cost you $70. The majority of people that I know that have their prescriptions just want to smoke weed.
I wish I was one of those doctors...they are probably able to retire on the proceeds.
Please..just stop the fucking dishonesty and I might support your cause.
> Fix the corruption..and you fix the cartel issue.
You have the cause and effect inverted. Everyone has a price. The reason there is so much corruption in Mexico is that we've made corruption so profitable.
> If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico). My power would continue or increase, because I could just buy off any cop and/or government official and the violence would continue (ruling by fear).
If drugs were legalized then competition would increase and drive down margins. Meanwhile the government would collect taxes, preventing the lower margins from actually lowering prices and increasing demand. All of which means less money for the cartels.
> It will be taxed and regulated, which means much higher prices. Many people won't want to pay those higher prices and there will still be a demand for a black market (just like software and music piracy).
Tax evasion is a felony. The cost of continually having your employees arrested and assets seized can easily exceed the cost of just paying the taxes (which is kind of the idea).
The sensible thing to do with drugs is to make possession legal but impose high taxes and then significant fines and mandatory rehab for using drugs or being high in any public place. Meanwhile use 100% of the money from the taxes and fines for anti-drug campaigns and free rehab for anyone who wants it and otherwise doing whatever possible to encourage people to voluntarily give up drug use.
So we're shutting down Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Altria, and Anheuser Busch?
It seems as a society we have other thoughts on what the sensible thing to do with drugs is, namely, let users of it use it as long as they don't harm others.
Using drugs and being high in public is as common as coffee on the morning commute, to paraphrase Coca-Cola, getting high in public is the real thing.
> It seems as a society we have other thoughts on what the sensible thing to do with drugs is, namely, let users of it use it as long as they don't harm others.
Drug users do harm others. People crash their vehicles into pedestrians or put psychoactive or harmful substances into the air without the consent of others or commit robbery for money to buy drugs. Alcohol and cigarettes belong in exactly the same category.
Blanket prohibitions just don't work to prevent the harm. It only leads to the rise of organized crime. But permitting the substances while discouraging their use is quite effective -- as has been demonstrated in the recent past with the reduction in cigarette smoking in the US.
This is also why there is never any objection to caffeine. People drinking coffee has essentially zero capacity for harm to third parties.
> Tax evasion is a felony. The cost of continually having your employees arrested and assets seized can easily exceed the cost of just paying the taxes (which is kind of the idea).
You do realize that the Drug Cartels are committing crimes far far worse than tax evasion, right? And there have been no repercussions for them. By suddenly charging them with tax evasion, do you think they'll be stopped?
> You do realize that the Drug Cartels are committing crimes far far worse than tax evasion, right? And there have been no repercussions for them. By suddenly charging them with tax evasion, do you think they'll be stopped?
Let's try to explain this with math. Suppose X amount of drugs has a market price of $100 and of that, $20 is the actual production cost and $80 is the amortized cost of law enforcement occasionally arresting you and seizing your drugs (and the various measures to attempt to prevent that).
Tomorrow we legalize drugs and impose a $60 tax. Joe Farmer in Iowa plants a field full of marijuana and starts selling it for $85 after taxes, keeping a $5 profit after the $20 cost and $60 tax. The drug cartel now has to hit an $85 price point to compete but they need to charge $100 to justify the costs of breaking the law, so they're out of business.
> I would also like to point out that legalizing drugs would not solve the problem. The problem is corruption, not the drugs themselves. Look at Miami in the 1970s. It was a war zone, just like Mexico is today. The reason is because you could buy off any cop or government official in the city (check out the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" for some real news footage from the time).
Really? Your evidence is a movie described as: "The film explores the rise of cocaine and resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida,"
The incentive for corruption is greatly increased by the power held by, and amount of money available to criminal organizations.
> If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico).
> MJ will not ever be legal in the sense that you can just grow it and sell it out of your house with no government intervention.
So... your claim is that the US government will prevent locals from growing marijuana but will be just fine with the drug companies outsourcing production to criminal cartels with no regulatory oversight? At least try to be consistent in your argument.
> I'm not against the legalization of drugs, I'm against the dishonesty. Supporters were dishonest about "medical marijuana"..which is quite honestly, a joke. There are 10 doctors in my area that will give you a prescription for MJ for pretty much anything..it will just cost you $70. The majority of people that I know that have their prescriptions just want to smoke weed.
The abuse of medical marijuana prescriptions does not make use the use of medical marijuana prescriptions a joke. Similarly, the extremely high rates of of abuse of other types of prescribed medications does not make them a joke.
About dishonesty, please indicate the claims that you believe were dishonestly made by supporters of medical marijuana? Please contrast those with the honesty of claims made by the FDA that drugs such as marijuana or MDMA have "No accepted medical use"
Please stop blaming the mexican government for failing to control the cartels that the US has been funding through several decades of failed drug policy.
There are plenty of companies in China that would never work in the us due to laws. You are naive if you think this wouldn't happen in Mexico. How about the diamond industry? We have restrictions, but it has done little to nothing in those African countries.
It's all about volume. People will fake pain once in awhile to get Vicodin, but I don't see 10+ doctors opening up shop for fake scripts. This is he difference.
The U.S. Government has been funding it because people continue to buy the drugs. I blame the consumers, not the government. The consumers just don't want to do the right and difficult thing of boycotting a product that is clearly involved in murder and crime.
If we we talking about tax evasion, the company would be to blame, not failed tax policy. This is no different. He difference is that too many people don't want to give up their beloved MJ.
I only referenced he documentary because it had actual news film footage. You can do the research yourself, I already did and I know the corruption existed. In one year during that time, they had to fire an entire police class due to corruption and payoffs with the cartels. This is a fact.
I guess I really shouldn't care. I will never go to Mexico and legalized drugs really doesn't matter to me. So you can continue to support corruption and violence and Mexico will continue to be a war zone.
> Well, drug consumers can stop purchasing drugs that you know that involve the cartels.
How is it possible to know this?
And besides, saying to drug users "Just don't buy the drugs" is like saying to the cartels "Just stop killing and terrorising people." People will buy drugs regardless of what we do—the war on drugs has proven this—and black markets (controlled by cartels) will meet the demand.
You ignore the point that the vast majority of the consumers of the cartels' product is not in Mexico. If these drugs were legal in the target markets, local producers would crop up and cut the cartel's profits. Given the choice, would you buy Cartel Brand® coke or Free Trade Cocaine®?
Large corporations are forced to be accountable to their supply chain, and markets have shown time and time again that consumers will pay a premium for ethically produced products.
> If drugs are legalized tomorrow, what do you think would happen? If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico). My power would continue or increase, because I could just buy off any cop and/or government official and the violence would continue (ruling by fear).
So, why don't farmers do this? That's pretty much all most drug production is. Perhaps, that a bale of hay isn't worth millions of dollars, has something to do with it?
The comparison to alcohol prohibition is spot-on. You are correct that legalizing drugs would not solve the problem overnight. But again, look to alcohol prohibition as an example: ending prohibition did not destroy the American Cosa Nostra, but it did deprive it of a primary source of funding which, along with some new laws and law enforcement techniques, and time (measured in decades), enabled law enforcement agencies to reduce those organizations to a shadow of their former selves.
So it will go with the Cartels. Yes it will still take time, but you have to start somewhere.
> I'm not against the legalization of drugs, I'm against the dishonesty.
Frankly, the ends justify the means. 20 years ago people would still get hysterical about something as benign as marijuana. If the only way to correct that in the face of a federal government that does (or did, at least, at the time) spend heaps of money reinforcing it, is to introduce 'medical marijuana' at the state level, as a trojan horse, in the hopes of getting people to recognize that, no, in fact, weed will not turn you into a devil and force you to go out and rape women or whatever the fuck else, then I say do it.
I'll point out that marijuana legalization is itself such a trojan horse as well. Just as twenty years ago the mere legalization of marijuana nationally seemed hopeless, right now the full legalization of all psychoactives seems a bit far-fetched. Yet, observing the effects of marijuana legalization (i.e. basically nothing at all happens) will help drive home the lesson that drugs are generally about as big a deal as you want them to be, and not one bit more.
I certainly don't mean to say that marijuana for medical purposes is bullshit, but the OP is correct that, in many cases, it is just a cover for someone who is not sick to get their hands on some legal weed. My point is that, even if that's the case, if it serves the purpose of demonstrating that marijuana is benign and even beneficial in some cases, then it's worth whatever 'dishonesty' he's taking issue with.
> Well, drug consumers can stop purchasing drugs that you know that involve the cartels. But most people that talk about the "War on Drugs" would rather blame the US drug policies instead, rather than the own up to the fact that they are contributing to the problem.
That is not a reasonable strategy to reduce the power of cartels. Not that I disagree with you. But it's not a reasonable strategy.
> I would also like to point out that legalizing drugs would not solve the problem. The problem is corruption, not the drugs themselves. Look at Miami in the 1970s. It was a war zone, just like Mexico is today. The reason is because you could buy off any cop or government official in the city (check out the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" for some real news footage from the time).
> If drugs are legalized tomorrow, what do you think would happen? If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico). My power would continue or increase, because I could just buy off any cop and/or government official and the violence would continue (ruling by fear).
Can you explain why no cartels have stopped producing illegal drugs, and started producing, say, quinoa, corn, and wheat instead? If legalization would have no effect on their profits, why do they choose to specialize in illegal markets like drugs and gun-running?
Look, after legalization, cartels would suddenly face a huge amount of competition from companies that don't burn large amounts of cash fighting wars, which are generally quite expensive. Ordinary agricultural production is not generally associated with beheadings, torture, and assassinations. This is not because producers of quinoa are inherently virtuous, but because the incentives faced by black market "companies" are extremely atypical.
> Please..just stop the fucking dishonesty and I might support your cause.
I agree that the legalization of MMJ was to some extent a dishonest attempt to get de facto legalization (successfully, I might add). But it is entirely irrational to base your support for a policy on the actions of some proponents of that policy.
...rather than the own up to the fact that they are contributing to the problem.
I'm not a user, so I honestly don't know, but is there a "fair trade" movement for drugs? If not, then the only thing users could possibly know is that, if there were no war on drugs, there would be no need for violent cartels to produce and distribute them.
Humans are imperfect, they will buy drugs and try them. I don't recommend it or want people around me to but stopping them with force and violence is the same black/white problems we have all the time.
Dishonesty? Being dishonest is having the attitude like your position isn't directly creating armies/cartels to be more powerful and concentrated. Which is a bigger problem to you, 'dishonesty' about medical marijuana or active cartel creation? According to your logic, the violence/mafias of the prohibition era were caused by the people wanting a drink and to have fun. There was nothing wrong with that if done safely, it was made unsafe by policy and created more problems than it solved and a bigger problem than the initial problem.
Yes the medical marijuana thing is mostly people wanting to smoke weed but there is also actual patients of it. If you were in immense pain everyday and didn't want to eat or smile... sorry, @paulhauggis doesn't want you to smoke a joint grandma because you are being 'dishonest' about it. Grandma just wanted to be happy but I guess she has to be in pain first.
I didn't want to get into this but, a large majority of Americans have smoked marijuana. As our police and oversight get better or more militarized and everything is tracked, we are going to have to man up and remove laws that are silly and harmful. We don't want to ruin college kids lives or take grandma's plants from her and throw her in jail.
In prohibition you had to get alcohol from an illegal bar or from the mafia, was that a better situation? That is what we have now with weed that grandma and possibly your kids in college want to smoke and nothing you do will stop them, not even force/laws/shaming. But you can make it safer where people slip up. What we need is to man up and deal with that reality and create structures to help people, and most importantly, reduce the concentration of funds going to cartels. Even if legal and the cartels turn into corporations that is better than black market/highly armed operations to fight the War against them.
Your xenophobia about the 'dishonesty' of it is the problem creating a war south of the border. It will continue as your attitude is prevalent as the US sees black and white not gray which it really is.
suppression of free speech only shows the world that I am right and you are afraid of the truth. When your argument is based on pure emotion and little to no logic or fact (like the responders below)!know I already won anyway.
I suppose it's now time to find and report all of the MJ doctors giving out fake scripts.
I would also like to point out that legalizing drugs would not solve the problem. The problem is corruption, not the drugs themselves. Look at Miami in the 1970s. It was a war zone, just like Mexico is today. The reason is because you could buy off any cop or government official in the city (check out the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys" for some real news footage from the time).
If drugs are legalized tomorrow, what do you think would happen? If I were the cartels, I would continue selling my product, this time legal (similar to how companies are outsourcing to China..drug companies will outsource to Mexico). My power would continue or increase, because I could just buy off any cop and/or government official and the violence would continue (ruling by fear).
Fix the corruption..and you fix the cartel issue. At this point, the US would need to bring the military in there to fix the problem.
I also don't think people would stop buying drugs in the black market if drugs were made legal. Why? MJ will not ever be legal in the sense that you can just grow it and sell it out of your house with no government intervention. It will be taxed and regulated, which means much higher prices. Many people won't want to pay those higher prices and there will still be a demand for a black market (just like software and music piracy).
I'm not against the legalization of drugs, I'm against the dishonesty. Supporters were dishonest about "medical marijuana"..which is quite honestly, a joke. There are 10 doctors in my area that will give you a prescription for MJ for pretty much anything..it will just cost you $70. The majority of people that I know that have their prescriptions just want to smoke weed.
I wish I was one of those doctors...they are probably able to retire on the proceeds.
Please..just stop the fucking dishonesty and I might support your cause.