I don't understand why the U.S. at large is noticing this only now. This is a crisis - but not a new, suddenly pressing crisis - despite the way folks like Lou Dobbs like to fan the flames. The horrors in Mexico have been going on a long time - ignored by most north of the border. And our drug use and weapons are fueling it.

I could be wrong, but the kind of isolated kidnappings and killings on our side of the border don't seem like the type of activity that will respond to the presence of National Guard troops. This is not an invasion...the streets of Eagle Pass are not being overrun. What exactly would the troops do?

The other big cross-border crime is, of course, car theft. It has always been that way, but most recently it has really focused its way down to F250 theft. Apparently they're really hot with drug smugglers because of their payload capacity and offroad capabilities.

Plus they're common enough along the border (as in the rest of Texas) for thieves supplying the drug smugglers to specialize in them -- not that it's that hard... my F250 which I sold in December could be (and often was) opened with just a flathead screwdriver. When I replaced the lock cylinder to sell it, the parts guy was surprised they bothered to do it that way because it's easier to just punch the lock cylinder into the door, since it was held in place by two plastic tabs.

(03-13-2009 06:59 AM)texd Wrote:  The other big cross-border crime is, of course, car theft. It has always been that way, but most recently it has really focused its way down to F250 theft. Apparently they're really hot with drug smugglers because of their payload capacity and offroad capabilities.

Plus they're common enough along the border (as in the rest of Texas) for thieves supplying the drug smugglers to specialize in them -- not that it's that hard... my F250 which I sold in December could be (and often was) opened with just a flathead screwdriver. When I replaced the lock cylinder to sell it, the parts guy was surprised they bothered to do it that way because it's easier to just punch the lock cylinder into the door, since it was held in place by two plastic tabs.

My new 08 F-150 Supercrew was totaled not too long ago in a rear end collision and I was surprised by the amount of damage in not too bad of a wreck. They don't make them like they used to.

Chevy's get stolen often but they have OnStar. I have a LoJack on my new truck. It really wasn't that expensive. But I guess it only really works if they recover it before they strip it.

Calderon just offered a $2 million bounty for the capture of the leaders of the Mexican Drug Cartels.

Calderon just signed his Death Warrant.

With the Mexican Security Services penetrated and compromised, its just a matter of time before Calderon is killed. The snipers and bomb makers the Cartels hire are better than Mexican Security. Calderon better have US Agents/Troops watching his back.

Once Calderon is dead, I give it ten days before a Mexican Civil War breaks out. Then things really get interesting.

(03-11-2009 10:00 AM)emmiesix Wrote:  As I've said before, ya'll are into dire predictions - so what do you think is going to happen to Mexico?

I honestly think the best thing the US could do (and will never, ever happen) would be to legalize drugs. The economic side of the argument is solid and we have precedent (prohibition and the mob in the US). Once it's legal, you can (1) tax it and (2) you eliminate the black market, since people can buy from legal sources. You also solve prison crowding, since the vast majority of inmates are on drug-related charges. You can stop spending billions of dollars per year on a war on drugs that isn't working and gets innocent people killed (the infamous no knock raids). Gang membership would drop, as their main source of income would also be eliminated. With no economic support from US buyers (a large portion of the mexican drug trade heads north of the border), the cartels would have to rely on their own populace. If Mexico did the same, they'd be SOL.

Now, the moral argument is always "are you seriously going to sell crack at walgreen's??" and I admit that on its face it sounds impossible (and as I said will never happen). But what would happen if this were the case?

First, I have to point out that all the major drugs that people abuse today were once legal and even a semi-accepted part of society (19th century snuff boxes, laudenum, opium pipes, etc). There are certainly plenty of great reasons NEVER to do these drugs and it is not my argument that we should encourage it. But it's interesting to note that as soon as each drug was made illegal, 1) an underground market was created that was completely unregulated and 2) all these drugs become more and more potent as suppliers needed to pack a lot into a little space, i.e., the dealers could "cut" the potent supply with something else. These vastly more potent drugs obviously have a much much higher risk to them, both in terms of overdose and addiction.

Now, if you legalize these drugs and allow them to be manufactured under regulation, you can reduce the potency (1) and also ensure at least some level of safety (i.e., not laced with rat poison). You can also now take the billions of dollars you save from the war on drugs AND not incarcerating drug offenders and put it towards addiction treatment centers, or even into developing the new vaccines which block certain receptors so you can't get high (personally I'd volunteer for such a thing).

Even if you saw a significant increase in casual drug use after legalization, you'd have the infrastructure (billions of dollars worth of treatment centers) to deal with it, and you'd have eliminated overcrowded prisons, gang violence, mexican drug cartels, and no-knock raids.

I'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

Since no one else has stepped up to the plate against this proposal, I figure I will.

Legalizing drugs in the United States would not be a panacea for a very simple reason: they would still be illegal in Mexico, Columbia, and every other country in the drug pipeline from location of production up to the U.S. border. If these countries do not go along with it (if you think the US would "never" do it, hell would freeze over before Mexico and Colombia do), the cartels don't lose any power; they would still do the drug transport business. Only then, they would funnel the drugs through "legitimate" operations...the same way illegal blood diamonds still regularly end up in the diamond trade in the West. And if you think that legalizing and regulating the drug trade in the USA will provide less incentive to the cartels, you're fooling yourself. Through legalization, you've just expanded the drug demand, because current users will no longer have qualms about finding and purchasing the stuff (therefore increasing the amount purchased), and people will be less inhibited from getting started, resulting in more users. What operation wouldn't want to get in on that?

As for curbing gang violence, poor urban youth are attracted to gangs for a variety of reasons, and, I bet, getting in on the drug trade itself is not a primary one. Once going, a gang could get money from any number of sources; it need not be the drug trade. Gangs existed long before and have existed long after Prohibition. While Prohibition provided a notorious and hugely successful money supply for 12 years, gangs did not disappear after alcohol was re-legalized. Gangs will find other ways to make money even if (as you claim and I dispute) funding via the drug trade dries up.

So, I don't think legalization solves much at all. It just increases demand and doesn't hit the root of the problem.

(03-24-2009 05:33 PM)jwn Wrote:  

(03-11-2009 10:00 AM)emmiesix Wrote:  As I've said before, ya'll are into dire predictions - so what do you think is going to happen to Mexico?

I honestly think the best thing the US could do (and will never, ever happen) would be to legalize drugs. The economic side of the argument is solid and we have precedent (prohibition and the mob in the US). Once it's legal, you can (1) tax it and (2) you eliminate the black market, since people can buy from legal sources. You also solve prison crowding, since the vast majority of inmates are on drug-related charges. You can stop spending billions of dollars per year on a war on drugs that isn't working and gets innocent people killed (the infamous no knock raids). Gang membership would drop, as their main source of income would also be eliminated. With no economic support from US buyers (a large portion of the mexican drug trade heads north of the border), the cartels would have to rely on their own populace. If Mexico did the same, they'd be SOL.

Now, the moral argument is always "are you seriously going to sell crack at walgreen's??" and I admit that on its face it sounds impossible (and as I said will never happen). But what would happen if this were the case?

First, I have to point out that all the major drugs that people abuse today were once legal and even a semi-accepted part of society (19th century snuff boxes, laudenum, opium pipes, etc). There are certainly plenty of great reasons NEVER to do these drugs and it is not my argument that we should encourage it. But it's interesting to note that as soon as each drug was made illegal, 1) an underground market was created that was completely unregulated and 2) all these drugs become more and more potent as suppliers needed to pack a lot into a little space, i.e., the dealers could "cut" the potent supply with something else. These vastly more potent drugs obviously have a much much higher risk to them, both in terms of overdose and addiction.

Now, if you legalize these drugs and allow them to be manufactured under regulation, you can reduce the potency (1) and also ensure at least some level of safety (i.e., not laced with rat poison). You can also now take the billions of dollars you save from the war on drugs AND not incarcerating drug offenders and put it towards addiction treatment centers, or even into developing the new vaccines which block certain receptors so you can't get high (personally I'd volunteer for such a thing).

Even if you saw a significant increase in casual drug use after legalization, you'd have the infrastructure (billions of dollars worth of treatment centers) to deal with it, and you'd have eliminated overcrowded prisons, gang violence, mexican drug cartels, and no-knock raids.

I'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

Since no one else has stepped up to the plate against this proposal, I figure I will.

Legalizing drugs in the United States would not be a panacea for a very simple reason: they would still be illegal in Mexico, Columbia, and every other country in the drug pipeline from location of production up to the U.S. border. If these countries do not go along with it (if you think the US would "never" do it, hell would freeze over before Mexico and Colombia do), the cartels don't lose any power; they would still do the drug transport business. Only then, they would funnel the drugs through "legitimate" operations...the same way illegal blood diamonds still regularly end up in the diamond trade in the West. And if you think that legalizing and regulating the drug trade in the USA will provide less incentive to the cartels, you're fooling yourself. Through legalization, you've just expanded the drug demand, because current users will no longer have qualms about finding and purchasing the stuff (therefore increasing the amount purchased), and people will be less inhibited from getting started, resulting in more users. What operation wouldn't want to get in on that?

As for curbing gang violence, poor urban youth are attracted to gangs for a variety of reasons, and, I bet, getting in on the drug trade itself is not a primary one. Once going, a gang could get money from any number of sources; it need not be the drug trade. Gangs existed long before and have existed long after Prohibition. While Prohibition provided a notorious and hugely successful money supply for 12 years, gangs did not disappear after alcohol was re-legalized. Gangs will find other ways to make money even if (as you claim and I dispute) funding via the drug trade dries up.

So, I don't think legalization solves much at all. It just increases demand and doesn't hit the root of the problem.

Good points, all. I have always considered one of the best points for the legalization of most drugs to be the lowered cost, thus relieving the need to commit crimes to support a habit. Tobacco is just as addicitive, but cheap, and few people need to mug anybody or burglarize to buy a pack of cigs. Also, most of the people in our prisons are in for drug-related crimes - wouldn't this free up prison space and law enforcement resources?

True, criminals will always turn to whatever makes the big bucks the easiest, but what will that be if drugs aren't it?

(03-24-2009 05:55 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Good points, all. I have always considered one of the best points for the legalization of most drugs to be the lowered cost, thus relieving the need to commit crimes to support a habit. Tobacco is just as addicitive, but cheap, and few people need to mug anybody or burglarize to buy a pack of cigs. Also, most of the people in our prisons are in for drug-related crimes - wouldn't this free up prison space and law enforcement resources?

True, criminals will always turn to whatever makes the big bucks the easiest, but what will that be if drugs aren't it?

True, drug legalization might reduce domestic drug-related violence, but it won't do anything internationally. Tobacco is legal everywhere..if it were illegal in Mexico, you can bet it would create a drug trafficking issue.

But even so, I question whether legalization would really do much in reducing violence. Consider Amsterdam's legalization of prostitution. The result? Human trafficking in the sex trade has skyrocketed in the Netherlands, because legalization led to less stringent enforcement of the sex industry as a whole, and the big professional pimps moved in and set up house. Just last year, the Netherlands found it less expensive just to pay one human trafficker something like $23m just to go away rather than ferret out his international operation.

Finally, in response to your last question, there's all sorts of ways: prostitution, gambling, numbers rackets...the vice markets are always profitable.

(03-24-2009 06:50 PM)jwn Wrote:  Finally, in response to your last question, there's all sorts of ways: prostitution, gambling, numbers rackets...the vice markets are always profitable.

But those already exist, probably as much as they can - what will replace drugs as a source of revenue?

Gambling has to compete with legal gambling, and the legal will crowd out the illegal if other factors, as convenience, as equal. Numbers? Ever hear of the lottery? Pick Three?

So that leaves prostitution, I guess. I don't know how they intend to increase that 40X, 50X, but it will take a lot of streetwalkers to make up the drug money.

What will replace drug money? Establishing a Wall Street bank, I guess. Then you can get bailed out, too.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the smaller ones are already compromised, for money laundering.

(03-25-2009 08:12 AM)gsloth Wrote:  What will replace drug money? Establishing a Wall Street bank, I guess. Then you can get bailed out, too.

I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the smaller ones are already compromised, for money laundering.

I think Banks learned their lesson about money laundering after the sting the Feds pulled on some Banks in Miami during 1983.

Feds set up a "drug dealer front" and took mass sums of cash around to Miami Banks and watched while four Dade County Banks took the bait. The guilty parties did around 10-15 years in the Federal Pen, Banks closed, etc.

There's always money in any illegal commoditiy, simply because of the risk/reward relationship.

I think I recall reading about a year or more ago that the Mob was getting into mortgage fraud and bank fraud because it was easy, profitable and if you got caught the penalties were lower than for drug or violent crimes.

(03-26-2009 07:42 PM)Owl75 Wrote:  I think I recall reading about a year or more ago that the Mob was getting into mortgage fraud and bank fraud because it was easy, profitable and if you got caught the penalties were lower than for drug or violent crimes.

A year or more? Heck, the MOB was into investment fraud decades ago. The 12/2/78 halftime show against UH at the Astrodome, for one.

What? Not THAT Mob??