The War Next Door

As drug cartels battle the government, Mexico descends into chaos

I rarely post information I have found but this was so interesting and well written,I felt it must be shared with other members of this forum. The Rolling Stones magazine is not one of the most read,so I found this article by accident waiting to see the doctor.

The writer is GUY LAWSON.

In the United States, the War on Drugs is a political slogan for a policy disaster that has cost taxpayers at least $500 billion over the past 35 years. In Mexico, it is a brutal and bewildering conflict — a multisided civil war that has taken 3,000 lives this year alone and brought the federal government to a state of near-collapse. Narcotics are now one of the largest sectors of the Mexican economy, twice the size of tourism. Most of the country's drug trade involves transporting contraband from other sources — especially coc aine from Colombia — to satisfy the nearly insatiable demand in the U.S. But Mexico's narcotraficante cartels have also gotten into the production side of the industry, manufacturing 80 percent of the crystal meth sold in America, 14 percent of the heroin and most of the marijuana. What Mexico offers the global narcotics industry is proximity to the largest market on earth.

Of all the perversities of American drug policy, none is greater than the fact that the metaphorical War on Drugs has inflicted an actual war on some of the hemisphere's poorest people. The Bush administration's answer to the chaos in Mexico is something called the Mérida Initiative, which was signed into law this summer. The plan will provide $1.6 billion to the Mexican government, much of it for high-caliber weapons, night-vision goggles and air support — the kind of resources that the super-rich drug cartels already have in abundance. "We've had the same policy on drugs since the Nixon administration," says David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. "We ask other countries to fight the war for us. The same thing happened in Colombia. We try to export the problem by asking other countries to not sell us the goods we want to buy. Thousands are dying every year in Mexico for our war."

The full article can be read here.
The war next door.

Yup just another useless, dead gimmick remaining from previous presidencies. It really has gotten ridiculous, the only time something or somebody becomes a problem, is when you declare war on them.

I can understand most drugs being illegal (coc aine, heroine, meth etc..) but there are certain ones that are completely harmless in responsible doses. (weed, lsd, shrooms, 2CI, 2CB, Salvia etc..)

It's ridiculous how they think they can fix the problem by throwing money at it and throwing the perpatrators in jail, only to have them released years later with more drug buddies to start up a new cartel with.

Good job US!

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
I can understand most drugs being illegal (coc aine, heroine, meth etc..) but there are certain ones that are completely harmless in responsible doses. (weed, lsd, shrooms, 2CI, 2CB, Salvia etc..)

All should be legal, regardless of someone else's opinion, it is a persons personal choice to destroy themselves.

I cannot understand any drug being illegal, as long as any drug is illegal it creates criminal underworlds because now the cartels have a way to fund themselves.

You legalize all drugs and you wipe out the criminal element completely.

That means no more "gang violence" that scares the white suburbanite into submission to accept whatever policy is "for their protection."

Not to mention the Police won't have "reasonable cause" to unlawfully harass citizens.

reply to post by dalan.


yes your right, technically they should all be legal, but with that said, there would be need for a much improved re-habilitation program, nation wide to combat the problem of addiction.