U.S. Path on Legal Marijuana Forces Rethink in Mexico
wsj.com
wsj.com
With the rise of synthetics, and the first maker-chem-bot not far away- i wouldn't wonder if the Narcos would do what all businesses do, if the change is upon them- lobby for protectionism.
Im against drug liberalization, but just to reduce the economic and social Fallout this would be worth it.
Liberalization of drugs is a funny way to put it. It's realism. We are spending ridiculous amounts of money on the war on drugs, that we could instead be spending on education and rehab. We incarcerate far too many people at far too high a cost to society due to drugs.
Incarceration is both a tax on society in the sense that it destroys families, and the cost on taxpayers to fund prisons, as well as the ridiculous for profit prisons that have no reason to rehabilitate the people in them. We in the US have a serious problem that we keep ignoring, it's not a liberal vs conservative issue, this is a societal problem that needs to be addressed. Drug abuse is rampant and our ignorance of how to deal with it is even crazier. We have basically allowed those with money to get legal corporate drugs, while we've made natural drugs illegal and has far more negative consequences legally for poorer communities.
The legalization of marijuana is one step to start correcting these issues, but it's not far enough in properly appropriating money in better ways to make our people and society stronger.
As a society yes, but there are clearly some actors of the "war on drugs" that benefit from it, such as the police with asset forfeiture laws. Since they have a huge influence on politicians it's very unlikely the rhetoric ever changes. On top of that local police have also gone against state laws legalizing some specific drugs so the resistance goes far beyond just law-making.
Some people hate the police (or fear them) because of that time they got arrested for not hurting anyone.
The "War on Plants" is the mistake that transforms the police forces from Public Servants into political operatives.
One night I chatted with our team's night driver, just before turning the cab over to him. He commented about smelling some "really good" marijuana on one of his recent South-Phoenix passengers. I said, "But [Xxxx], you used to fight in the War on Plants..." I knew he'd gotten an early retirement from a police force a few states away.
He responded, "yeah, but they told me it was a gateway drug, and I believed them. Now it seems that plant actually has medical benefits."
Police are just as much the victims of the drug war as everyone else.
Except that's complete shit, none of that happens to cops. Ignorance isn't an excuse, and just following orders isn't an excuse either. Cops support an illegitimate system with violence and are rewarded for it. Fuck cops.
If you pay taxes you support this system financially. Don't live in the US? Does your country trade with the US? Someone somewhere is almost somehow contributing to some problem. You also neglect the good cops do, doing the job means you do all of the job. From being first responders to drug enforcement.
No, they don't. You probably somehow managed not to be. I've never been tempted.
This is something I've heard from friends in law enforcement, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I've seen countless moving violations take place in front of police--most often speeding and failure to signal--without the violator getting pulled over. And usually while the cop is driving down the left lane of the highway while not passing, which is itself illegal in my state. I've heard plenty of stories of other situations where the threat of arrest for violating some law is real, meaning that the officer had every right under the law to make the arrest already, but is used to get someone to chill out and de-escalate the situation instead of being followed through. Discretion, the ability to selectively enforce the law, is a huge part of their everyday job.
So I don't buy it when people say "they have to enforce the law" because they do not do so universally. I don't buy it when police say "I don't agree with it but I have to enforce it" since basically everyone agrees that you ought to signal lame changes but that is only rarely enforced.
Clearly there's more to it than that--there are greater incentives for police to continue making arrests for marijuana and there are greater penalties for them if they decide to stop making those arrests on moral grounds. But until this false statemeant about "having to enforce the law" is dropped, we can't talk intelligently about what really factors into the decision (personal and institutional) to continue drug enforcement.
Phase Two. Now that cops are the potential victims of unfair persecution and popular media slander campaigns (they're all good except the really bad ones who get caught, but they weren't "real" cops anyway, remember?), here come the examples of other accountability measures civilians think are helping them but are actually harming them.
Those damned lapel cams. Officer discretion keeps nice kids out of jail and keeps the really bad people locked up. But with lapel cams, any defense attorney can go back through police footage from the same officer and see where they selectively enforced laws in similar situations, making prosecution of "dangerous thugs" harder than it needs to be. You wanting to know that police aren't being violent and aggressive puts you and your children in DANGER.
And it's not prosecutorial overreach or disproportionate sentencing or selective enforcement that are the problems here- it's the defense attorneys. Lapel cams remove cop control over who stays in (or out) of jail, and that's a problem.
It's a really friendly and passionate argument, but it's rotten at its core. Police aren't judges, they don't know the law like attorneys, and they shouldn't be arbiters over the communities they serve. Does having sick laws designed to punish selected targets unduly built because selective enforcement is a fact make this a rats nest of an issue? Absolutely, and it makes attempts to address it a much more difficult and dangerous task for the public. What was BLM? If you watch TV, it was a movement of wanton destruction in response to the death of some criminals. What was it supposed to be? A campaign for recognition and reform of unfair sentencing, selective enforcement, and prosecutorial overreach through national awareness and grassroots activism. Don't worry if you didn't know; their local marches and sit-ins weren't exciting enough to be covered.
Didn't people notice Bill Clinton's toughness on crime [1] when voting for Obama, from the same party?
[1] https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles/billfs.txt
"Mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for Federal offenders with three or more convictions for [...] drug trafficking crimes."
In purely economic terms, even though some money does flow into the country through the cartels, the lack of basic security caused by a weak state interacting with extraordinarily wealthy criminal organizations makes it very hard for industry to develop: investment doesn't want to come (and if it does, must hedge against extortion in its plans), there is a huge brain-drain of skilled talent, and no local wants to take any risk, specially not a business risk that might put them in the sight of organized crime. Mexico has some high-tech industry, and it has the potential to develop far more, but it is stunted by a climate of lack of human security and personal safety. Not all of it is because of the drug war (Mexico has a level of economic inequality that makes the divide in the US look quaint, and in practical terms is an incredibly young democracy, for example). Legalization in the US would not solve all of Mexico's problems, but it might give it enough breathing room to reverse what currently feels like a slow collapse...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... (note that the cumulative official death toll number shown there is extremely under-reported)
If the Mexican government is unable to keep its people from getting killed as a result of a neighboring country policing intoxicants, that's a failure of the Mexican government to control crime within its borders, not reason for another nation to change its laws -- you're asking not just for decriminalization, but also legal native manufacturing of addictive substances in the US, as otherwise the lucrative export market would continue to exist.
I don't know any ricelords or any significant criminal gangs that distribute rice. This is only a problem encountered with drugs and other illegal things.
Also, (paraphrasing Milton Friedman), drug users don't report the crime unlike other crimes like burglary or murder because the victim is the offender.
Criminality _related to the import/export/sale of the drugs_. If you think this would be without side effects, you haven't spent much time in an area with methheads or heroin addicts.
And, for what it's worth, it's very easy to purchase drugs from non-shady characters, especially in major US cities (a friend of mine used to text his dealer and a business-casual dressed woman would show up with a wheeling briefcase).
> I don't know any ricelords or any significant criminal gangs that distribute rice. This is only a problem encountered with drugs and other illegal things.
If you use the semantics of "criminal gangs", then you've framed the argument in a way that makes it impossible to debate. Of course "criminal gangs" do "illegal things" (prostitution, substances, etc), that's why they're called criminal gangs. In a country with a stronger rule of law, they're forced to at least have a front, such as sanitation, pay day loans, unions, etc.
> Also, (paraphrasing Milton Friedman), drug users don't report the crime unlike other crimes like burglary or murder because the victim is the offender.
Eh, for casual, functional users. The water gets murky when the users subsist on government services or become unemployed due to substance abuse. The case against legalizing all drugs isn't particularly concerned about a bank teller taking psilocybin mushrooms and sitting in her back yard on a Sunday afternoon.
Sure. But: a) it is reality, the Mexican state is not strong enough to solve that problem given the economics of the huge market for drugs in the US, b) my hypothesis is that the US would also benefit from legalizing drugs, producing them, taxing them and treating the problem as a healthcare matter (similar to what it does for alcohol, tobacco, and better than it currently does about prescription opiates). I do not think harmful consumption would increase in the US after legalization, and I think better quality controls and openness would make it harder for people to overdose and easier for them to get treated. This is of course not tested, but my sincere belief is that it would help both the US and Mexico, and at this point it would be a lot quicker than what needs to happen in Mexico for the trade to end on our end.
The government is run by the cartels.
Mexico is a prosperous country now, in spite of gang problems, and that will continue only as long as trade is open.
But small personal use amounts of drugs are already decriminalized in Mexico. I see plenty of people buy, sell, and smoke mariguana in front of cops in broad daylight. To stop the cartels, you need to allow major companies to compete and the USA politicians can't ignore that.
And for all the trouble drug gangs cause in Mexico, they kill fewer people than car crashes. The federal legislature isn't making it the top national priority or overriding all other concerns for that level of violence.
And, to make a final note, the Supreme Court of Justice keeps threatening to make mariguana legal nationally as a matter of human rights. The USA probably wouldn't go as crazy if it happens through a judicial process.
Debatable, actually. War on drugs related deaths are >250,000 in 10 years by some counts. Car crash related deaths average 24,000 a year in Mexico. But the thing is that violence related deaths are worse than car accidents in one significant way: they erode people's trust in others and the feeling of safety. They lead to more conservative risk-taking behavior and have far reaching consequences on people's mental state (would you react the same if you hear that a university classmate died in a crash than if you learn he was killed by armed cartel members or the army as collateral damage in a clash?). Also, beyond the deaths: large-scale organized crime exacerbates corruption, imposes costs on businesses (extortion), harms free press, etc, etc. Drug trade in Mexico is definitely a national crisis, in a way I don't think people who don't live there quite understand (no, is not a Mad Max-like hellhole, no, not everything looks like in the movie "El Infierno"[1], but that doesn't mean is just a "localized" crime problem in the sense that gang violence in certain cities of the US is, is an entirely different beast when parts of the country are known to be primarily under organized crime control).
In terms of the original comment, Mexico can't easily go against the US in these matters. But even if it did, the US market would still be both lucrative and illegal, which means the drug cartels would continue operating much as they do now. It would still not be worth it for them to obey Mexican law and it would still be worth it to them to fight for control of drug routes. Legalization in the US would mean competition from Pfizer, GSK and the like, which might actually hurt the cartels. Legalization in Mexico would be pretty much meaningless on its own.
And car crash related deaths have even more negative externalities than drug war deaths. They disproportionately kill children and innocent non-criminals. People isolate themselves from dangerous traffic by avoiding walking, avoiding healthy neighborhoods, and by driving more in a vicious spiral. They both have negative social side-effects but car crashes are even worse by most measures.
Homicides were 20,525 in 2015 by official government numbers [1]. Same in 2014 (see same report). Far more than half are crime related, which in Mexico often means it can be connected to drug trade or other activities of the cartels (extortion, people trafficking, etc). This has been a 10 years drug war, and official numbers under-report deaths dramatically, since executions by army and police are rarely counted as homicides and many other killings by drug cartels end up never being investigated and reported as "missing person" cases. This also mostly affects non-criminals, unlike in the US.
Say it is 20,000 a year for 10 years, which seems reasonable based on the figure in the second page of the report. That adds to 200,000 with only the official numbers, only counting homicides classified as such. Add all the missing person numbers (which sure, might partly count displaced migrants, but just as often means dead and thrown in a clandestine burial) and 250k sounds conservative.
I believe the US has a similar mortality rate of car crashes to Mexico, and I can tell you, having lived in both places, that the social side-effects are not even in the same ballpark. This is not a "terror attacks in developed nations kill a few hundred a year, cars kills tens of thousands, we over-react to the first!" kind of argument (which is an argument I agree with), this is a "we have a death toll from the war on drugs that puts us as the 4th bloodiest conflict currently ongoing in the world in absolute numbers[2]".
See also: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/6062-mexico-victimiz...
From that article: "Based on the survey results, INEGI estimated that in 10.7 million households in Mexico (33.9 percent of the total) at least one member of the household was the victim of crime in 2013, or some 22.5 million people -- a rate of 28,224 victims per 100,000 residents". I don't think you can quite understand what it is like to know that in a given year, almost 1/3rd of the population will have to deal directly with crime happening to them. Even if it is mostly theft or extortion, rather than outright murder.
[1] http://www.inegi.org.mx/saladeprensa/boletines/2016/especial...
[2] Granted, is over a bigger country, but I would still not wish it on anyone...
A counter argument: if the US legalized these drugs, the cartels would just shift their focus to other countries where the drugs are still illegal and profitable. They'd also shift their focus from drug trafficking to human trafficking, kidnapping, extortion, etc
How can the Mexican voter be assured that drug legalization would succeed at improving the economy significantly?
The usual web link didn't work for me this time.
Screenshot without comments: https://i.imgur.com/LbqmLV4.jpg
Hope this helps.
A future where a country is essentially carved up between several PMCs, each being a law enforcement monopoly in its sector, is kinda dystopian... but surely it beats never-ending drug-fueled war between the cartels?
Not to go all Godwin up in here, but appeasing violent ambition hasn't worked well in the past and it wont work here. The rare cases where it has worked have been political in nature, driven by groups with legitimate grievances, not an abundance of greed.
I lived in a country which, at a certain time period, had such a deterioration in the quality of law enforcement (corruption, lack of funds, high crime rates etc), that the local mob effectively did run the show. And while it was messy, they did actually establish some rule of law - except it was, of course, their law. But it was something businesses were willing to go along with, because some law is usually better than none; and if paying, say, 10% on a regular basis means you can generally do business normally otherwise (and your contracts are enforced if needed etc), that's not the worst place to be in.
If you think about it, governments essentially evolved out of such bands of armed people providing "protection" to the populace (which really just means that no-one else is going to rob them). So when a government becomes so inefficient and/or corrupt that it cannot effectively provide protection anymore, well, the next challenger is going to take over - and, if successful, eventually become the new government. Somewhere down the line, people start asking questions like "why are we paying these guys", and you get all kind of fancy philosophical theories like social contract and natural rights, and the role and mechanics of government evolves accordingly... but it still has to be able to provide this one basic function: ensure that no-one else collects the money from its citizens, and no-one else can rough them up.
This is essentially the history of statebuilding, from Sargon of Akkad to today. There is not a great deal of distinction to be made between a Gothic warchief, a Norman knight, a Spanish conquistador, or a Mexican cartel head.
Mexico isn't that bad.
What are the drug cartels going to do? Attack some giant montasanto farm in the middle of flyover USA?
...with their guns?
And what happens when montasanto highers a couple off duty police officers to protect their investment?
The cartels have no power in anywhere but the border.
That said, yes, I would expect to see a rise in cartel violence in the US at least out into the medium term. "Attack a farm" is a bit cinematic, but "threaten executive's children to extract kickbacks" is quite plausible in certain areas. Their area of influence now tracks traditional drug trafficking routes & illegal immigration routes, which covers a hell of a lot of the US. That doesn't mean they're necessarily dominant over that the same way they are in MX, but is something one should be aware of.
What could drug cartels do against a couple of off-duty police officers?
> The cartels have no power in anywhere but the border.
Chicago disagrees.
It is their funeral. They can enjoy their overreached, over militarized response.
I am making the exact opposite point. It is easy to grow a few marijuana plants in your own home, or even easier to grow an outdoor variety in your garden. Two or three plants is more than enough for even a heavy user.
All this is beside the point though, because as many others have already pointed out to you, the cartels would fall apart if the US legalized recreational drugs. Kidnapping, racketeering, etc. are just not nearly as profitable as the drug trade. Some drug dealers might move on to other criminal activities (though many actually have a conscience and would not do absolutely anything for money, believe it or not), but you're denying historical precedent if you don't think that legalization would wipe out the illegal drug trade and seriously undercut the cartel's ability to make money. Why is it that gangs don't still control alcohol distribution now that prohibition is over?
People in favor of legalization try to suggest that it's about marijuana, but cartels mostly trade in higher volume/price ratio substances (esp. cocaine).
Fair enough -- if it read as at all speaking down to you, I did not intend for it to be that way.
> All recreational drugs should be legalized.
I very strongly disagree that _all_ recreational drugs should be legalized. To some extent, I agree on the less addictive substances (marijuana, psilocybin), but not on drugs that are surprisingly addictive, such as heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine.
Besides interpersonal harm (such as overdoses, intoxicated driving and its victims, economic decision making, spread of disease from sharing needles), the societal impact would be non-trivial with increased availability of intoxicants for people that rely on government services or otherwise are not net contributors to society. Legalizing recreational drugs while also believing in a societal "safety net" suggests also a level of comfort of increased taxation to subsidize the increasing numbers of addicted people, as well as providing increased medical and police services to communities.
As for your other concerns, I disagree. Availability is no issue in any major US city. Overdoses happen more frequently by not knowing the purity of a substance, and when people are terrified to go to the hospital or call an ambulance because they'll be arrested. Intoxicated driving will happen with or without legalization and is a crime in itself. Spread of disease from sharing needles would be drastically reduced with basic harm reduction / needle exchange programs. The police will be plenty available to serve their communities because currently they spend an enormous amount of time policing drug crimes. Harm reduction programs and social services can be funded by taxation on the sale of recreational drugs.
You're an outlier -- your experience does not match addiction patterns in most people.
> Spread of disease from sharing needles would be drastically reduced with basic harm reduction / needle exchange programs.
As you did heroin, you must know that the issue is getting people to _use_ the exchange programs and resources.
> Availability is no issue in any major US city.
I legitimately do not know where to buy drugs in my current city and not wanting to deal obvious drug dealers acts as an effective barrier.
> The police will be plenty available to serve their communities because currently they spend an enormous amount of time policing drug crimes.
I'd like to see some statistics on this -- my understanding is that police typically end up finding drugs as a secondary crime to responding to an existing issue (e.g. noise complaint/erratic behavior/etc).
I snorted heroin, I'm not a fricking junkie :) But seriously, do you expect people to use needle exchange programs when doing so is tantamount to admitting to illegal behavior? It is very common for US police to bust drug users and pressure them into becoming confidential informants, and then work their way up the chain.
> I legitimately do not know where to buy drugs in my current city and not wanting to deal obvious drug dealers acts as an effective barrier.
I'm guessing you're not interested in using drugs, right? There's your explanation. If you are though, then I can only ascertain that you feel you have a right to use them, while other people, like the non net contributors to society you mentioned earlier, do not.
> I'd like to see some statistics on this -- my understanding is that police typically end up finding drugs as a secondary crime to responding to an existing issue
Ok, now you must be trolling! You need me to dig up numbers to show that US police spend significant time and resources on drug crimes? By the FBI's own numbers, drug violations account for more arrests than any other crime [1]. Speaking about policing more broadly, there are entire agencies like the DEA that deal exclusively with drug crime, and the NSA participates in efforts to catch drug dealers by coordinating with city police departments. Even Fox News will tell you that we've spent over a trillion dollars fighting the war on drugs [2]. That's not even getting into the money spent in the courts, prisons, probation system, etc.
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
The highest number of arrests were for drug abuse violations (estimated at 1,552,432 arrests)
[2] http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/13/ap-impact-years-tril...
;)
> But seriously, do you expect people to use needle exchange programs when doing so is tantamount to admitting to illegal behavior?
Yes, and some users do. I used to work in an office with line of sight to one and people would even line up outside (I suspect mostly for treatment/replacement dispensary schedules).
> It is very common for US police to bust drug users and pressure them into becoming confidential informants, and then work their way up the chain.
I don't think it's as common as you think. They're addicts and life isn't a spy novel. Some heroin addict isn't going to lean his way "up the chain."
> I'm guessing you're not interested in using drugs, right? There's your explanation.
I stated that I don't want to deal with obvious drug dealers (e.g. "coke, smoke?" guys). Extrapolate what you want.
> If you are though, then I can only ascertain that you feel you have a right to use them, while other people, like the non net contributors to society you mentioned earlier, do not.
That's accurate. Government services should be used for basic food, shelter, health, not paying for someone's high. Similarly, vodka and soda shouldn't be covered by SNAP -- if I want to burn some money from a paycheck, that's on me, but the nice grandparents that live next door shouldn't be paying for me to roll face or get drunk instead of work.
> Ok, now you must be trolling! You need me to dig up numbers to show that US police spend significant time and resources on drug crimes?
I was speaking about local police, not 3-letter agencies in the US. Have you considered that patrol police will go for a drug charge when they suspect a problem/crime and need probable cause? It's not as if weed is unscented and subtle when smoked. It's not as if police set up outside subways to test for internal possession in people acting normally.
> By the FBI's own numbers, drug violations account for more arrests than any other crime [1]. Speaking about policing more broadly, there are entire agencies like the DEA that deal exclusively with drug crime, and the NSA participates in efforts to catch drug dealers by coordinating with city police departments.
Your suggestion is free flow of drugs into society? You earnestly believe that ready access to heroin and meth production should be legal?
Easy individual growing could depress the market enough that the state tax boon that legalization has been promoted as would be largely eaten up. It would basically be a license for individuals to grow enough to supply a small number of people by proxy. In that case, if there isn't an Uber for it within days, I'd be surprised.
Pragmatically, what states are trying to do is replace the cartels (and grab their profits) rather than eliminate them; laws are likely to look like what the cartels would write if they were the state.
Here in Oregon, they made it legal for people to grow some small number of plants at home. Maybe 4 or 6 or something like that.
I'm not sure how popular this is in practice. Personally I don't know of anyone doing it. But on the other hand, I think the plants are required to be out of sight (eg in the back yard). So for all I know there are probably a few in my neighborhood and I'll never know.
I know the WA allows growing at home for medical use, but not recreational unless you follow the laws for a grower or processor.
I don't want to live in a country where the state is incapable of controlling the cartels...