Pubdate: Sat, 03 Apr 2010
Source: Albany Democrat-Herald (OR)
Copyright: 2010 Lee Enterprises
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/HPOp5PfB
Website: http://www.democratherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/7
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

LEGALIZATION WOULDN'T END NARCOTICS WARS

It is customary to blame the Mexican drug violence on American 
addicts and casual users. The assumption is that if Americans would 
either legalize drugs or quit being stupid enough to use them, the 
big money would be gone from the Mexican trade, and the criminals 
would have no more reason to fight or to kill each other and innocent 
bystanders. That assumption and that rosy scenario is almost certainly wrong.

The Mexican drug syndicates are not just people in business who have 
no choice but to resort to violence in order to protect their 
interests. They are in that business and they torture and kill 
people, and sometimes cut off their heads, because they are criminals 
of the worst kind.

Suppose we take the money out of marijuana, meth, cocaine and heroin 
by stopping the drug war and letting dopers and junkies buy their 
stuff at the pharmacy or state liquor store. What are those criminals 
most likely to do?

With their business gone, are they going to go back to school to 
learn a trade? Nursing? Welding? Are they going to use their 
accumulated wealth to go into irrigated farming? Will they open think 
tanks to study the sociological effects of drug prohibition? Will 
they just retire to the south of France? All their soldiers -- will 
they find work in the local economy?

No, the most likely thing, since they are criminals and murderers on 
a mass scale, is that they will continue as criminals and murderers. 
They'll find some way to keep making masses of money in drugs, and if 
that doesn't work they'll find some other line of crime.

So no, legalization does not hold much promise of ending Mexico's 
sufferings in the narcowars. The drug gangs will have to be defeated, 
taken out or put in prison in order for the killing to end. This is 
what the Mexican government is trying to do with its deployment of 
military troops.

In the meantime, U.S. dealers, buyers and users of illegal drugs 
supplied from or through Mexico bear a heavy responsibility. Without 
them, the narco gangs might do other kinds of crime, but for now it 
is the U.S. market that keeps the gangs in cash. That's a heavy guilt 
they bear. They need to be held to account not just for breaking the 
law on controlled substances, but for fueling the deadly violence 
down south. (hh)
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom