Bajahowodd - 12-30-2008 at 12:12 PM
Today's LA Times dedicates the entire page three to Opinions on strategies for fighting Mexico's drug war. The contributors are diverse. They include
quotes from the late Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the former mayor of Medellin, Columbia, Maria Elena
Morera, President of Mexico United Against Crime, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu(famed Mexican film director), and Terry Nelson who was a Federal Agent
for 30 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, the Customs Service and Department of Homeland Security.
I learned something here. According to research by the World Health Organization this year, the United States has the highest marijuana and cocaine
use rates on the planet, despite having some of the harshest sentences.
Suffice it to say that this former Federal Agent is a proponent of legalization. Very informing article. You can locate it at latimes .com/seige.
tjBill - 12-30-2008 at 03:34 PM
Interesting article.
It seems everyone has a different strategy. 
bajabif - 12-30-2008 at 03:36 PM
Can't we just sing songs and light candles. Won't this make it all go away?
Bajahowodd - 12-30-2008 at 03:48 PM
I think the so-called "war on drugs" is one of our greatest follies of the past half century. Studies done in Europe have shown no increase in usage
when legalized or decriminalized. Yet, we have spent untold tens of billions of dollars on eradicating drugs, only to see quantities and availabilty
remain about the same. Even as we have sort of put democratically elected leaders in places like Afganistan, we are looking at the cultivation of
poppies drastically increasing.
Just for the record, I have never used heroin or coke, and my pot smoking days were back in college. My recreation is cheap jug wine and high gravity
malt liquor!!!
mariposajim - 12-31-2008 at 06:42 AM
I agree that the "war on drugs" is folly, but it is even more than that. Entire communities are dependent upon the incarceration of drug users;
entire occupations are dependent upon state and federal funds to "fight" drug use; entire lives are ruined by simple drug use being classed as violent
felonies. Vested political and law enforcement interests don't care to rehabilitate drug users or legalize drugs, which in combination with other
non-law enforcement activities would eliminate almost all the violence on both sides of our border. These "interests" would be out of a job if we
actually tried to solve the drug problem.
Jim
Bajahowodd - 12-31-2008 at 05:27 PM
Amen to that. Too bad there doesn't appear to be a reasonable solution in my lifetime.
dao45 - 1-1-2009 at 02:50 AM
Seems to me its not really a drug war but a drug business (on all sides)
bajajazz - 1-1-2009 at 11:29 PM
Think it was Eric Hoffer who said that every noble cause eventually becomes a business and ultimately becomes a racket.
Too many of the players in the phony "war on drugs" are making too much money the way things are. Changing the status quo is not in their financial
interest.
The solution lies in adopting a policy of harm reduction (treatment-on-demand), then move to decriminalization and eventually to complete
legalization. Not holding my breath on that one, or on any other government policy that might possibly make some sense.