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 Lordhat wrote:
The U.S just needs to annex Mexico.

Assuming there was a way to do so, what would be the advantage?

 CptJake wrote:

 Lordhat wrote:
The U.S just needs to annex Mexico.

Assuming there was a way to do so, what would be the advantage?

We're already in the process, but we're not annexing land, just the people.

 Lordhat wrote:
The U.S just needs to annex Mexico.

The US just needs to treat it as a failed state, realise that its right on their doorstep, and secure their border.

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:Tell that to the Mexicans I work with that have had families put in jeapordy or had to leave a country they love because of drug users giving cartels money enough to gain the power that destabilized Mexico and turned it into a hell hole. They'll answer you with nothing but contempt for your attitude since They say legalization will put the people who terrorized them and killed members of their families even more in control.

This is a stupid thing you said and you should feel bad about it.

If any given drug suddenly became legal, the cartels would almost instantly lose their power. The cartels would be forced to compete with Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer et al. Dimebag Donnie on the street corner would then have to compete with Wal-Mart and Costco.

The black market would be out of business overnight for the exact same reason you've probably never bought Aspirin or Tylenol from the hippie down the street.

So you're telling me the Mexicans I talk to, who hear daily from family members in Mexico about the latest thing the cartels did, are stupid and don't know a thing about the cartels?

Can't say for certain, but it sure sounds like it.

Relapse wrote:This is good to know that someone who lives in Canada can have such intimate knowledge of affairs as compared to those living in the middle of all the trouble.

I know, right? It's almost like I have a degree in this sort of thing.

Relapse wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

Relapse wrote:

What the hell. It's only brown people getting killed by the tens of thousands so the parties can happen. Users certainly don't care.

These people are getting killed because the illegal drugs trade is so lucrative, it is ALL about money. Users care just as much as the legislators do, quite possibly more.

Tell that to the Mexicans I work with that have had families put in jeapordy or had to leave a country they love because of drug users giving cartels money enough to gain the power that destabilized Mexico and turned it into a hell hole. They'll answer you with nothing but contempt for your attitude since They say legalization will put the people who terrorized them and killed members of their families even more in control.
They also won't be fooled by drug users saying they want legalization in order to stop the killing since if that was the concern, they would have stopped using drugs the minute they knew what they were contributing their money to for the sake of recreation.
One Mexican put it to me like this, summing up the thoughts of a lot of the Mexicans, Central and South Americans I work with this way, "Those( drug using) fethers don't give a damn about us Mexicans. They just say feth those peons and have them pick the fruit."

Because no one's as geopolitically savvy as a biased, angry, and -I'm going to go out on a limb and guess here- impoverished immigrant. They should just replace the whole State Department with day laborers...


This thread's off to a great start:
"It's all the drug users fault, since there's some unknown chance that some portion of what they spend might end up funding the cartels!"
"If domestic production and distribution were legalized, the cartels would be starved for money."
"But the cartels have non-drug funding too! They're practically states! So how would legalization help things?"

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

Relapse wrote:

What the hell. It's only brown people getting killed by the tens of thousands so the parties can happen. Users certainly don't care.

These people are getting killed because the illegal drugs trade is so lucrative, it is ALL about money. Users care just as much as the legislators do, quite possibly more.

Tell that to the Mexicans I work with that have had families put in jeapordy or had to leave a country they love because of drug users giving cartels money enough to gain the power that destabilized Mexico and turned it into a hell hole. They'll answer you with nothing but contempt for your attitude since They say legalization will put the people who terrorized them and killed members of their families even more in control.
They also won't be fooled by drug users saying they want legalization in order to stop the killing since if that was the concern, they would have stopped using drugs the minute they knew what they were contributing their money to for the sake of recreation.
One Mexican put it to me like this, summing up the thoughts of a lot of the Mexicans, Central and South Americans I work with this way, "Those( drug using) fethers don't give a damn about us Mexicans. They just say feth those peons and have them pick the fruit."

Because no one's as geopolitically savvy as a biased, angry, and -I'm going to go out on a limb and guess here- impoverished immigrant. They should just replace the whole State Department with day laborers...


This thread's off to a great start:
"It's all the drug users fault, since there's some unknown chance that some portion of what they spend might end up funding the cartels!"
"If domestic production and distribution were legalized, the cartels would be starved for money."
"But the cartels have non-drug funding too! They're practically states! So how would legalization help things?"

You display a vivid ignorance right from the start when you call the people I work with ignorant and impoverished of which they are neither. Do you think everyone that comes out of Mexico is something along that line? They are fairly more clued in than you appear to be, especially if your later statements are anything to go by.
Just where do you think the cartels get the billions of dollars per year they use to fund their operations and the murders they carry out and achieve the power base that they have?
You think if drugs are legalized, the cartels are just going to just fade away? You're sadly wrong if you think that'll happen.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:Tell that to the Mexicans I work with that have had families put in jeapordy or had to leave a country they love because of drug users giving cartels money enough to gain the power that destabilized Mexico and turned it into a hell hole. They'll answer you with nothing but contempt for your attitude since They say legalization will put the people who terrorized them and killed members of their families even more in control.

This is a stupid thing you said and you should feel bad about it.

If any given drug suddenly became legal, the cartels would almost instantly lose their power. The cartels would be forced to compete with Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer et al. Dimebag Donnie on the street corner would then have to compete with Wal-Mart and Costco.

The black market would be out of business overnight for the exact same reason you've probably never bought Aspirin or Tylenol from the hippie down the street.

So you're telling me the Mexicans I talk to, who hear daily from family members in Mexico about the latest thing the cartels did, are stupid and don't know a thing about the cartels?

Can't say for certain, but it sure sounds like it.

Relapse wrote:This is good to know that someone who lives in Canada can have such intimate knowledge of affairs as compared to those living in the middle of all the trouble.

I know, right? It's almost like I have a degree in this sort of thing.

Actually it doesn't seem like any degree you may have is worth the paper it's printed on based off your statements compared to what I have seen happen in my friends lives.

Relapse wrote:
Actually it doesn't seem like any degree you may have is worth the paper it's printed on based off your statements compared to what I have seen happen in my friends lives.

stats and/or expert opinions > anecdotal evidence

Relapse wrote:

You display a vivid ignorance right from the start when you call the people I work with ignorant and impoverished of which they are neither. Do you think everyone that comes out of Mexico is something along that line? They are fairly more clued in than you appear to be, especially if your later statements are anything to go by.
Just where do you think the cartels get the billions of dollars per year they use to fund their operations and the murders they carry out and achieve the power base that they have?
You think if drugs are legalized, the cartels are just going to just fade away? You're sadly wrong if you think that'll happen.

I never said ignorant, and I qualified the impoverished bit with "and I'm just guessing here". Regardless of their education levels, they remain heavily biased and are clearly ruled by their emotions on the matter, instead of cold reason. They are, as a result, not qualified to legitimately comment on the situation. The only thing their personal connections brings to the table is the shocking revelation that "the violent petty warlords are violent and also petty warlords!"


An unknown percentage of a small subset of drugs are produced and smuggled by them. Undercutting the black market with licensed domestic production would eradicate their market base in the US, nullifying your primary complaint. Addendum: yes, they're petty warlords who wouldn't just close up shop if they were undercut -blame the Mexican government for being weak and corrupt, blame the US for not being brutal enough in suppressing them, or whatever- but trying to argue against legalized domestic production on the grounds "BUT SMUGGLERS!" is just farcical.

Relapse wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:This is good to know that someone who lives in Canada can have such intimate knowledge of affairs as compared to those living in the middle of all the trouble.

I know, right? It's almost like I have a degree in this sort of thing.

Actually it doesn't seem like any degree you may have is worth the paper it's printed on based off your statements compared to what I have seen happen in my friends lives.

That's called "anecdotal evidence". Tell me: when night falls where you are, do you also believe it's dark everywhere else?



Here's the thing: you seem to have a very juvenile sense of what constitutes "bad guys" in this situation, almost like you actually believe the cartels are run by Snidely Whiplash-esque villains who desire to perform evil acts for their own sake. I'm not defending them, I just think you really need to look past the black hat and find the root cause of their evils.

The truth is that the cartels are run by businessmen. Ruthless, nearly amoral businessmen, but businessmen all the same. Now, let's use methamphetamine as an example, here: if it were legalized, almost overnight there would be massive refinement plants run by Pfizer and their competitors. The product itself would be shipped in bulk to be sold on the shelves of Wal-Mart. And those prices, coupled with a promise of quality (because no consumer will ever pay more for something that's been stepped on three times over when they can buy the pure form at the local super centre for rock-bottom low prices) will simply push the local dealers out of the picture fast enough to break the sound barrier. That's how the market works; it's exactly why there were no more bootleggers when prohibition ended.

The role of the cartels would simply change from a complete production-distribution-retail model into being exclusively production, if they're lucky (this assumes the cartels are already set up to produce a high-quality product, as opposed to "biker meth" in a Tennessee shack). In that case, the cartels would simply be supplying retail dealers like Wal-Mart and Rite Aid with the product, under subcontract from pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson et al.

The violent criminal element would disappear almost immediately, for a few reasons: because you can't fight Wal-Mart with bullets, and because there are within-the-law recourses that you can take when it comes to turf wars in the business world. This is why you never see two McDonald's managers getting into a gunfight over who controls Main Street. This is the part that you seem to have trouble understanding: the violence assotiated with narcotics is not something that exists simply by virtue that you're talking about narcotics; the violence exists because there is currently no recourse within the law to be taken when one party is slighted.

Again, look at the charts I posted. Legalizing pot isn't gonna make too much of a difference. If you want to argue for legalized cocaine, meth, and heroine you start to have a point, but even then they receive enough non-drug revenue that they will survive. To think the US can legalize cocaine, meth and heroine any time in the near future is frankly silly, so your point becomes less relevant, degree or no degree.

I've worked counter drug intel. I may not have a degree in this stuff, but I do have a decent understanding of the what is going on here. To think these guys give up violence is a pipe dream. I honestly can't believe someone claiming to have a degree in this stuff would make that claim. Mob violence didn't stop when prohibition ended in the US (neither did bootlegging though it did decrease, there STILL is a market for non-tax stamped booze and cigarettes), and the mindset the cartels have south of our border ensures it will not stop if we legalized any drugs here.

CptJake wrote:Again, look at the charts I posted. Legalizing pot isn't gonna make too much of a difference. If you want to argue for legalized cocaine, meth, and heroine you start to have a point, but even then they receive enough non-drug revenue that they will survive. To think the US can legalize cocaine, meth and heroine any time in the near future is frankly silly, so your point becomes less relevant, degree or no degree.

I've worked counter drug intel. I may not have a degree in this stuff, but I do have a decent understanding of the what is going on here. To think these guys give up violence is a pipe dream. I honestly can't believe someone claiming to have a degree in this stuff would make that claim. Mob violence didn't stop when prohibition ended in the US (neither did bootlegging though it did decrease, there STILL is a market for non-tax stamped booze and cigarettes), and the mindset the cartels have south of our border ensures it will not stop if we legalized any drugs here.

I'm not making a defeat-the-villain argument; that is a juvenile mindset. I'm basing this as a public health concern. You legalize any given narcotic, and the violence goes away. I don't care if Pablo Escobar 2.0 ends up in a boardroom rather than a dumpster. I only care about ending the violence.

So again I'll ask you: how much mob violence has been associated with unstamped booze and cigarettes since prohibition ended? Now compare that to the violence associated with booze during prohibition.

 azazel the cat wrote:

CptJake wrote:Again, look at the charts I posted. Legalizing pot isn't gonna make too much of a difference. If you want to argue for legalized cocaine, meth, and heroine you start to have a point, but even then they receive enough non-drug revenue that they will survive. To think the US can legalize cocaine, meth and heroine any time in the near future is frankly silly, so your point becomes less relevant, degree or no degree.

I've worked counter drug intel. I may not have a degree in this stuff, but I do have a decent understanding of the what is going on here. To think these guys give up violence is a pipe dream. I honestly can't believe someone claiming to have a degree in this stuff would make that claim. Mob violence didn't stop when prohibition ended in the US (neither did bootlegging though it did decrease, there STILL is a market for non-tax stamped booze and cigarettes), and the mindset the cartels have south of our border ensures it will not stop if we legalized any drugs here.

I'm not making a defeat-the-villain argument; that is a juvenile mindset. I'm basing this as a public health concern. You legalize any given narcotic, and the violence goes away. I don't care if Pablo Escobar 2.0 ends up in a boardroom rather than a dumpster. I only care about ending the violence.

So again I'll ask you: how much mob violence has been associated with unstamped booze and cigarettes since prohibition ended? Now compare that to the violence associated with booze during prohibition.

Plus the money being saved from having to keep people in jail due to drug possession could go into drug rehab centers instead.

 azazel the cat wrote:
That's how the market works; it's exactly why there were no more bootleggers when prohibition ended.

For the record, there still are. I've known a few, and sat around drinking moonshine with one of them. The difference is that since alcohol was relegalized, the illicit operations lost their markets (and moved on to other crime), and now operate with a cutrate product that I have no idea how they manage to sell to anyone. Alcohol gets ridiculously cheap, and even bottom-shelf vodka is a cut above moonshine, with the price difference being trivial (in addition to being far more readily available).

Which is exactly your overall point, basically.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:This is good to know that someone who lives in Canada can have such intimate knowledge of affairs as compared to those living in the middle of all the trouble.

I know, right? It's almost like I have a degree in this sort of thing.

Actually it doesn't seem like any degree you may have is worth the paper it's printed on based off your statements compared to what I have seen happen in my friends lives.

That's called "anecdotal evidence". Tell me: when night falls where you are, do you also believe it's dark everywhere else?



Here's the thing: you seem to have a very juvenile sense of what constitutes "bad guys" in this situation, almost like you actually believe the cartels are run by Snidely Whiplash-esque villains who desire to perform evil acts for their own sake. I'm not defending them, I just think you really need to look past the black hat and find the root cause of their evils.

The truth is that the cartels are run by businessmen. Ruthless, nearly amoral businessmen, but businessmen all the same. Now, let's use methamphetamine as an example, here: if it were legalized, almost overnight there would be massive refinement plants run by Pfizer and their competitors. The product itself would be shipped in bulk to be sold on the shelves of Wal-Mart. And those prices, coupled with a promise of quality (because no consumer will ever pay more for something that's been stepped on three times over when they can buy the pure form at the local super centre for rock-bottom low prices) will simply push the local dealers out of the picture fast enough to break the sound barrier. That's how the market works; it's exactly why there were no more bootleggers when prohibition ended.

The role of the cartels would simply change from a complete production-distribution-retail model into being exclusively production, if they're lucky (this assumes the cartels are already set up to produce a high-quality product, as opposed to "biker meth" in a Tennessee shack). In that case, the cartels would simply be supplying retail dealers like Wal-Mart and Rite Aid with the product, under subcontract from pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson et al.

The violent criminal element would disappear almost immediately, for a few reasons: because you can't fight Wal-Mart with bullets, and because there are within-the-law recourses that you can take when it comes to turf wars in the business world. This is why you never see two McDonald's managers getting into a gunfight over who controls Main Street. This is the part that you seem to have trouble understanding: the violence assotiated with narcotics is not something that exists simply by virtue that you're talking about narcotics; the violence exists because there is currently no recourse within the law to be taken when one party is slighted.

Juvenile sense of what constitute bad guys? These are people that have cut people's faces off and sewn them to soccer balls, left sheds full of the bodies of 70+ people at a time who would refuse to haul drugs for them among the 60, 000 otther people they have killed. You seem more and more divorced from reality with each post you make on the subject when you say they are just business men.

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Here's the thing: you seem to have a very juvenile sense of what constitutes "bad guys" in this situation, almost like you actually believe the cartels are run by Snidely Whiplash-esque villains who desire to perform evil acts for their own sake. I'm not defending them, I just think you really need to look past the black hat and find the root cause of their evils.

Juvenile sense of what constitute bad guys? These are people that have cut people's faces off and sewn them to soccer balls, left sheds full of the bodies of 70+ people at a time who would refuse to haul drugs for them among the 60, 000 otther people they have killed. You seem more and more divorced from reality with each post you make on the subject when you say they are just business men.

Congratulations! You managed to read the first 16 words!

Now go back and read the rest of them.

on pack of jackals for another, how long until these vigliantes falll under the control of some insane religious nutjob who has a mandate to get into heaven?

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Here's the thing: you seem to have a very juvenile sense of what constitutes "bad guys" in this situation, almost like you actually believe the cartels are run by Snidely Whiplash-esque villains who desire to perform evil acts for their own sake. I'm not defending them, I just think you really need to look past the black hat and find the root cause of their evils.

Juvenile sense of what constitute bad guys? These are people that have cut people's faces off and sewn them to soccer balls, left sheds full of the bodies of 70+ people at a time who would refuse to haul drugs for them among the 60, 000 otther people they have killed. You seem more and more divorced from reality with each post you make on the subject when you say they are just business men.

Congratulations! You managed to read the first 16 words!

Now go back and read the rest of them.

I really think at this point we don't have a whole lot to say to each other on this subject. You have this idea that people who think nothing of hanging headless bodies by the row from bridges in the middle of town are not villains, but just businessmen waiting for drugs to be legalized so they can do an immediate 180 from their standard of operation to become members of the Chamber of Commerce.
I think they're always going to be among the lowest form of life on the planet and drug users saying that drugs need to be legalized in order to stop all the killing are outright hypocrites, since they're the ones giving the money to the cartels in the first place.

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Relapse wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
Here's the thing: you seem to have a very juvenile sense of what constitutes "bad guys" in this situation, almost like you actually believe the cartels are run by Snidely Whiplash-esque villains who desire to perform evil acts for their own sake. I'm not defending them, I just think you really need to look past the black hat and find the root cause of their evils.

Juvenile sense of what constitute bad guys? These are people that have cut people's faces off and sewn them to soccer balls, left sheds full of the bodies of 70+ people at a time who would refuse to haul drugs for them among the 60, 000 otther people they have killed. You seem more and more divorced from reality with each post you make on the subject when you say they are just business men.

Congratulations! You managed to read the first 16 words!

Now go back and read the rest of them.

I really think at this point we don't have a whole lot to say to each other on this subject. You have this idea that people who think nothing of hanging headless bodies by the row from bridges in the middle of town are not villains, but just businessmen waiting for drugs to be legalized so they can do an immediate 180 from their standard of operation to become members of the Chamber of Commerce.
I think they're always going to be among the lowest form of life on the planet and drug users saying that drugs need to be legalized in order to stop all the killing are outright hypocrites, since they're the ones giving the money to the cartels in the first place.

Stop it with the strawmen. Nobody said the cartel leaders aren't bad people. But you've gotta recognize that these heinous acts are not done without motivation behind them, and that motivation is not "evil for evil's sake".

And what do you say to me, who is (reasonably) well-educated on the matter and never partakes in recreational drugs?

What happens when your revenue stream is cut?

You adapt. You do not spend all your money changing business trategy, just product.

Today's narcotic smuggling Cartel is tomorrow's human trafficking Cartel.

I am opposed to mandatory minimums and for the legalization of marijuana. I am opposed to 'legalize man, it'll totally stop all the violence', because as a criminal deterrence policy, it has failed.

 azazel the cat wrote:
So again I'll ask you: how much mob violence has been associated with unstamped booze and cigarettes since prohibition ended? Now compare that to the violence associated with booze during prohibition.

Not that much, but that's because those markets are locked down by organized crime already. You'll get away with buying up cigarettes in North Carolina and running them to New York for the easiest 20 grand of your life a couple times, but eventually you'll get spanked for it.

It's also difficult to tell just how much criminal violence we can assign solely to any one revenue stream. Gangs and actual criminal organizations have portfolios; they're rarely single-stream monoliths.

It sounds like the citizens have gazed into the abyss.

gunslingerpro wrote:Today's narcotic smuggling Cartel is tomorrow's human trafficking Cartel.

Gambling and human trafficking is already a large part of their revenue stream; I believe those two make up the majority of the "other" segment of CptJake's pie charts.

The difference is that human trafficking is much easier to fight a war against than narcotics.

 azazel the cat wrote:

gunslingerpro wrote:Today's narcotic smuggling Cartel is tomorrow's human trafficking Cartel.

Gambling and human trafficking is already a large part of their revenue stream; I believe those two make up the majority of the "other" segment of CptJake's pie charts.

The difference is that human trafficking is much easier to fight a war against than narcotics.

Easier how? they use the same trucks, same tunnels, same safe houses.

Yes, a person is easier to find than a kilo of narcotics. But we're not dealing with general volume here.

gunslingerpro wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

gunslingerpro wrote:Today's narcotic smuggling Cartel is tomorrow's human trafficking Cartel.

Gambling and human trafficking is already a large part of their revenue stream; I believe those two make up the majority of the "other" segment of CptJake's pie charts.

The difference is that human trafficking is much easier to fight a war against than narcotics.

Easier how? they use the same trucks, same tunnels, same safe houses.

Are you kidding me?
1. it's much harder to store people than it is to store kilos of narcotics.
2. human trafficking requires bawdy houses with centralized locations; it can't be spread across every street.
3. it's easier to win "hearts & minds" when fighting against human trafficking than it is against narcotics.
4. the demand for the product is nowhere near as fervent.
5. you really can't use the same trucks and safe houses, and no prostitute has ever been shot out of a cannon across the Mexico-Arizona border.
6. base production (finding/kidnapping and then beating into submission) is a much more time-consuming and difficult process than is narcotics production.

I could go on, but I hope you get the idea.

 CptJake wrote:
Legalizing pot isn't gonna make too much of a difference.

I'm glad you agree.

 azazel the cat wrote:
5. you really can't use the same trucks and safe houses, and no prostitute has ever been shot out of a cannon across the Mexico-Arizona border.

So there's no market for circus act performing sex workers?

 dogma wrote:
It sounds like the citizens have gazed into the abyss.

Maybe sometimes you have to.

Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
5. you really can't use the same trucks and safe houses, and no prostitute has ever been shot out of a cannon across the Mexico-Arizona border.

So there's no market for circus act performing sex workers?

Just so my post isn't as weird as I realize it may have sounded without context: http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/28/us/border-smugglers-cannon

As long as they have fought the actual criminals and harmed no innocents then good on them, give them a medal but if they have harmed one innocent, then they are no better than the cartel, sorry. No matter how small a crime is, a crime is a crime and innocents should never be harmed in pursuit of justice.

 unmercifulconker wrote:
if they have harmed one innocent, then they are no better than the cartel.

The shot a tourist for not stopping at their undoubtably shady looking checkpoint, it could be argued that they were in the right there given their objective but it certainly wasn't lawful. The problem with vigilanties is that they aren't controlled and it is very easy for them to become just as lawless as the people they were formed to stand against, more than one messy civil war has started this way.