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Marijuana Prohibition Fuels Mexico Murders |
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Written by Tony Newman, Drug Policy Alliance
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Tuesday, 23 March 2010 05:34 |
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When we think about wars happening in the world right now, Iraq and Afghanistan jump to mind. But there is also a bloody and growing war in our backyard and that is the Drug War in Mexico.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched a full-scale military assault against the drug traffickers in his country as soon as he took office in December 2006.
Three years later, the "surge" against the cartels has led to Mexico spinning out of control with jaw-dropping violence -- with no meaningful impact on the export and availability of drugs.More than twice the number of Mexicans have died in these three years -- 15,000 -- than have Americans in both Iraq and Afghanistan combined after more than seven years.
In the past few days, the insanity has made front-page news, as it often does. The New York Times published a piece about the "death of journalism," about how cartels have threatened and killed so many reporters in Mexico that the press is too terrified to cover the drug war.
Monday, there was another front-page New York Times piece about the U.S. Consulate official and her husband from El Paso who were gunned down over the weekend in Juárez, the highest ranking Americans to be murdered to date. And this weekend, we also heard about the 24 people murdered, including several beheadings, in the spring-break hot spot of Acapulco.
While the mayhem has been covered in tens of thousands of news stories around the world, rarely is the root of the problem explained:drug prohibition. Remember alcohol Prohibition, Chicago under Al Capone, shootouts in broad daylight?That's what we have in Mexico, a thousand times over.
There is nothing inherently evil or violent about marijuana and coca, but prohibiting these plants makes them worth more than gold. And people are willing to kill each other for the enormous profits to be made by bringing them to market. Now that alcohol is legal, no one is murdered over a case of Budweiser.
The best next step we have toward reducing the violence in Mexico is ending marijuana prohibition. The Drug Enforcement Agency estimates that 60 percent of the cartels' profits come from marijuana, a plant that more than one-half of Americans have consumed at some point in their lives. Regulating the multibillion-dollar marijuana market would significantly diminish the power of the cartels.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 05:36 |
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Bush White House Faith Based Director say legalize medical marijuana and more |
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Written by Robert Ryan
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Wednesday, 10 March 2010 14:29 |
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John J. Dilulio Jr., former director of President George W. Bush's White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and the co-author with Bill Bennett and John Walters of the book "Body Count: Moral Poverty...And How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs" has just come out in favor of medical marijuana and serious consideration of marijuana decriminalization and to repeal mandatory minimum drug sentencing.
Fifth, repeal all federal mandatory-minimum drug sentencing policies and rewrite federal laws to give states new financial incentives to use scarce prison space for violent adult offenders while speeding parole for drug-only offenders. I do not make this suggestion lightly. BJS data indicate that eight in ten prisoners confined in state and federal prisons have a prior conviction history and about two in three prisoners have a history of convictions for violence; that the average released prisoner has more than 15 prior arrests for serious offenses; and that a single year’s worth of prison releases accounts for about 8 percent of all murder arrests and 9 percent of all arrests for robbery. However, based on both BJS data and prisoner self-report surveys, it seems clear that most of the roughly 400,000 persons incarcerated as drug felons in state or federal prisons today are "drug-only felons" whose sole felony crimes (including ones for which they were never arrested) have been drug crimes involving no use or threat of violence and no major role as illegal drug manufacturers or distributors. At least 100,000 of these could be placed under intensive parole supervision (complete with mandated drug treatment where necessary) tomorrow with little or no adverse impact on crime rates. The financial savings would be more than sufficient to fund all of the foregoing proposals.
And he goes on to say legalizae medical marijuana
"....Sixth, legalize marijuana for medically prescribed uses, and seriously consider decriminalizing it altogether. Last year there were more than 800,000 marijuana-related arrests. The impact of these arrests on crime rates was likely close to zero. There is almost no scientific evidence showing that pot is more harmful to its users’ health, more of a "gateway drug," or more crime-causing in its effects than alcohol or other legal narcotic or mind-altering substances. Our post-2000 legal drug culture has untold millions of Americans, from the very young to the very old, consuming drugs in unprecedented and untested combinations and quantities. Prime-time commercial television is now a virtual medicine cabinet ("just ask your doctor if this drug is right for you"). Big pharmaceutical companies function as all-purpose drug pushers. And yet we expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging "war" against pot users. That is insane."
For the rest of the story see the full article in Democracy A Journal of Ideas |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 14:41 |
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Cops break ranks about marijuana |
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Written by Rob Ryan
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Monday, 15 February 2010 21:00 |
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From an article in Police magazine that asked police officers across the country about their thoughts on Marijuana. Here is the highlights.
- FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT OF AMERICAN COPS FAVOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA!
- ONE OUT OF THREE COPS SAYS BUSTING POT SMOKERS IS A WASTE!
- ONE OUT OF FOUR COPS SAYS MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED!
Article Reference
POLICE MAGAZINE June 2009/Volume 33, Number 6
Is this Drug War LOST? Is it Still Worth Fighting?
By DAVID GRIFFITH, Police Magazine June 2009
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Last Updated on Saturday, 20 February 2010 14:32 |
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Latin American Presdents say "Prohibition Has Failed" |
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Written by Phil Smith, DRCNET
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Friday, 26 February 2010 22:48 |
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On February 22 & 23rd Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City, political figures, academics, social scientists, security experts, and activists from at least six countries came together for the Winds of Change: Drug Policy in the World conference sponsored by the Mexico City-based Collective for an Integrated Drug Policy (CUPHID). Coming as Mexico's war on drugs turns bloodier by the day, the conference unsurprisingly concluded that current prohibitionist policies are a disaster.
"The principal conclusion is that we need a more integrated drug policy based on prevention, scientific evidence, and full respect for human rights," summarized CUPHID president Jorge Hernandez Tinajero. "It remains clear that, yes, there exist alternatives to the current strategy."
In a press release after the conference, CUPHID emphasized the following points:
* The so-called war on drugs has failed and, without doubt, we need "winds of change" to advance toward alternative policies to address the problematic of drugs across the globe.
* The prohibitionist paradigm has been ineffective, and furthermore, for the majority of countries it has implied grave violations of human rights and individual guarantees, discrimination, and social exclusion, as well as an escalation of violence that grows day by day, ever broadening the scope of impunity for organized crime.
* Drugs are never going to disappear. Thus, a more realistic drug policy should focus on minimizing the harms associated with drug use -- overdoses, blood-borne diseases like HIV/AIDS, and violence. This concept is known as "harm reduction," and must be the backbone of any drug policy.
The conference opened Monday morning by putting its star power on display. In its opening session, former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, who, as a member of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy coauthored a report a year ago with former Brazilian President Henrique Cardoso and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo denouncing drug prohibition as a failed policy, returned to the theme. Noting that as president of Colombia in the 1990s, he had been a firm supporter of prohibition, Gaviria said he had changed his tune.
"With the passing of time, prohibitionism, in which I believed, has demonstrated itself a failure," he told an attentive crowd jammed into a conference room of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in upscale Colonia Napoles. The attendant human rights abuses were a big reason why, he said.
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Last Updated on Sunday, 02 May 2010 08:21 |
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El Paso passes Drug War Resolution Again! |
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Written by Tom Angel
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Tuesday, 09 February 2010 18:41 |
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The El Paso City Council considered a resolution today calling for the legalization of marijuana as way to strip Mexican drug cartels of the rich profits they make from the illegal market.
Unfortunately the resolution failed when Mayor John Cook broke a 4-4 tie and voted against. However, the council then amended the resolution to take out the marijuana legalization language and passed it as amended. The amended resolution still says the council calls for a "comprehensive re-examination of our country's failed War on Drugs and...support[s] initiatives that do not result in wasting government funds and empowering criminal gangs and trafficking organizations."
This is particularly noteworthy considering that previously, the El Paso City Council set off a nationwide debate on the merits of legalization in January 2009 when it unanimously passed a resolution that merely called for serious consideration of ending prohibition as one possible option. Mayor Cook vetoed that resolution and the council refrained from overriding the veto only after receiving threats from Congressman Silvestre Reyes that the city would lose federal stimulus money if it insisted on supporting a discussion of the merits of legalization.
It remains to be seen if the mayor will veto today's amended resolution, or if the council will get pressure from Congress.
(See video of former federal agent Richard Newton testimony at El Paso hearing on Youtube)
The original draft of the resolution that explicitly calls for the legalization of marijuana can be viewed at
http://www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/agenda/02-09-10/02091011A.pdf |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 28 February 2010 14:55 |
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