Washington Post: California’s Prop 19, on legalizing marijuana, could end Mexico’s drug war by Héctor Aguilar CamÃn and Jorge G. Castañeda
Perspective from Mexico that packs a wallop.
Proposition 19 changes this calculation. For Mexico, California is almost the whole enchilada: Our overall trade with the largest state of the union is huge, an immense number of Californians are of Mexican origin, and an enormous proportion of American visitors to Mexico come from California. Passage of Prop 19 would therefore flip the terms of the debate about drug policy: If California legalizes marijuana, will it be viable for our country to continue hunting down drug lords in Tijuana? Will Wild West-style shootouts to stop Mexican cannabis from crossing the border make any sense when, just over that border, the local 7-Eleven sells pot?
The prospect of California legalizing marijuana coincides with an increasingly animated debate about legalization in Mexico. […]
In addition, legalizing marijuana would free up both human and financial resources for Mexico to push back against the scourges that are often, if not always correctly, attributed to drug traffickers and that constitute Mexicans’ real bane: kidnapping, extortion, vehicle theft, home assaults, highway robbery and gunfights between gangs that leave far too many innocent bystanders dead and wounded. Before Mexico’s current war on drugs started, in late 2006, the country’s crime rate was low and dropping. Freed from the demands of the war on drugs, Mexico could return its energies to again reducing violent crime. […]
Our president will be able to say to yours: “We have paid an enormous price for a war that a majority of the citizens of your most populous and trend-setting state reject. Why don’t we work together, producer and consumer nations alike, to draw a road map leading us away from the equivalent of Prohibition, before we all regret our short-sightedness?”
Copies of this article’s headline with excerpts should probably be heavily distributed in California.
A great, common sense arguement.
If common sense had anything at all to do with prohibition, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Its coming folk. For those of you who already know (legalizers), and those of you who would shun common sense(prohibitionist). Its coming with a great sense of relief on our side, with hatered and distain on thier side.
As darkcycle stated:
“A great, common sense arguement.
If common sense had anything at all to do with prohibition, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
*disdain*
Fat fingers 😐
The natives I talk to while at coffee indicates that they believe that the turning point is the California election. It’s becoming the topic of the day when we meet. Their concensus is that California is all it’ll take for Calderon to actively start the discussion here. With the national decrim law here now, it wouldn’t be much of a leap to go the distance. Hardly even a full step.
well now… all that beating with hammers and the wall is truly showing stress. As a once upon a time member of the “young miners” of Opal Creek I most certainly can operate a rock drill. And I can figure out most heavy equipment operation. As much of a Luddite as I am I still love the power of big machinery… *cough* so I’d sure like to see the names in dpr throw their best shots, including the prohibs being best buds w/ the cartels.
Why is it again that capitalism is good for everything but cannabis?
Aah, the wicked witch of the west, the queen of hyperbole… our gal Linda T!… has weighed in over at the Hive ( http://thehive.modbee.com/node/21128 ):
Talk about desperate… and delusional…
Allan, that is the recipe of the prohibitionist: take (or create) a straw man, combine with an irrational fear, and make sure to promulgate that irrational fear to people with weak minds. Now stir in some deliberate disinformation and lies, then identify each and every one of your critics as “one of them”. Add more fear and whip ’till frothy. Now let it sit in the cupboard at a room temperature I.Q. ’till it’s nice and moldy. Take out on election day. Serve tepid.
Aah, the wicked witch of the west, the queen of hyperbole… our gal Linda T!… has weighed in over at the Hive ( http://thehive.modbee.com/node/21128 ):
“If you don’t think one of the legalizers posting under my blog wouldn’t sell marijuana to your child if the opportunity arose, you would be sadly mistaken.â€
Ah poor Linda. It dont take a legalizer for a kid to get cannabis, just prohibs to just keep it illegal so the cartels can get it sold to them. In a legal ID checking setting this would happen much less.
Sunil Dutta, Ph.D, is a lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department. These are solely Dutta’s personal opinions.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/05/3004719/its-time-to-pull-the-plug-on-the.html
Great article! And if Mexico would take that massive step and legalize all drugs the illegals here could go home and become profitable business owners.
@darkcycle — that’s precisely why prop 19 *may* fail in november. people don’t vote with their brains
@Brian: but to me it seems most of these arguments are a re-tread from 1996 for Prop 215. People didn’t buy the BS then, and since then, the science has progressed`, as well as people who know from personal experience that the prohib line is BS.
I’ve always thought the best shield to the ‘children’ sword was ‘Street Dealers don’t ask for ID, existing dispensaries do.’
@tim — while i remain cautiously optimistic about prop 19, i’m afraid that all of the exact same arguments have been being made since the 70s
that was when we were all singing and dancing in the streets, convinced that the wall was able to come tumbling down — and that it was california that would be leading the way.
the common sense, reason, and even the data have always pointed to the inescapable conclusion that the drug war is wrong, that the drugs aren’t really all that bad, and that not many people will ever even use heroin, let alone become addicted to it.
yet, here we are, riding the same idiot merry-go-round.
i wish logic was the basis for all decision making, but it is not.
as to “the children” (and our counter arguments about them) — there is plenty of underage drinking going on even though they can’t buy it themselves. a couple of one-liners is simply not enough to overpower a lifetime of lies.
meanwhile, people seem to forget that it has been completely legal to grow and smoke pot in your own home in alaska since the mid-70s
it seems that the dominoes should have all fallen long ago.