Obama reaffirms U.S. support of embattled Mexican President after closed door meeting
Despite pressure from protest groups in both the United States and Mexico, it appears that nothing much will change in terms of Washington’s anti-drug support to its southern neighbor following a meeting between President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart, Enrique Peña Nieto. […]
“Our commitment is to be a friend and supporter of Mexico in its efforts to eliminate the scourge of violence and the drug cartels that are responsible for much of the tragedy inside of Mexico,†Obama said. “We want to be a good partner in that process while recognizing that ultimately it will be up to Mexico and its law enforcement to carry the key decisions that need to be made.â€
The U.S. has to date provided $2.1 billion to Mexico to combat drug trafficking in the country under the Mérida Initiative – which is pejoratively known as “Plan Mexico.” While the Initiative is loosely modeled after a similar effort in Colombia, many critics claim that it is doing more harm than good – citing as evidence the widespread corruption in Mexico’s civil police forces and a soaring murder rate since its implementation.
Hey, why change your approach when you’ve got one that’s failed so spectacularly for so many years?
Failed?
There is no such thing as a persistent, failed policy. The status quo has a powerful constituency in whoever stands to benefit more than they would by reform.
I’m sure Mexico’s police don’t consider it a failure, nor, it seems, do Obama and Peña Nieto.
We’re just starting to prevail on the state level. I don’t think we’re organized and motivated enough to compete with national and international interests yet.
Hit the nail on the head, Mr Frijoles.
.
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IMO we don’t have any need to put our efforts into changing Federal policy and even less need to worry about international “law.”
In the U.S. the Federal government is not a stand alone entity, it is the sum of its parts. Those parts are almost exclusively States. We saw Congress forbid the DoJ from spending any money to enforce Federal law against State legal medicinal cannabis interests. There’s no doubt that it’s a landmark event. But we’ve been seeing various efforts to get Congress to adopt that sort of restriction but it never went very far until 2014. So what was different? If we include the States which have implemented CBD only medicinal cannabis patient protection laws there is now a supermajority of States with medicinal cannabis patient protection laws. That number went from minority to supermajority in less than a year.
I can hear my friends who understand the subject tut tutting me, “what good is a CBD only law?” From a human medicine point of view it probably belongs in the “better than a sharp stick in the eye” category. But try to look at it from the POV of outsiders, and in particular those who are lawmakers. These are people who are uneducated in the reality of exo-cannabinoid medicines at least, completely suckered by propaganda at worst. Simply put these people are clueless of the difference. If they can’t see any difference then their States are now States with “medical marijuana” laws. So now they have some skin in the game.
International law is even easier, because prohibition is by an large the bastard progeny of the United States. If we tell the rest of the world that we’ve changed our minds, will as many as 10 foreign countries even care? I doubt that there’s any way in heck that there will be as many as 20. All of that’s just my opinion based on personal observation.
Here’s a little bit of supporting evidence: When Congress first started debating the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 46 of 48 States had already criminalized cannabis for enjoyment. 31 of 48 States had criminalized drink alcohol as a recreational drug before the National Prohibition Act of 1919 was codified. When the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 was being debated there were 46 of 48 States which had criminalized recreational use of cocaine and 29 of 48 which had criminalized the recreational use of heroin. The States lead and the Feds follow. That’s been the tradition in the US since day 1.
because of dravet’s syndrome being one of the conditions helped by cannabis, and the innocence of the children that it strikes, people are begining to see the fraudulent nature of prohibition. when a small child is helped as dramaticly as charlotte figi, that changes a lot of minds.
As I understand it, the use of alcohol was not an unlawful act during “prohibition”. Only the commercial manufacture, distribution and sale. This is the big misconception about todays “drug” laws. The user was not criminalised during alcohol prohibition. It would not have been even considered for obvious reasons. But it happens today to minorities, those who use drugs other than alcohol, tobacco and caffeine. So they may be used to populate prisons and keep a lot of people in jobs.
Mexico’s drug war effort is a failure for those who suffer from it the most. Its victims include all Mexican citizens, expats, and tourists who are forced to deal with the government crime and corruption Mexico’s drug war engenders.
Overall, the country is a failed narcostate relying on drug exports to preserve its economic stability. The only other thing Mexico had going for it economically were its oil exports, a doomed commodity that recently underwent a major price plunge. Twenty-five percent or more of Mexico’s farmland is no longer arable because of excessive salt deposition in the soil due to non-eco-friendly irrigation methods.
Oil prices and President Nieto’s efforts to privatize Mexico’s natural resources, while simultaneously attempting to introduce Reaganomics to Mexico’s indigenous people such that it forces them to relocate to urban areas, means a drug war is necessary to distract and oppress the population while filling the pockets of corrupt public officials. The Mérida Initiative isn’t an attempt to end the power and influence of drug cartels—it’s an attempt to preserve them. The Initiative gives ignorant North Americans the impression that something legitimate is being done to address Mexico’s problems.
OT (to this post)…
this is another of those head shakers… sometimes people really do need to just STFU:
https://calibrepress.com/2015/01/dear-radley-balko-blogger-hard/
so far the comments are raising welts on Lt Glennon’s ego
In fact, not one single even remotely sympathetic or supportive comment!
Anyone get a screenshot of those comments? They appear to have been deleted, and the comments closed. Ironically, below where it says “comments closed” and “0 comments”, it says “be the first to comment.” Believe me, I’d love to.
So anyone who has not been a cop can’t criticize cops. And similarly, don’t even think about complaining about your food in a restaurant, unless you have worked as a fry cook.
they didn’t read their Kleiman/Sabet online blog tutorial before posting…
Dang, some of those comments were good too. Especially the one by the former DC SWAT member.
If you can’t take the heat, get out of the f’n kitchen.
In this present year, whatever number that happens to be, I think the majority of online readers are well aware what it means when the comments are disabled under an article or opinion piece. It means “we just told you the entire truth, so we don’t hardly need to hear what any of you peasants might say in response.” This obviously one-sided reporting will hold little sway with today’s largely younger online crowd, who are savvy about social networks and online info.
Has anyone worked out how much each person killed in Mexico cost for that $2.1 billion???
It doesn’t sound very cost efficient,,there must be a cheaper way to kill people to prove we are winning,,even though we have failed miserably at stopping ANY drugs.
The USA cannot outspend the tremendous profit potential from the drugs we have outlawed. Fighting drugs by making them incredibly profitable (by outlawing them) is a study in futility. The harder we make it, the more profitable the drugs become. What makes the government of the USA think it can rewrite the rules of simple arithmetic and economics 101?
These drug war policies do not represent the best interests of the people of the United States and Mexico. Neither do the politicians that allow them to ignorantly continue as they are.
OT: Remember those (idiot) Attorneys General of Oklahoma and Nebraska who sued Colorado over re-legalizing?
From the WaPo, it seems seven Oklahoma Republicans don’t want state to sue Colorado over legalized pot
from the article:
“In the suit, Pruitt said Colorado’s legalization of recreational marijuana injured the ability of Oklahoma and other bordering states to enforce their marijuana laws and violates the supremacy clause of the Constitution giving federal law precedence over state ones.
But the group of Republicans think if the lawsuit was successful at the Supreme Court, it could “undermine all of those efforts to protect our own state’s right to govern itself.â€
“We think the best move at this point would be to quietly drop the action against Colorado, and if necessary, defend the state’s right to set its own policies, as we would hope other states would defend our right to govern ourselves within constitutional confines,†the letter reads. “We also do not feel that attempting to undermine the sovereignty of a neighboring state using the federal courts, even if inadvertently, is a wise use of Oklahoma’s limited state resources.â€
And pissing off the majority of your own State-with-a-capital-‘S’s electorate isn’t a good idea either, buddy.
How much will this suit cost the taxpayers of Nebraska and Oklahoma? Obviously, more than what it’s worth to them…who get nothing but an endless vacuuming of hard-earned tax dollars sucked down a fiscal black hole marked ‘drug prohibition’, never to be seen again.
With the ‘tall grass’ political cover of an ignorant electorate that backed prohibition dying off, it’s getting harder and harder to conceal the real, mercenary motives behind those who continue to loudly support prohibition.
Those lawsuits are just more evidence of this fact, as the entire scope of them had to do with restitution of agents and their agencies, not public safety. All their faux moral outrage can’t conceal their money-grubbing.
Your video link is down kaptin
Try this one.
For the same reasons more or less, there seems to be no logic in democrats waging Nixon’s war. There is also no logic in keeping Hemp banned from Mexico. A staple for the poor. Homes, clothing, food, fuel and a natural to plant with corn to eliminate the poison pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. Hemp is a deterrent and its roots aerate the soil producing natural fertilizer. In spite of the gossip queens, no one trying to grow pot is going to hide it in a hemp field due to pollination. By the same measure no so called cartels would grow it near a hemp field either. What better way to slow down illegal immigration? Why would they risk their lives coming here to work for peanuts if they could grow their own needs and sell products from things made with what they grew? Cartels could go legit with the Ganja, curtailing the corruption and violence. Prohibitionists know they don’t have a leg to stand on but continue fear mongering. But Hemp has no psychoactive properties or does it make up statistics for the DEA eradicating wild ditch weed in Mexico. So this seems like a win win win. Like democrats and republicans rejecting common sense prostituting themselves to the mulinational Neocons. Obama could have earned than Nobel prize but it seems he is beholding more to his masters. Mexicans should inform themselves of this potential for making life a little nicer.
Hemp Technologies Global
Hempcrete is a mixture of hemp hurds (shives) and lime (possibly including natural hydraulic lime, sand, pozzolans or cement) used as a material for construction and insulation. It is marketed under names like Hempcrete, Canobiote, Canosmose, and Isochanvre. Hempcrete is easier to work with than traditional lime mixes and acts as an insulator and moisture regulator. It lacks the brittleness of concrete and consequently does not need expansion joints.
The History of Cannabis in Canada –
Part 4: Hemp Farmers Struggle Against Extinction
The hemp fiber is an ideal fabrication for making hemp clothing because of its high cellulose content. Its anti-microbial properties kills bacteria and fungus,
Bombay Hemp Company: using industrial hemp for food, clothing and shelter
The anti choice mostly prohibitionists hypocrites first bill out of the new session was to bash more women. When the cotton crop takes 90 million pounds of abortion causing poisons not used on Hemp. Pro Life My Ass!
Chemical Cotton vs Organic Hemp
These are local jobs bypassing Neocon Walmartians
High on Hemp
Hemplastic or Fossil Fools Crud
You might like to ask the ten thousand employees of the DEA, the casinos who launder the money, the US industry and the employees that benefit from the money (subsidies) to fight “the drug War” (arms manufacturers etc), the officials in Mexico getting payed off by cartels, prison proprietors and employees in Mexico and the US etc etc etc whether there is any logic in the current laws. I would suggest they would not want a change. The War on Drugs is NOT, I repeat, NOT about any particular drug. It is about the massive tax-free contrived economy that it creates.
Pete, I often see comments such as this, ie that the War on Drugs has failed. The fact is that it is not a failure, it is a spectacular success. Certainly, since Nixon, it never was about reducing or eliminating “drug” use (drugs other than alcohol, tobacco and caffeine), it is a massive contrived economy reliant on the very drugs it falsely says it is trying to eliminate. I would like to know how much of the money given to Mexico goes straight to buying goods from US industry, especially arms manufacturers. It is amongst other things a way of subsidising US industry and therefore profits and jobs. The Drug War is not a drug war, it is simply a contrived economy with a host of beneficiaries such as prison, police and DEA jobs, anyone who supplies the preceding entities, casinos (money laundering), banks, the list goes on. And it is all based on a human rights abuse: executing (in some countries), fining, imprisoning and otherwise persecuting people who happen to use or supply a drug that happens to be other than alcohol, tobacco or caffeine. Simply, the oppression of minority groups. This is why the two most dangerous drugs in existence are not controlled, purely because they are used by the people carrying out the human rights abuse, eg the “state” and a large proportion of society. The US government is not “throwing money at it”, it is from their perspective a direct subsidy of (largely) their domestic economy. It is needed from their perspective also because basically capitalism does not work (other than for the capitalists), it only ever employs the minimum number of people necessary to maximize profits. So therefore subsidies are needed to maximize employment.
Pingback: Failure is Success? | Spirit Wave
Throw more money at it…
US Govt Buys PDAs to Prevent an Insurgence of Young Stoners
http://shar.es/1HQYEK Déjà vu all over again…
IS THE DRUG CZAR SKIRTING THE LAW?
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/575
Now McCaffreys office is in more hot water. Insight has discovered that ONDCP manipulated data in a formal report to deceive Congress, a likely violation of federal law. The move concealed from congressional budget makers the shortcomings of ONDCPs $195 million per year media campaign to promote antidrug awareness. The campaign is the only program ONDCP directly manages.
General McCaffrey is the President of BR McCaffrey Associates LLC (a private consulting firm). He is also a member of the boards of McNeil Technologies Inc. (our partner in Global Linguist Services LLC), Global Linguist Services LLC and several other private companies. On July 7, 2010, effective immediately after the completion of the Merger Barry R. McCaffrey resigned from their respective positions with DynCorp International.
Congress Recommends $145 Million For Drug Office
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/424
The conference committee required 78% of the new money go toward actual media buying. WPP Group’s Ogilvy & Mather, New York, handles the campaign, while the Partnership for a Drug-Free America produces most of the advertising.
The Assassins of Youth: DARE †FRCn PDFA
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/505
As I understand it, the use of alcohol was not an unlawful act during prohibition.
They were never busted, but the reasons for speak easy’s was that it was technically outlawed. Probably enforced as much as Friday night poker games. Manufacturing and trafficking was what the revenuers went after. It wiped out Fords dreams of Biomass engines like the farmers ran before prohibition but not during or after. They were subsidized to buy cheaper crude oil products. Prohibition is the products sold. Outlaw carrots and bust the orange people addicted to them.
The Politics of Pot
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/282
MAPLE SUGAR HASHISH CANDY
GANJA WALLAH HASHEESH CANDY CO.
http://www.electricemperor.com/eecdrom/HTML/EMP/12/ECH12_03.HTM#candy
Al Capone and Watergate
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/422
Why Do YOU Think They Call it DOPE?
http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1175
drug use is a job that is in vain that the financial damage
At the risk of stating the obvious, the situation in Mexico and elsewhere concerning drugs other than alcohol, tobacco and caffeine is entirely of America’s making and entirely perpetuated by America. It is indeed bone-chilling to ponder the horror that is deceptively called the “War on Drugs”. Regardless of the deceptive words of Obama, the administration of America cares nothing for the people who are victims of this thinly veiled human rights abuse. The people that are murdered in Mexico and the thousands in prisons worldwide: they are merely statistics in an entirely preventable holocaust designed and maintained by America for its own benefit. If you are American and you vote Republican or Democrat, please be aware that you are complicit in murder and various other forms of oppression.