Michael Rass

Michael Rass

Michael Rass is the web producer for The World.

  • |
  • ALL POSTS

Are you concerned about the drug war in Mexico?

June 9, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Mexico’s drug cartels are stepping up the violence. Recently senior police officers, members of their families and a judge have been assassinated in broad daylight. Do you fear this might spill over into the United States? What should Washington do about it?

Discussion

15 comments for “Are you concerned about the drug war in Mexico?”

  • Truth Be Told

    Violence is a result of prohibition not drug use and addiction. I do not support any war on drugs and think the drug war is the problem.

    Just end the war. It is similar to the crime caused by prohibition.
    The drug war is what concerns me, not that there are people who use drugs but their are those who feel they have the moral authority to ruin others lives who choose to use a drug.

    • Michael

      I agree, it is obvious people are going to use, just as they smoke and drink. With education on how do do things in moderation and treating addiction as a medical condition and not a crime, we could tax and regulate all substances people want to partake in. This would end a win-less war and move this behavior out of the hands of criminals and cartels, gangs, and such. Just think of the prisons we could close.

  • eristemi

    lets take a purely pragmatic approach: if there is demand for a product, someone WILL fill it. lets focus our efforts in educating our children, reducing the demand. the drug war in mexico has been going on in this country for decades…. its only just become a REAL problem in mexico in the past few years. what does that tell us? are we trying to fix the problem the wrong way? dont get me wrong, dealers should go to jail for extended periods of time but they would cease to exist if there was no market for their products….

  • mayer99

    I feel that this war against the drug cartels is fiercefully being fought in Mexico with great success. As the slide show reports, after the occupation in Afghanistan the production of opium has shifted to different parts of the world including Mexico. It is important and to the US advantage to form the necessary alliances currently underway between President Calderon’s government and the US administration to keep the violence produced by the powerful drug cartels out of this country. Being that Mexico is practically a filter for drugs produced all over the world and in Mexico, it is of outmost importance to keep a unified front against these violent groups. I don’t necessarily share the idea that drugs should be legalized in order for society to deal with this problem, but do think that we should fight this war beyond our borders and not allow this to disrupt the way of life in this country and add to the already realm of issues already facing us today.

  • frankosandiego

    I worry about it. I live in San Diego CA and I can no longer feel safe at night while pub crawling in Tijuana. The Zona Roja used to rock like the Las Vegas strip: 24/7, just a few years ago.

    What to do about it? It seems obvious to me as US traveler that the US drug laws themselves have created the prerequiste social setting for the violent physics as we see happening in Mexico. By applying the wrong laws to drug use in the US the government itself has recreated the 1920s-style prohibition gang wars. Only now, the money, power and violence seem much greater, wider and deeper.

    Instead of doing the same thing over and over again in the USA why not decriminalize, regulate and control “drugs”? By making them illegal and imposing judicial punishment the law appears to drive the activities underground where they cannot be controlled. This is how and where crime reportedly attends drug use and drug use spawns criminality. To control something like drug use requires that it’s use be visable.

    To my thinking, the Dutch have the right idea. To me, they are wise government and that is probably because they have been around alot longer than the USA. They are a pragmatic and cost-sensible government who know what works to fight dangerous hard-drug use and drug-related criminality. The USA should pay immeadiate attention to that model. A dramatic move to legalization and true control is required. Typical rules of commerce should be applied in place of more police and harsher measures.

    I think the USA has created and listened to their own propaganda for so long – and created laws based on propaganda – that irrationality and more of the legal status quo is all they can imagine.

    This intolerable situation in Mexico, for me, recalls Shakesperian wisdom:

    “Desperate means
    by desperate appliance are undone,
    or, not at all.”

    Hamlet

  • Drake01

    Yes I am concerned about the drug war in Mexico.
    Personally, I believe we need to send in our Special Operations Forces. I.E, U.S Navy SEAL teams along with DEVGRU (Devlopment Group), U.S Army Special Forces(Green Berets) along with C.A.G (Combat Applications Group) and we need to send in a couple of Ranger chalks.
    If we were to do this we as whole, Mexico and the U.S, we would completely destroy or eliminate the Narco terrorist or known as drug cartels.

  • StarLunardi

    Yes, very concerned. I do not understand the lack of public outcry. Do you or those you
    know still use durgs? Oh, you’re not a druggie…you just use it once in awhile…wrong! You are the cause of death and destruction in Mexico and elsewhere.
    Why do we not hear this twist to the “war on drugs”. So called “Drug Lords” cannot sell drugs to those who do not purchase them.

    • yankee2

      Ignorance of the first order! Do we not (supposedly) believe in a free market? Should we not have a right to buy what we want, so long as nobody is harmed? What gives the government a right to prohibit an argueably harmless substance that which many people so clearly want? And at what cost? Most “drug crimes” are completely victimless, except when a user or dealer is seized and prosecuted by the state.

      How many OTHER felonies involve acts without victims? How many other “crimes” do no objective harm whatsoever? Even civil law requires more justification than drug criminal law.

      When governments go to war over oil, is it the users who are responsible for the violence? Are YOU responsible for the Gulf and Iraq wars, just because you use oil? If these drugs were legal, there would be no violence associated with them. Like I’ve said so many times before, the violence is not over drugs, it’s over money, and those huge amounts of illegal money are specifically created by prohibition.

      Before prohibition, “drug-related” violence was rare; since prohibition, it has become common. Eliminate prohibition, and most so-called “drug related” ills will instantly vanish. When prohibition ends, so will the violence.

  • aomabati

    No, to solve it, let’s legalize drugs. Save the bazillions of dollars and pay down our national debt.

  • Phil M

    The longer the United States waits to move from prohibitionist drug policy to regulatory drug policy, the more Mexicans will die because of the black market our policy of prohibition creates.

  • yankee2

    I hope that the drug war in Mexico finally drives governments to end this awful, bloody war against drugs. Most of these drugs are benign compared with alcohol or tobacco. The drugs themselves are of little consequence – it is huge amounts of easy money that is fought over.

    It is prohibition that puts all this money in the hands of criminals, that in fact, together with grinding poverty, which creates the violence. The drugs themselves (referring to non-addictive drugs), by comparison, cause relatively little harm. That goes double for marijuana, which is responsible for some 60-70% of all drug revenues.

    We must not listen to the drug warriors, which includes people at many levels. Their primary concern is their jobs. They are unwilling to consider any solutions, however practical and just, which might cost them those jobs.

    The only true solution to the drug war, which will instantly eliminate most violence and deprive organized crime of billion dollar profits, is to legalize some drugs, especially marijuana.

  • yankee2

    You bet I’m concerned over the Drug War in Mexico, however, the authorities could obviously not care less. They seem to be getting what they want out of the sick, twisted equation that is THEIR drug war. The fact of the matter is that they, the legal authorities as well as the drug lords, are making war, and money, hand-over-fist, over nothing more than an arguably better personal choice. Mostly we’re talking about marijuana, which is demonstrably far less harmful than any legal alternative, yet the state makes bloody war over it!

    That by itself should be a clue to ulterior motives on the part of prohibitionists.

    The fact is, many and even most of the drugs in question are relatively harmless when used in moderation by adults. Alcohol is the most dangerous drug of all (perhaps with a few exceptions). It is absurd to prohibit the least harmful (and most interesting) drugs, and even mount full-scale war, while the most harmful one of all remains legal.

    Like our prison system itself, the Drug War has become a self-fullfilling prophesy. So many private interests are now involved, all of which defend their activities vigorously, yet it is clear that only one factor really matters to them – that they continue to get paid. They all live in tiny sub-cultures where the merest hint of a suggestion that the drug war may be unwise earns nothing but scorn – because their jobs might be lost!

    Those jobs SHOULD be lost, because for trhe most part, they attempt to solve problems which for the most part – don’t really exist.

  • http://duncantonatiuh.wordpress.com/ Duncan Tonatiuh

    In Mexico there is a saying “so far from God and so close to the US,” and in the case of the drug war, the saying is more than accurate. The US is the largest exporter of weapons and the largest consumer of drugs.

    http://duncantonatiuh.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/silver-or-lead-the-drug-war-in-mexico/

    That is not say that the Mexican government is exempt of responsibility for the current situation. Widespread corruption among Mexican officials has allowed the cartels to flourish and to have their present strength.

    But any realistic end to this war involves the US as much as it involves Mexico.

  • http://marijuana-doctor.com Legalize medical marijuana

    legalize medical marijuana, Doctors and nurses have seen that for many patients, cannabis is more useful, less toxic, and less expensive than the conventional medicines prescribed for diverse syndromes and symptoms, including multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, migraine headaches, severe nausea and vomiting, convulsive disorders, the AIDS wasting syndrome, chronic pain, and many others.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Markie-De/100001689354502 Markie De

    I  cant believe my society’s caviler attitude towards the media and the fabrications they report.
      I am LA born and raised with no education.  Not even H.S. and it’s no body’s fault but my own..
    For upwards of 30 sum years I have been an avid listener of  KCRW radio and before that KPFK..
    I found main stream radio to be absolutely intolerable many years ago.
    KCRW was the only radio station to have artistic integrity .
    So I figured my new’s would be less diluted . I would proudly tell any who would listen that PRI
    And NPR were my source of information. But with the development of the so-called Arab Spring?
    I found myself looking for more visual information so I wondered to Al-Jazeera via you-tube .
    Eventually I discovered  that there was someone running for President in 2012 who I vaguely  
    Remember ran back in 2008.  (RON PAUL) I was one of those people who wrote off the whole 
    Political process long time ago in my youth, because of  what I perceived to be voter fraud and 
    Large scale corruption.  And unheard of Candidate 08  candidate from Texas was just another 
    Ross Perot type nut job who probably was a raciest and not to be taken seriously. I did not know 
    Who Obama was either ? Other than some black senator with some kind of civil rights back 
    Ground.  I actually felt guilty before and after he won the election for my non-participation 
    In the whole process.   I did not think he could win, even though I really wanted him too
        Now it’s during this whole Arab spring media/social network event’s of 2011 that I find out 
    A few things about this Obscure under reported congressmen RON PAUL.  With no help from 
    KCRW PRI, or NPR I discover  I  like this man more and more 
       I  watching debates via Y-tube that I never would have know even took place? 
    By mid to late August 0f 2011 I am registering as a republican and donating money to the 
    Ron Paul  2012 campaign.   And I found myself loosing  respect for most main stream media 
    More and more as each day passed.  To me that was CNN, Fox. Msnbc,, Cbs. Abc ect.
      But I always stopped short of any criticism of my favorite station KCRW.
    I always felt guilty because I have not donated money or subscribed to the station in many  years.
    But these past few month’s I could not help but wonder why?  They have not informed me 
    More on the issues that concern this election?  I think it was early Feb of 2012 that I finally 
      Stopped making excuse’s for my station,  and am now convinced that there/your source
    Of new’s is almost as bias and just as guilty of participating in the information black out 
    Of Ron Paul, as the other networks…
    I was during there last subscription drive that I heard of the death of Deardra Odonahue. 
     I openly wept for several minutes, I had no  idea that the women who told me of 
    EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL and so many other bands had been gone for more than 10
    Years?  Because of my silence and self alienation? this wonderful women has left this world 
    Without ever knowing how much I loved her. I spent so much time talking to her spiritually 
    And thanking her for opening up my mind.  But somehow I always thought I would meet her 
    And be able to tell her personally ? I am so sorry for the talent that the world has lost and for 
      For me finding  out about it almost a decade after the fact.  Kcrw is still my only Radio 
    Station . But I cant over look the feelings I have about the new’s they report. 
      Primarily the Ron Paul new’s that they don’t  report will  alleviate any and all guilt 
    That I may feel  during there next subscription drive while  I donate nothing.
     I think all the media’s dis-regard for Ron Paul and the real numbers this man generates?
    Is bordering on levels almost criminal!  God Bless us all 
      Mark Lewis..   Markie De. On face book.  Aka   any shitt one word two t’s on you tube.
      
      March 14 2012