IS THE WAR ON DRUGS WORKING?

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Reodor_Felgen, please tell me you got your avatar from a t-shirt site because seriously, I need to buy a few .

^what he said.

No. I have never even tried an illegal drug. But I oppose a war in which Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan supply the dead bodies while American arms dealers are raking in the cash (fact: nearly a 100% of arms used by Mexican drug cartels are imported from the US). Mexico and Colombia at least sometimes imprison a drug baron - which the US never does (only two-bit dealers, not the billionaire drug lords - does anyone seriously believe, given that the US is the world's largest market for illegal drugs, that there are no American billionaire drug lords? Does anyone believe it's merely DEA incompetence why they don't get arrested? Or could it be that the authorities prefer to turn a blind eye, perhaps to avoid street violence on the levels the US has imposed on other countries?). More Mexicans die in drug-related violence than Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan put together (and not just gunmen, also civilians), and as long as these cartels are awash with US cash and US guns (a situation made possible, and indeed inevitable, by the US war on drugs), that violence isn't going away (given that a drug-funded Taliban is increasingly able to take on NATO and the Afghan government and Pakistan, what chance does Mexico stand?) Drugs ruin lives? So do alcohol and tobacco; someone in my family died of cirrhosis in his 20s, leaving a destitute wife and children behind; yet I believe alcohol should be legal. The war on drugs is ruining entire countries; to have a policy that is creating a failed state just south of your border is astonishingly stupid.*
The war on drugs is a real war, just not for Americans and Europeans (fact: some drug cartels even have submarines).


*The media peddles the image of a tough Mexican government cracking down hard on the cartels. The truth is that the cartels have assassinated Mexico's equivalent of the head of the FBI; they have assassinated not just policemen, but police chiefs; they have beheaded police and put signs next to the heads with a sign saying 'so that you will learn to respect'; the entire police force of some towns has resigned after death threats from cartels. It is rumoured there have been assassination attempts against top generals, and that the governors in the most affected states sleep in military barracks due to safety concerns. The cartels are clearly not afraid of the police or the military; increasingly they are not afraid of the US either.

Last edited by pbcoll on 14 Oct 2008, 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You can buy t-shirts like this on Che Mart.