Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Drug Decriminalization in Mexico and US #FastandFurious #DrugWar

This is a good plan. Prohibition clearly did not succeed and the US and Mexican War on Drugs is not succeeding either. Legalize it. Tax it and stop enforcement. This will free up so much money for the state and federal governments of Mexico and the US. It will also reduce the overcrowded prison burden, and lower government spending - because that costs money too.

Clipped from www.cato.org

Mexico's Failed Drug War

by Jorge Castañeda
What is going on with Mexico's drug war? Why are we in our current mess, and what are the possibilities of getting out of it in any reasonable time frame?
We are in this mess today, as opposed to over the last 40 or 50 years, because when the current president, Felipe Calderón, took office over three years ago, he felt that he had no choice but to declare a full-fledged, no-holds-barred war on drugs. He declared this war after a three-month transition period, which was very rocky because of the controversy surrounding the elections. And he declared this war because he had the impression that it was as if a patient had come to him and said, "I have a stomachache." Thinking it was a problem of appendicitis, he opened the patient up and found that the entire abdominal cavity was invaded by cancer. He had no option other than to go in with everything he had to fix it. This was the country Calderón said he found. He had to declare a war on drugs because the drug cartels had reached a level of power, wealth, violence, and penetration of the state that made the situation untenable.
Read more at www.cato.org

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