Hear, hear! In the Wall Street Journal:
Saving Mexico
To weaken the cartels, some argue the U.S. should legalize marijuana, let cocaine pass through the Caribbean and take the profit motive out of the drug trade
By DAVID LUHNOW
Mexico City
In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs," the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion.
A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government's war on drugs summed up recently what he's learned from his long career: "This war is not winnable."
Just last week, Mexican Navy Special Forces swarmed a luxury apartment tower in a central city and gunned down Arturo Beltrán Leyva, a drug trafficker whose organization helped smuggle several billion dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. during the past decade, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Within days of Mr. Beltrán Leyva's death, Mexican officials were already trying to guess which of his lieutenants would take his place. Almost no one expected the death of Mr. Beltrán Leyva to slow down the business of drug trafficking or the horrific drug-related violence in Mexico that has claimed around 15,000 lives in the past three years. On Monday, hit men gunned down several family members of a Mexican naval officer who had been killed in the Beltrán Leyva raid. Four people have been arrested in connection with the killing, though Mexican authorities say the hit men are still at large.
Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world's most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.
"Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana," said the top Mexican official matter-of-factly. The official said such a move would likely shift marijuana production entirely to places like California, where the drug can be grown more efficiently and closer to consumers. "Mexico's objective should be to make the U.S. self-sufficient in marijuana," he added with a grin.
Here's what I think:
Here in Oregon, a narcotics
Here in Oregon, a narcotics officer of 20 years said the local DA was not interested whether an OMMP patient 'grower' had more plants than he was legally allowed to grow. He also knows of two heroin dealers within a block of a daughter's hopefully soon to be ex-boyfriend who have been supplying the community for years. My daughter is now in prison after stepping down from heroin with meth, seeing an armed guard in a bank's parking lot and deciding to give a note robbing a bank and go to jail (actually prison for 2 yrs.) to get medical help getting off heroin. The only help for the poor is synthetic methadone, which she didn't want, or have the insurance or money for.
Her drug journey began after drinking good old beer, falling down on cement, and being given pain pills. When she was taken off of those after 7 years, she went to heroin. She felt 'herb' was natural, also, and laughed as her 'mom' asked her if she was 'arguing with the law'. Legal or not, drugs do not help adults to be 'available' or good examples of healthy, sane living to the next generation. I'm sure the 7 yr. old boyfriend's son shoved pizza during his daily menu of play and mainly television doesn't give a rat's ass for adults too obsessed with checking out than to be present for the myriad of things he needs to learn. I'm also sure the etchiness and natural self-absorption of withdrawal, non-working appliances and general filth of his home will not give him what he needs, either, to reproduce a positive environment for his own children.
Since our Corrections system, judges, courts, law enforcement, etc. seem to have a direct conflict of interest in arresting these two heroin dealers, and the boyfriend, known also for years as a dealer, as they provide continual job security, it is the tax payer that is the poor fool who gets to provide continual taxes and fees for this matrix of institution construction and maintenance, wage and retirement plans.
From the side of a landlord, the tenants with a stamped OMMP (Oregon Medical Marijuana Program) application giving the green light to grow without a completed approval process, (and no definition of resident or any oversight or accountability) who have been coached by their 'growers group' how to harass and manipulate landowners, and deny inspections of the grow area while destroying homes and property with mold, plumbing disintegration, and house fires from illegal wiring for lights, etc., make legalizing pot a bit more complicated than one person's right to 'relax', use this pain alternative, or to get stupid. Try viewing two burning logs up against a woodstove's glass door, and hear the pajama -wearing 'patient' playing video games say his glass broke at his former home, too. Insanity never was attractive to me. I hear they call it 'dope' for a reason. I would add they call it 'duped', for all involved.
Let's not give excuses for self indulgent behavior, be it legal or not, unless there is enough time in the world to be a mentor and model for our children, increase our chances of schizophrenia and paranoia, and find it humorous as we lose short term memory. Doesn't freedom have a price, and leadership a responsibility?
I've always had a problem with paying for someone else's 'exploration', my kids included. It's not that I don't support growth, but I believe in accountability. After raising 7 children alone, I would prefer they not come back home with mental or physical disabilities from choices and explorations made against my counsel, despite the fact that I love them. I would like permission to live my own life. For example, had my daughter asked me for help, perhaps I would not now be visiting the prison. In any case, I hope she chooses more productive explorations in the future. I believe in making our lives count.
One need not travel to China
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under prosecution of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery is being extradited to prison for selling seeds that American farmers use to reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Administration fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use, period. Drug juries exclude bleeding hearts.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen sacraments to mediate communion with their maker.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law allows that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.
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