U.S. Illegal Drugs, And The Affect Our Drug Dependency Has On Mexico
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 22nd, 2010
Like our need for the latest and greatest in technology, i.e., cell phones, computers etc., I feel we need to act as responsible citizens and be aware of how our personal ’wants’ ’affect’ the people that we share this planet with.
I have written at least 4 blog entries about the plight of women in the Congo. One of my writes was focused on cell phones, and simply said, “Basically every electronic device you support leads to the plight of the Congo women.” And yet, many of us continue to turn a blind eye, and continue to shop irresponsibly, snatching up every new product that Apple and other big tech companies push.
I am not writing about the Congo today, but something came across my plate, and it reminded me, once again that our dependency, our need, for something is causing distress to other people that we share this planet with. I am talking about drugs, illegal drugs.
It has been said that our US war on drugs has not met any of it’s goals.
MEXICO CITY — After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread. Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked.
John P. Walters, Kerlikowske’s predecessor disagrees:
Walters insists society would be far worse today if there had been no War on Drugs. Drug abuse peaked nationally in 1979 and, despite fluctuations, remains below those levels, he says. Judging the drug war is complicated: Records indicate marijuana and prescription drug abuse are climbing, while cocaine use is way down. Seizures are up, but so is availability.
Here’s a little history:
In 1970, hippies were smoking pot and dropping acid. Soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on heroin. Embattled President Richard M. Nixon seized on a new war he thought he could win.
“This nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people,” Nixon said as he signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The following year, he said: “Public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”
His first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it’s $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon’s amount even when adjusted for inflation.
Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:
_ $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico – and the violence along with it.
_ $33 billion in marketing “Just Say No”-style messages to America’s youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have “risen steadily” since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
_ $49 billion for law enforcement along America’s borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
_ $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.
_ $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.
At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse – “an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction” – cost the United States $215 billion a year.
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.
“Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use,” Miron said, “but it’s costing the public a fortune.”
Readers: What do you think. Is the war on drugs working? It’s obvious we have a drug problem in the US. And our use of it is causing deaths and disaster in Mexico:
From the beginning, lawmakers debated fiercely whether law enforcement – no matter how well funded and well trained – could ever defeat the drug problem.
Then-Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who had his doubts, has since watched his worst fears come to pass.
“Look what happened. It’s an ongoing tragedy that has cost us a trillion dollars. It has loaded our jails and it has destabilized countries like Mexico and Colombia,” he said.
In 1970, proponents said beefed-up law enforcement could effectively seal the southern U.S. border and stop drugs from coming in. Since then, the U.S. used patrols, checkpoints, sniffer dogs, cameras, motion detectors, heat sensors, drone aircraft – and even put up more than 1,000 miles of steel beam, concrete walls and heavy mesh stretching from California to Texas.
None of that has stopped the drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy says about 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin and 110 tons of methamphetamine are sold in the United States every year – almost all of it brought in across the borders. Even more marijuana is sold, but it’s hard to know how much of that is grown domestically, including vast fields run by Mexican drug cartels in U.S. national parks.
The dealers who are caught have overwhelmed justice systems in the United States and elsewhere. U.S. prosecutors declined to file charges in 7,482 drug cases last year, most because they simply didn’t have the time. That’s about one out of every four drug cases.
The United States has in recent years rounded up thousands of suspected associates of Mexican drug gangs, then turned some of the cases over to local prosecutors who can’t make the charges stick for lack of evidence. The suspects are then sometimes released, deported or acquitted. The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t even keep track of what happens to all of them.
In Mexico, traffickers exploit a broken justice system. Investigators often fail to collect convincing evidence – and are sometimes assassinated when they do. Confessions are beaten out of suspects by frustrated, underpaid police. Judges who no longer turn a blind eye to such abuse release the suspects in exasperation.
In prison, in the U.S. or Mexico, traffickers continue to operate, ordering assassinations and arranging distribution of their product even from solitary confinement in Texas and California. In Mexico, prisoners can sometimes even buy their way out.
The violence spans Mexico. In Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of drug violence in Mexico, 2,600 people were killed last year in cartel-related violence, making the city of 1 million across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, one of the world’s deadliest. Not a single person was prosecuted for homicide related to organized crime.
And then there’s the money.
The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet.
A full 10 percent of Mexico’s economy is built on drug proceeds – $25 billion smuggled in from the United States every year, of which 25 cents of each $100 smuggled is seized at the border. Thus there’s no incentive for the kind of financial reform that could tame the cartels.
“For every drug dealer you put in jail or kill, there’s a line up to replace him because the money is just so good,” says Walter McCay, who heads the nonprofit Center for Professional Police Certification in Mexico City.
McCay is one of the 13,000 members of Medford, Mass.-based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of cops, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens and others who want to legalize and regulate all drugs.
A decade ago, no politician who wanted to keep his job would breathe a word about legalization, but a consensus is growing across the country that at least marijuana will someday be regulated and sold like tobacco and alcohol.
California voters decide in November whether to legalize marijuana, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses of marijuana, already permitted in California and 13 other states. The Obama administration says it won’t target marijuana dispensaries if they comply with state laws.
The president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, puts it quite simply: “If America wants to fix the drug problem, it needs to do something about Americans’ unquenching thirst for illegal drugs.”
So Readers…what do we do about it? People are not going to give up their drugs even though our U.S. dependancy is the impetus for the growing violence that spans Mexico over the trafficking of drugs. Homicide rates are skyrocketing in Ciudad Juárez. Is the answer to legalize and regulate drugs? Tell me your thoughts.
Zen Lill: Enjoy your weekend. Good luck in getting your wheels in motion. See you Monday.
Peace out….
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my ‘loyal’(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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May 22nd, 2010 at 12:59 pm
The American drug war is simply a means for the government to discriminate legally. As you stated over 50% of all convictions are drug related. Yet, there are more American citizens hooked on prescription drugs than all other illegal drugs combined. Being hooked can mean either physically or financially. Most Big Pharma drugs are now being designed specifically NOT to fix a certain health issue, but to create a subscription based income stream via the patient, and be used as a monthly blanket to cover the underlying health issue so the patient can go on with life, working to make money to pay for their next months drug supply. The FDA approves drugs that have failed their studies, or have not gone through the necessary studies whatsoever. Due to this corporate based system when people die due to prescription drug usage it is a health issue, studies are done, small fines might be issued to the corporation, though rarely does any criminal prosecution take place.
When the government declares a war on anything, this declaration allows the reigning administration to do war related governance without Congressional oversight and approval. This is how the “war on terror’ escalated so rapidly. The “war on drugs” gave the U.S. the freedom to export military equipment into many South American countries helping to overthrow countries such as Chile and Nicaragua, as examples.
The invasion and war in Afghanistan was used to overthrow the Taliban, allowing the CIA to kick start the agriculture and production of this drug. Through the help of the CIA, the streets of small town USA now have heroine, opium and hashish back on the rise. This helps substantiate the numbers necessary for the government to request the need for more finances to go to the war on drugs. Their declared need to use military weapons and technology allows the corporate war machine to continue the production and testing new war related technology in the field. The government’s use of outsourcing tactical teams to private corporations such as, Blackwater now know as Xe, allows the use of much of the technology to go unsubstantiated, unregulated, and unreported.
Based on UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007) than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.
Remember people, what you hear and what is fed to you via network news sources is exactly what the corporations and your government want you to believe as fact. That does not make any of their fodder the truth. Don’t live with your eyes wide shut!
The US corporations and government organizations (mostly the CIA) created and militarized Saddam Hussein(Ford, Reagan, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney), Pinochet(Carter, Reagan) and Hitler(Bush family). These are known and proven facts.
There is much more, but I will stop there for now.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
On Thursday, the Senate passed historic Wall Street reform. This movement proved again that the strongest special interests, who for so long have called the shots in Washington, can be beat.
When opponents in Congress tried to block the legislation altogether, you stood up — and they backed down. When the lobbyists pushed for loopholes and exemptions just before a final vote, you did not relent — and we fought them off.
Your support brought us to this day — and, because of that, we’re poised to implement sensible reforms that will provide a stronger foundation for economic growth.
Now, the House and Senate must iron out their differences before I can sign it into law. But the financial industry will not give up.
They have already spent more than $1 million per member of Congress, lobbying on this issue. And in the coming days, they will go all in. This is their last shot to stall, weaken, or kill reform, and they are not accustomed to losing.
But this movement has you — and together, we have beaten the special interests before.
Every American has a stake in this bill.
If you have ever been treated unfairly by a credit card company, this reform works for you — never again will Americans be duped by fine print or hidden fees.
If you ever try to take out a home loan or student loan, this reform works for you — putting an end to predatory and deceptive lending practices.
And, if you or your small business relies on credit from community banks that are being punished for playing by the rules while their competitors do not, this reform works for you — reining in the big banks and making sure all our lenders are subject to tough oversight.
These reforms would put in place the strongest consumer financial protections in history. And, by helping safeguard our economy from recklessness on Wall Street, it would ensure that a crisis like the one that caused this recession never happens again.
This is not a zero-sum game where Wall Street loses and Main Street wins. As we have learned, in today’s economy, we are all connected.
When the economy prospers, we all win. Senators of both parties recognize that fact, and that is why lawmakers stood up to the lobbyists and worked across the aisle to ensure that Wall Street reform passed.
But this fight is not yet over. And it is up to us to overcome this final test and pass reform into law. When we do, the power of this movement to make change in Washington — despite the best efforts of the special interests — will no longer be up for debate.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Hafa adai
This is the history as told by whites who came to our island and killed all the males because they refused to be slaves in their own land.
In their history books it was small pox the killed the half of the population that just happened to be male.
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May 16, 1855 — 155 years ago — The arrival of Governor Lt. Col. Felipe Maria de la Corte y Ruano Calderon. De La Corte served as governor of the Marianas for 11 years.
The following was part of his description of Guam and the Chamorros: ” … Guam has passed from the stage of a savage island to that of a colony belonging to the nation, at that time (17th century) the most powerful in the world.
Circumstances … diminished greatly the original population, which, little by little, has since been diluted by foreign blood and renewed by frequent immigration (chiefly Mexicans, Filipinos and Spaniards) until in 1854 it had increased to 9,065 souls.
The smallpox epidemic of 1856 wiped out more than half of the inhabitants, leaving at the end of that year in these islands little more than 4,000 souls.”
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The bastards killed off our males and mated our women like cattle to Mexican and,Filipinos after they had finished raping our women.
So much for the religion the Spaniards brought to our island
Peter
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