Mexico bleeding to death

Drugs have never killed so many people as these wars over turf. Legal, controlled trade -- as there is for alcohol and tobacco -- will drop the income of these cartels overnight, as was proved when Prohibition was ended in the US in the 1930s. Everyone seems to be able to see this reality except politicians currently in office, because they're afraid to speak the "unpopular" truth. But how popular is putting our sons and daughters -- and often parents -- in prison for things like growing marijuana plants?

here are some interesting and relevant facts.
Holland, where the sale and growing of Cannabis is tolerated, has half the rate of hard drug users (cocaine, crack meth, heroin etc) as the uk (per 100,000), and fewer dutch teenagers smoke Cannabis in Comparison to UK and American Teens.

Portugal who has recently decriminalized all drugs has lowered it's once out of control rate of hard drug users.

The UK has the highest rate of soft and hard drug users in Europe, and America has the highest in the world.

Our drug laws have failed. The "war on drugs" has mutated from empty gesture politics into a pitch battle across the worlds most prominent transport lines.

Legalize the drugs and these transport lines become obsolete, as there is no more need to traffic drugs, and the gangs are completly cut out of the loop by the official dispensers, whose own product is subject to quality laws and standards.
(who buys beer brewed in some shady guy's bathtub when there's a clean cool bottle for sale with a comfy seat across the road?) the end result is the gangs lose all their money and influence and decline.
In the UK the illicit drug market is worth 40 billion pounds every year!
David Cameron would not have to cut anything if he legalized drugs...In fact he could cut taxes and raise budgets!

Add this to the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be created overnight, that's less Benefits being paid out, and more income tax flooding in, as well as cheap medicines for the NHS...And all to just make the spliff (that i'm going to smoke anyway) legal!

that's my argument, and my logic. By taxing the drugs the money will be there to pay for in depth studying of the substances, as well as education, and the rehab programmes that would logically have to follow. It would pay for itself and do it's bit to benefit those who exercise the freedom to choose to have nothing to do with it.

i'm off to enjoy my day away from this madness...now where's my lighter?

"Wow a rightwing paranoid Narcissist...how very refreshing." That's rich comign from you...could it be that I'm just a guy that disagrees with you so you feel the need to label me a paranoid narcissist? And yes, lets blame everything on America, right? Why not ENFORCE the laws instead? deport the illegals, secure the borders, and put drug abusers and sellers in jail or worse...send them to Mexico. But no, lets rather blame Americans and conservatives for this mess. Typical left-wing Salinsky tactics. It's easy to see through a_no_n, nice try but sorry, we value in the US value our freedoms and peace and our 'commander-in-chief' is BLOWING IT when it comes to defending our own land from this drugged up invasion from the South.

Name call and prejudge. typical. Continue to believe what society has brainwashed you into thinking is right. As for public education, it seems to me that most wealthy people send their children to private schools. Why? because they're better. Those who don't make as much money, don't have the luxury of paying for public schools through taxes, then paying for a second private school so sadly our choice has been removed. As for taxes being theft. Obvious to anyone with any intellect, money is a representation of labor provided. Taking money, is taking labor. If done without product rendered, it is called slavery. Are there certain services that government provides that are non-negotiable like military/police protection? Yes. Are taxes necessary for this? Yes. Is taxation for this slavery, no, because a product is rendered. Is taxing a group, mandating that group do something, then using their money to provide a poor service to someone else slavery/theft/unethical? Yes

Looks like you don't know the difference between communism which is at its core an economic ideology vs a totalitarian government. I haven't read any Glenn Beck books (nor do I have the time to). So in your mind Russia = communism? That right there shows just how worthwhile your thought process is. Government control over private sector in a limited sense = facism. Government control over private sectors production AND distribution = socialism. Governmental system with socialism ENFORCED upon people = communism. The health care bill IS enforced upon the people - UNLESS WE BUY, we go to jail, or are fined and so on. That, my friend, is the beginning of communism. And if you have further doubts about Obama's thoughts - go ahead and read/listen to what he has to say.

FORCING the citizens to purchase a certain healthcare insurance IS the beginning of socialism. Controlling who gets what coverage at what price IS price fixing and IS socialism. If the government mandates that you have to clean my house for a certain price, regardless of if you agree with that or not, that's instituionalizing a form of slavery. Similarly, the government has no right telling healthcare providers to provide healthcare to certain people at a certain price. If you want to make sure that the poor get healthcare, set up clinics funded by donations and volunteers - but don't tax person A to pay for Person B's care. As for the 'screaming fanatics' - who the heck gave you the right to deny others the freedom of their opinions? Especially when you claim to not be a part of the US? The biggest danger we face today is from an inept and exceedingly large government full of corrupt politicians. This is not an issue of Obama alone - BUT Obama does symbolize everything that is wrong with the left wing ideology of socialism. Point being : don't take my money to fund what you want to do. That's the essence of socialism and extortion.

How about changing the law so that 'drug dollars' support public health intiatives in the same way as is done for tobacco and alcohol rather than lubricate the coffers of well-armed, militias?
Au contraire. Prohibition causes all this damage. Can you imagine the utter carnage if alcohol and tobacco were also illegal?
YOU have blood on your hands for forcing the production and supply of certain drugs (some extremely safe and beneficial such as cannabis) into the hands of black market profiteers.
YOU have blood on your hands for supporting this status quo.
YOU have b lood on your hands for the hundreds of thousands of deaths due to overdosing and contaminated drugs.
YOU have blood on your hands for implicitly encouraging alcohol misuse because of the prohibition other less harmful drugs.
YOU have blood on your hands for creating an environment in which illegal drugs are seen as alternative and therefore 'cool'.
YOU have blood on your hands for supporting a policy of prohibition, which by its' very nature, encourages the development of ever more concentrated, powerful and addictive drugs (e.g. crack cocaine)

"....perhaps I am ignorant of the facts" The good news is you are but a google away from 'Law Enforcement Against Prohibition', 'Drug Policy Alliance' and 'war on drugs'. I urge everyone to cast aside the schackles of the cancer that is Fox News and educate themselves.

For anyone else planning to crawl out of the woodwork and use this story as an excuse to tell migrants that being brutally murdered is the price for trying to break in to the US, please avoid the Independent comment boxes when searching for a poor excuse to peddle your mindless guff. I'm sure there are whole websites where people with similar standpoints can get together and chew the fat, ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of the population of the continent is borne of a history of migration and immigration. Perhaps a quick historical study (encompassing relevant foreign policies throughout the region) might reveal some of the reasons that people become desperate enough to take such risks in trying to find a better life. But then, delving deep in to subjects takes a lot more effort than simply maintaining such an uncompromising and callous viewpoint, so just carry on. But please, do it somewhere else. Cheers.

LET IT DIE!!!!!!!!

By 'the best' I assume you mean one that aligns itself to your warped view on the subject. Ignoring the inalieable fact that we as human beings have used drugs for millenia and will continue to do so. Ignoring the hypocrisy behind why some drugs are prohibited and some are not. Ignoring the fact that a drug-free utopian future is completely unrealstic. Ignoring the fact that public health messages only work when a drug is controlled and regulated sufficiently (such as tobacco) and there is an honest assessment of the health effects of certain drugs.

What could possibly give you the idea that I hate America. I love my country and have willingly served it in a variety of roles. I also feel very little fear, and walk the streets of big cities unarmed and unafraid. Why do conservative extremists have to accuse anyone who disagrees with them as hating America? Is it because your arguements are so weak and your cause so unjust that you have to redirect peoples attention through vicious personnal attacks. This seems to be the tactic favored by hate mongers throughout history. I don't wish to prohibit firearms, I own several and enjoy target shooting as a pastime. What I oppose is the notion that by spreading fear and hate we show our love of country, and that carrying firearms would make people safer. Reducing poverty and child abuse are two of the best ways of creating a safer society.

Yes, it is rather worrying. I didn't realise the most odious, deranged and stupid person on the planet, Sarah Palin, was the tip of such a large and unpleasant iceberg.

Eric, I am not being flippant, but I think you should seek professional psychiatric help. When you said," . . . I hate people." and went on to rant about someone wanting to "take out the class," a number of red flags went up. I have worked in the mental health and criminal justice field and your comments are quite troubling. It is the kind of thing people say before committing a very violent act. In a seriousness, you should talk to a mental health professional about this before something terrible happens. I am also urging those that monitor these postings to alert the appropriate authorities regarding this message. You have an obligation to report this as a possible threat.

Ummmmm..... doesn't sound to "civil" to me.

So, 28,000 dead. Sounds more like a civil war.

How about a better solution. Americans take responsibility for creating this crisis by acknowledging that its addiction to cocaine by the wealthy people who can afford to buy it is the real culprit. Hollywood stars and professional athletes fund these murders, but then make token gestures to show their love for the little people. No wall is going to stop the drug trafficing or the murders, only when Americans own-up to the consequences of their lust for drugs.

Utterly staggered at the number of American commentards who cannot see the reason for this carnage is American prohibition, and American demand for drugs exacerbated by prohibition (rise of crack cocaine and glamourisation in Hollywood being just two examples).

Instead, they think it as some sort of 'border control' issue or gun issue, using their latent racism to make their point; at the same time blaming anyone but themselves for the problem.

I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constituion of the United States of America. The Constitution gives everyone the right to worship, or not worship as they wish. It also guarantees the full rights of citizenship to everyone born in America. The 14th amendment was the result of a long and bitter war to defeat those that would keep people enslaved based on the color of their skin. Rightwing politicians and the hate mongers they are catering to are calling for the repeal of the 14th amendment. These people are violating the same oath that they took when they were elected to office; the same oath everyone who serves in the military swears. Their actions are nothing short of treason, and those that support them are a disgrace to America and have broken their pledge. Shame on you and those who think that the right to own a gun is the only sacred part of the Constitution.

What a foolish question to ask of someone who has presented a very thoughful and reasonable comment. I guess that why people such as yourself are called extremists, because you can only look at ideas and life in its extremes. Such an approach reveals a shallow mind incapable of complex thought.

Gary, as someone who "loves my country", you could have at least refuted the "death-worshipping americans" comment. Or is it the case that you don't love your country that much

Perhaps it would be useful to British readers to understand that their is a small segment of the American populace that has never accepted the defeat of the Confederacy during the civil war. They have a distorted and romanticised view of this idealized Southern Society and hope that someday they can restore this lost world. They have made a witches brew of hatred of non-whites and the government. This fear is stoked by those who preach that the key to a free society is through gun ownership and by religous zealots of every description. They are being cynically exploited by Republican politicians and corporate America in much the same way the Brown Shirts were used in the Germany of the 1920's. For this reason they need to be closely watched, as they present a real danger to those far outside America's borders. I don't wish to be an alarmist, but read their postings and undrstand that it reflects a real danger to everyone.

Gary, you got it. My mind is incapable of "complex thought", so I ask "foolish questions". So can you please answer my question and keep it simple.

I have no idea. I read the Independent because of the depth of its reporting and its relative lack of pro-corporate bias. I do enjoy the commenting on the stories, and feel some obligation to refute the crazy rantings of the ultra-conservatives. Why these people feel the need to make hate filled comments in your newspaper is a mystery to me.

Do you think the USA should do away with borders and immigration control

It is a shame that our country has come to this and the goverment keeps trying to minize the problem and arguing that this violence is a result of the goverment confrontation to the drugs cartels. Regardless of what Felipe Caderon says abroad his goverment is corrupt and not really fighting the cartels, they could do so by controling the money, but of course somewhere along the line him and Genaro Garc�a Luna Secretary of Public Safety have are drenched in blood because they are not doing their jobs. I would like to ask Felipe Calderon who contributed to their political campaign when when he was running for president ? Why if all Mexican knows that Genara is corrupted and has a known history of corruption how can he leave in such position to procure law. this is ridiculous . they might talk and talk but we Mexican know the truth.

I have a hard time believing the legalising drugs is going to placate the cartels. Any threat to their profitability will be met with more ruthless violence. I have to say that being an American I do find a great deal to be gained by reading news from across the pond. In general, I find that there is far more reporting of the facts as opposed to injection of opinion by the so-called objective American media. I am also a native of California and have seen the brutal effects of illegal immigration in this state over the last thirty years. You see, there is a process of legal immigration in this country of which I am a product.....this has not reduced the flow of illegal immigrants one iota.....I fail to see the rationale in legalising narcotics here in the states....perhaps I am ignorant of the facts.

Read about what Portugal did about drugs...

paul999, They are not very different and that is part of the problem. At their root both parties, both Democrat and Republican politicians espouse their parties stance but in reality this is only to placate and shore up their respective voter bases. In reality, nothing of substance gets done. They trump up that they are doing something and yet we continue with the status quo. This is why average Americans are getting fed up and angry. ________________________________

Out of 402 comments yours is clearly the best. I think if we could get Americans to see the incredible harm their drug use is causing we might be able to stem the tide of violence that follows the drug trade. I really like your idea of public service messages. They had a significant impact on the use of tobacco. Perhaps if the government wont get behind your idea some of those wealthy people who want to make a positive contribution to society would fund it. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to make this a true movement in America?

Your right. In any forum you should have an open mind and look at both sides with a fresh look and new perspective then come to a respectful and mindful conclusion and decision. Some people are trying to export their views too adamantly. Molly feel free to scroll down to yesterdays post on my views on prohibition.

Why a third world country ?

Gary, if you hate America so much...why don't you just leave? Find a nice third world country that prohibits firearms, then maybe you will feel safe at night.

Should kidnapping also be legalized? Or do drug legalization advocates believe the cartels will seek honest work after legalization sucks profits from the drug trade? Drug users should called out, especially those in America and those who glamorize the use of drugs. Their drug cash pays for all these murders. Public service commercials should regularly remind Americans of what their drug dollars support. All illicit drug users, men and women, young and old have blood on their hands!

Thank you for your endorsement. I am glad to hear that you see the wisdom of my comments. Do you wish you had been armed when you were raped, our was it consensual like it is for most conservatives.

Y'all listen to Gary now. If you are about to be robbed, raped, or murdered a gun will not make you any safer at all. Gary was stationed at Ft. Bliss and frequently traveled to Juarez to buy gifts for friends and to dine and never went armed and he was always ok. So a gun WILL NOT protect you at all. Period. Gary said so and Gary was stationed at Ft. Bliss and frequently traveled to Juarez to buy gifts for friends and to dine and never went armed and he was always ok. Guns do not help good people only hurt good people, guns never hurt bad guys only help bad guys, they are made that way.

Boy, that one really hurt. You must have spent hours thinking up that clever retort.

Kinda like the "Gun Free Zone" at Virginia Tech saved all those "Gun Free" students. I guess the killer didn't get the memo. Now, see Gayry, this is what happens when you bring a limp wrist to a gun fight.

Your comment uses one of the most trite cliches ever created by the rightwing loonies. The only reason that conservative have been worked into a frenzy about gun ownership is to help the gun manufacturers and dealers sell more guns to a gullible public. No one is advocating outlawing guns; I just don't think that it is a good idea for a bunch of drunks in a bar to settle their arguements while armed with a 44 mag. I served our armed forces during Vietnam and Desert Storm and am quite proficient with a handgun or rifle, but I don't think that carrying one on the streets would make me any safer. Most gun nuts I have met never served in the military, and are trying to cover up their cowardice by hiding behind a weapon. I was stationed at Ft. Bliss and frequently traveled to Juarez to buy gifts for friends and to dine. I never went armed. I would not travel there now because of all the guns America has sold to the gangsters, and I doubt that is I was armed that my chance of survival would be any better. The greatest danger to Americans come form gun nuts who decide to go into a school or workplace and shoot as many innocent people as they can. How's that for a bit of reality?

Gary, when guns are outlawed only the outlaws have guns. The criminals continue have and use weapons while the law-abiding members of society go unarmed and unable to defend themselves. This is point R Mart is trying to communicate. His observation is rooted in reality... which would be a nice place for you to visit.

That's understandable, and this is ironically reflected in some of the views in these comments. What I would appreciate is if they would not also export their own unique brand of gun-toting, prejudice and racism here. Exporting the war on drugs is enough thank you very much.

While making billions of dollars that the US could be taxing to help us get rid of our deficit.

"Legalization will only produce more drug users" Really? So if Heroin became legal, would you be tempted to try it? Just because something is illegal, does not mean it's hard to get. Actually, marijuana is easier for underage users to get than alcohol. Think about that one for a minute.

Why are there so many insane, death-worshiping americans commenting on a british newspaper site?

contrary to your unbelievably ignorant opinion, gun owners would not be proud of an illegal cache of weapons, especially when found in what was the possesion of the lowest scum of the earth. You are full of caca.

"Do you wish you had been armed when you were raped, our was it consensual like it is for most conservatives." Have you been dreaming again Gary? Wake up.

You are the reason I hate people. Say little Johnny is in school and he wants to take out the class, or some nut wants to rob a bank. Now imagine everyone in the class and bank with a sidearm either concealed or openly carried. Yeah they might change their mind. Guns protect and supply food to my family. There is nothing wrong with the educated public owning and carrying firearms in public. The only people who should be worried are the criminals that want to do the general good public harm.

Alot of Americans including myself have turned to outside sources of news. This gives a clearer and different side then usually heard in mainstream media outlets. In America 90% of the new is owned and operated by 3 major companies.

You have no morals or scruples, which says to me that you are liberal scumbag operative using whatever means necessary to look good, even if it means looking down at everyone from your high horse while it craps all over us. I have no reason to continue this conversation, but to say shame on you for using those that pledge to give their life to uphold and protect the constitution. Tisk tisk. Regards loser.

You have no morals or scruples. That makes you a typical liberal scumbag phony.

The only thing you have proved here is that you are a loser and I am sure you stole that from someone else. You are pathetic.

Legalization will only produce more drug users draining the resources of productive society. I suggest heavy pressure to supress demand. Round 'em up by the tens of thousands to serve reasonable sentences in large compounds of quonset huts (if they're good enough for our troops they're good enough for prisoners) surrounded by barbed wire. The cartels will have nobody to sell to!

No, he is proof that people like him are born stupid. He is obviously demobot with nothing better to do than use the military to bolster himself. I am sure IF he was actually in the military, he was no stranger to blanket (or lock in sock, depending of the branch) parties. What a douchebag. It sickens me when these loser go around posing as military heroes that have so much wisdom. Real military heroes don't talk about it because the reality of war is scarring. Talking about it only reopens the wound over and over again. I have lost some buddies in OIF, and it pisses me off to no end that there are people using it to make themselves look like less of a coward by sitting behind a computer screen claiming something they can not prove. Just because they know unit names and numbers, terminology means nothing, other than they can google. Real military men and women are not haughty about what they do.

The fault is, yet again, that of Amerikan policy. In this case it is drug prohibition that is directly responsible for the carnage. Folks have a natural right to consume drugs. Folks have a natural right to sell drugs that others have a right to consume. Unfortunately, the victims in this case are "innocent" Central Americans just looking for freedom and work. It appears that more USSA Amerikan voters need to suffer directly so that this drug-prohibition idiocy can end! FDR wouldn't have ended alcohol prohibition over a mere 100,000 Mexican bodies.

"A lone wounded survivor told that he and the victims were illegal migrants from Central America trying to make their way to the US."

Simple Message:
STAY THE F*** HOME, PEDRO!!!
You wanted to BREAK THE LAW, and you found OUTLAWS!
You wanted to sneak into the US
and you got your behind kicked for it by MEXICANS.

It should be clear now:
If you aren't coming legally,
STAY THE FU** HOME!!!

Gary, you surely work hard at being stupid. Nobody can be born that stupid.

The Cartels are doing the work for the USA. Keep it up

No, Rory, my military service doesn't make me more qualified to comment on this issue. It is my use of rational arguements based on experience, education and logical thinking that makes me more qualified to comment than people like yourself; who resort to personal attacks, hysteria and irrational thinking. Bullies like yourself never like it when people stand up to them, but that is why it is important not to let your particular brand of hate speech go unchallenged.

Better than yours, O limp-wristed one.

owned ;)

While serving during Vietnam I had the privlege of meeting some very remarkable men. They had started their service during WWII and had continued through the Korean War and were still serving through Vietnam. They didn't feel superior to anyone, but they hated people who liked to talk tough and act the bully. Our Sergeant Major liked going to a bar a waiting for some big mouth like yourself to start bullying others and talking smart. He particularly liked it if they were bigger than he was because it made it all the more enjoyable when he beat the hell out of them. He never bullied or threatened anyone and had given up hunting long ago. He was unafraid of any man and yet he didn't feel the need to carry a gun. Too many people try to prove themselves by gun ownership, only to end up hurting themselves or some innocent person. I stopped hunting when I realized how many guys out there were drunk or had no idea how to handle a weapon safely. Your statements make you and other conservatives look foolish and no one is impressed by your false bravado.

You are dense. Being military does not put you on a pedastal, and like I said before real military don't brag about it. Erego, you are not a vet.

BEING MILITARY DOESN'T MAKE YOU MORE QUALIFIED TO TALK ABOUT ANYTHING! NOR WOULD ME BEING A VET MATTER! WHAT IS REALLY PISSING ME OFF IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU THAT USE IT TO MAKE YOURSELF LOOK BETTER AND IN TURN MAKING REAL ONES LOOK BAD. You are a dirtbag, blue falcon, a-hole. how can I make this anymore clear? you are so dense.

Quietly amused by the irony of the stupidity of your stupid comment about 'stupid people', your latent racism and your rather weak application of Darwinism therein. Perhaps you should reread your comment and ask yourself who really is the stupid one? (but you won't because you are too stupid to realise how stupid you are) "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt"

A good argument for intelligent design, God obviously likes weak and stupid people, if Darwin was correct then they would have died off decades ago!

I wonder if Gary has figured out that he is the real bully in this forum and I am just trying to put him in his place... HAHA. Small tip for everyone on these kinds of forums... claiming you have military service doesn't make you smarter, more qualified to comment, or more sane than anyone else here... know why? there is no way to prove it and it is just a bully tatic used by trolls. So next time you think about touting some fake military service that spans nearly 30 years and you are on here trying to shift your weight. Don't waste your time, because NO ONE ON HERE CARES!

Rory, you idiot. You replied to yourself and said, "Nope, you are the typical male, all talk and no action. Boo". I don't know if you meant to say that you were all talk, but it certainly would seem to fit you. Perhaps you should give up posting as your are clearly not up to the challenge.

meh. Stop coming here and the cartels will not have to opportunity to capture and murder you. Why not try Argentina, or Bolivia or Chile or somewhere else? Its full here now. Don't come.

"the battle-hardened Marines stumbled upon their first decomposing corpse." Battle-hardened? Seriously when was the last time those tards saw any combat? The mexican american war 100 years ago on horseback ffs? Gimme a break.

If you don't care then why are you having such a hissy fit? Why not join the Army and afterwards we can talk.

First off, you have no idea what excites me, I haven't said anything hint at the fact that I am a "rightwing lonney" so, your bad. And yes, unlike you and your fake service. I have been there, done that. KFOR. Yeah I know you'll just google it to get the real answer, but I don't care. Democrats use the claim of military service to get respect. Real military don't have to.

...AND coming to a state near you, real soon. Thanks George, Bill, George, Obama

Recall how NAFTA - that dummy run for globalization - was going to produce a utopia in North America. That's another dumb idea you had, Bill!

If you are so excited by the prospect of owning guns and maybe getting to shoot someone, perhaps you should try joining the Army of the Marines; or are you just a lot of talk like most of the losers who join a militia.

How in the hell do you know I am part of that movement? you don't. You really are RE-tarded!

Nope, you are the typical male, all talk and no action. Boo.

NO ONE CARES YOU IMBICILE!!!

Legalize Cocaine huh? Because that went so well in Late Qing empire........ Well it did make the British empire filthy rich at the expense of the Chinese.

In order to eradicate the present Narco problem in Mexico the government must be willing to go beyond way beyond the norms of a "Civilized Nation". I presume 1% of the population MUST be eliminated or incarcereted. If the present government is not willing to do that the CARTELS are willing to do it in order to keep their power, control and money. The Mexican people MUST decide is either us or them.

I have trying to cross it for some time now, but I guess you didn't get the hint. You tea baggers like to insult people, but you can't take it. Just like every bully I've ever had to put in his place.

May I kindly remind you that we are debating the damage done by prohibition, which is far worse than all the damage caused by all of the illegal drugs combined. By taxing and regulating the underground market, how exactly would we make these substances more available then we know them already to be? The assertion that drug legalization/regulation would bring higher usage rates ignores what has occurred since the early 1970s. Due to prohibition, the percentage of Americans who have used an illegal drug has gone from less than 5% to about 40%. The cost of one dose of street heroin has gone from $6 to 80 cents while average purity has also increased. The only drug that has decreased in use during this time is tobacco which has plummeted from about 65% during World War II to about 20% today. Tobacco, one of the most addictive substances known to man, has never been illegal, but so many Americans have quit using it for personal reasons that clearly have not been influenced by it's legal availability. They will decide whether or not to use other drugs for the same reasons. Prohibition continues unabated for shameful political reasons. It cannot, and never will, reduce drug use or addiction. Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution? For those of you who are still living in some strange parallel universe, one where prohibition actually works, may I suggest that you return to high school economics class, and learn about supply and DEMAND. Learn that you cannot up DEMAND simply by upping supply. Contrary to popular held superstition, drugs are not PUSHED, the drug dealers are filling a DEMAND not creating one. The DEMAND is here in the US and is impossible to control, but what is possible to control, is the income from that DEMAND. All we have to do is allow legal businesses to meet that DEMAND. Under proper regulation drug use will not rise, as it couldn't get any worse than it is at present. If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history. If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike. If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons. If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging. If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords. If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent. If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets. If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries. If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property. If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others. If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal. And one last thought: The real ?drug Dons? are the rich and powerful who control the government-licensed drug cartel (Big Pharma). They view people who oppose proper regulation of these unpatentable --thus at present illegal-- substances, as ?useful idiots?

Disappointed in yourself? That must happen to you quite often.

two a's? tell me were you a public school kid? because it shows! Also, do you really think anyone is going to tell you about their military service? That is really none of your damn busniess, nor does it automatically make you right about anything simply because you served (which I highly doubt as most people that serve as long as you claim to have do not get on here and use it to TRY to gain an upper hand in a debate.) Does it make you better than anyone else that has not served? no. Shut up while you are ahead, you are insulting real people that have really served.

So you losers can't come up with a logical arguement or an intelligent insult so you try to question my reasoning and my history. I'l glad shre the name of the units I served with if you can do the same. I didn't think so. You need to do it in the nest 5 minutes or I'll know you are getting it from someone else. Like we used to say, "put up or shut up."

I favor an end to the prohibition. It deals a heavy, effective blow to the cartels without firing a single shot. It reduces the 'cool' factor inherent in the use of prohibited substances, thus unmasking substance abuse as a truly pitiful illness. Hard to romanticize this. It reduces the loss of innocent lives that are now the growing collateral damage of a) the War ON Drugs; and b) cartels' and gangs' ongoing war amongst themselves FOR drugs. I acknowledge the trade-off between increased numbers of users and the reduction of drug violence. I choose the non-violent, increased-user scenario. I reject the assertion that lifting the prohibition will reduce our citizenry to addled useless zombies. Dutch experience speaks to this. I also acknowledge the likelihood that newly-legal empires will be built with powerful political tentacles into Congress. There still is a ballot box. No such recourse exists for the gangs and cartels that exist under the longstanding status quo. Again, I favor the scenario that usually reserves firearms as a last resort rather than a greeting. Ending the prohibition would be a less bloody and less futile existence in which our efforts could be concentrated on the care for those addicted rather than the burials of those innocents caught in the crossfire.

the evidence is everywhere. we saw it (alcohol) in the great depression (that is the other great depression). the only reason politicians won't legalize drugs is that they fear reelection. they put their careers before the misery and violence of ordinary people caught up in this appalling circumstance. shame on them.

Why on earth would America 'like' having a drug problem?

Perhaps it is do do with the amount of money it makes for local law enforcement agencies.
Or perhaps it is seen as a problem for the 'poor' and the recent discussion re helathcare showed how much regard people with money in the US have for the 'poor'
It might have something to do with the 2.5 million unpaid labourers in prison making everything from body armour, household paint or 40% of household applicances for multi national corporations. How else can they compete with China and India?

There are a lot of very rich people at the top of government who are happy for things to continue as they are.

"The USA, and also many other countries, seem to like having a prohibition problem", would be far more accurate way of putting it! The fact is, prohibitionists don't care! And if they don't care about the fact that, historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded, then why would they care about spawning far worse conditions than those they claim to be able to alleviate? These despotic imbeciles are actually quite happy to create as much mayhem as possible. After all, it's what fills their prisons or gets them elected. In 1923 the executive council of the American Federation of Labor issued an address to the American people after an exhaustive investigation of the effects of the Volstead Act. It was shown by this investigation that there had been??? A general disregard of the law among all classes of people, including those who made the law. Creation of thousands of moonshiners among both country and city dwellers. The creation of an army of bootleggers. An amazing increase in the traffic in poisons and deadly concoctions and drugs. An increased rate of insanity, blindness, and crime among the users of these concoctions and drugs. Increase in taxes to city, State, and National Government amounting to approximately $1,000,000,000 per year. Source: THE NATIONAL PROHIBITION LAW HEARINGS April 5 to 24, 1926

I wonder how many more deaths it will take before the corrupt Mexican politicians are forced to stop taking bribes and start sorting out the cartels. Personally I think about another 25,000 should be enough to do the trick. The USA could also do far more to help, but I am fast coming round to thinking that for some bizarre reason the USA seems to like having a drug problem.

The assertion that drug legalization/regulation would bring higher usage rates ignores what has occurred since the early 1970s. The percentage of Americans who have used an illegal drug has gone from less than 5% to about 40%. The cost of one dose of street heroin has gone from $6 to 80 cents while average purity has also increased. The only drug that has decreased in use during this time is tobacco which has plummeted from about 65% during World War II to about 20% today. Tobacco, one of the most addictive substances known to man, has never been illegal, but so many Americans have quit using it for personal reasons that clearly have not been influenced by it's legal availability. They will decide whether or not to use other drugs for the same reasons. Prohibition continues unabated for shameful political reasons. It cannot, and never will, reduce drug use or addiction.

You humans that criminalized drugs users and forced them underground, resulting in the creation of these drug cartels have blood on your hands. Those that support this phony war on drugs have blood on their hands too. Cocaine and other drugs have been around for a long time buddy, we've been using drugs for thousands of years in various forms. Things have gone tits up because our governments in their infinite 'wisdom' decided to start this ridiculous war on drugs, which has in all likelihood resulted in more deaths than the actual taking of the drugs themselves has. Imbeciles.

Nobody I know wants to see an end to prohibition because they want to use drugs or think they are cool. They wish to see proper legalized regulation because they are witnessing, on a daily basis, the dangers and futility of prohibition. 'Legalized Regulation' won't be the complete answer to all our drug problems, but it'll greatly ameliorate the crime and violence on our streets, and only then can we provide effective education and treatment. Since alcohol prohibition was repealed in the United States, there have still been problems with alcohol addiction along with associated health issues, but the vast majority of people's drinking has not led to the downfall of society and alcohol bootleggers fighting for turf is a thing of the distant past. If we can handle the regulation of alcohol, one of the most powerful, addictive and dangerous of drugs, we can handle just about anything, and that includes cocaine and amphetamines. And everything is readily available right now to all of us anyway. Drugs of all varieties are cheap and plentiful, and the basic economics of drug dealing remain: Take one dealer off the street, and another takes his place. Something that simply doesn't happen for other more real crimes, such as murder, embezzlement or burglary. Historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded in providing what is needed, which is a safer environment for the addict, the family and society at large. It always has, and always will, spawn far worse conditions than those it claims to be able to alleviate.

Wild Bill was an officer of the law, legally authorized to carry a weapon. When a bunch of rednecks from Texas started to shoot up Abilene he tole that he was going to get his shotgun and that when he returned he woud shoot any gun toting cowboy still in town. They couldn't leave town fast enough. Most men who like to carry guns are actually cowards and bullies who are afraid to stand up to a man face-to-face. There definately a need for courageous law enforcement officers who are skilled in the use of weapons, but we have no need for a bunch of drunk loud mouths to try and prove their manhood by carrying a gun. Wild Bill was shot in the back by just such a gun owner.

Stop selling guns to Mexico and maybe the civilian won't have to flee to your country. Has anyone ever died from marijuana? The government are happy to let you smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol which directly cause thousands of deaths. You'd be hard pressed to walk into a room of people and not find someone who smokes/has smoked marijuana. What is the reason for marijuana being illegal? There is an opportunity to wipe out the financial base of these cartels and it's not taken because.... ?

Well, if they really want to do something about the drug problems in Mexico, it has to start in THE WHITE HOUSE. Most of the consumption is in the US. They created and exacerbated the problem with their insane obsession with weapons. Gun-related violence used to be mostly a US disease but now it has been fully exported to their unfortunate southern neighbours. Three or more years ago, it was announced that Mexico was the HEADQUARTERS of the WORLD-MAFIA. From Colombia to Afghanistan and from Russia to England, the mafias of the world wanted their share of the lucrative and ever flourishing US drug-market. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, they were the logical door to that market of death. Politicians from the WHITE HOUSE to LOS PINOS (Mexican equivalent), were just too happy to turn a blind eye to the problem. Many times they actively encouraged it making a quick buck in the process. For decades, the links between the drug cartels and the politicians on both sides of the borders have been an embarrassing scandal that the police on both sides of the borders have been forced to ignore due to links, bribes, corruption and threats. So now that the body-mafiosi located in Mexico have started to show their might and ugly face and threatening the very existence of the Mexican government, people would expect some change. But this is unlikely to come any time sooner. The mafia groups from the 5 continents have a huge stake in the matter and they will not give it up quietly. If ever there was a deity, surely this would be the time for the poor Mexicans to start praying. Ghastly affair.

What source of income did America's prohibition era gangsters replace alcohol with? I seem to recall that most Mafia groups were crushed by the law due to the loss of most of their income.

So are you saying that we need to throw a few more extra trillion dollars at this, give the police more extra powers and proper weapons like Death-Rays that work on large crowds, take away forever what's left of everybody's rights and liberties, and then indulge ourselves in even more wishful thinking or bizarre pseudo-science?

So instead of presenting a reasoned arguement you attempt a childish insult, which you can't even spell. You are so typical of the losers of the rightwing who find logic and reason to difficult to understand. Please try to explain to me how those who consume the drugs are not responsible for the chaos they have created. I know it may be a strain on your rather limited intelligence, but try anyway.

its true, they cant control this the way it is. they have tried for years and got nowhere. they need to legalise all the drugs, regulate them and take them out of the hands of murdering criminals. plus the financial rewards would be great considering we are bailing out the bankers and paying for politicians second homes.

I hate to question you, however are you sure this was Clintons idea :- on December 17, 1992, to sign NAFTA. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas, each responsible for spearheading and promoting the agreement, ceremonially signed it. Of course the source is only Wikipedia so who knows.

Also, you prove nothing... as I never called myself a homeschooler. I just know the facts and statistics, you, however; do not. You only prove that you lack any shrewdness whatsoever.

People have enjoyed mind-altering drugs since Day One. Get used to it, and de-criminalise it. Did we learn nothing from Prohibition in the US in the 1920s?

We need to decide what's worse: drugs or violence. At the moment we have both - anyone who wants drugs can get them, and because the trade is run by these horrendous people we also get the violence. We might be able to stop the violence, but we know, for certain, that we'll never stop the drugs. At present we still cling to the anti-drugs ideology that says the *idea* of prohibition is worth this much suffering. And it is only an idea, because drugs are readily available, so prohibition clearly does not work. In fifty years' time we'll look back on this with incredulity.

Earlier this month, former president Vicente Fox, a staunch supporter of the US crackdown on drugs, said recent events had won him over to the cause of legalisation. "It does not mean drugs are good," he said. "But we have to see it as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits." A shockingly sensible thing for a politician to say, altho he is a 'former' politician so maybe that explains it.

WE TRIED A WAR LIKE THIS ONCE BEFORE by Mike Gray In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal. Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone. Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well. After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income. At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs. One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing. Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee. The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization. At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with. Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision. When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold. Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half. Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees. Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzman recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires. The depth of Guzman's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States. This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America. As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics. Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters. The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers. The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II. Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies. Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him. This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over. Here is a glimpse of what lies ahead if we fail to end our second attempt to control the personal habits of private citizens. Listen to Enrique Gomez Hurtado, a former high court judge from Colombia who still has shrapnel in his leg from a bomb sent to kill him by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. In 1993, his country was a free-fire zone not unlike Mexico today, and Gomez issued this chilling -- and prescient -- warning to an international drug policy conference in Baltimore: "The income of the drug barons is greater than the American defense budget. With this financial power they can suborn the institutions of the State, and if the State resists . . . they can purchase the firepower to outgun it. We are threatened with a return to the Dark Ages." Ending prohibition won't solve our drug problem. But it will save us from something far worse. And it will put drug addiction back in the hands of the medical profession, where it was being dealt with successfully -- until we called in the cops. Mike Gray, the chairman of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is the author of "Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out."

What an incredibly stupid comment. The number and variety of weapons seized at the site of the murders would make even a crazy Ameircan gun nut proud. How can someone make such a statement, oh I forget, you Republicans are all insane.

Elect a conservative oligarch as president of Mexico, and what did you expect? He's not going to tax billionaires to hire and train an effective police force. He and his buddies have their own personal police force, and the rest of Mexico is on it's own. This always happens when the CONSERVATIVES are in control.

it is called inserting the sound of my voice into a virtual environment. Which proves nothing, but your lack of understanding how to communicate in a setting that lacks sound.

You forgot to mention American's insatiable greed for drugs. No demand, no supply.

Nobody wants to see an end to prohibition because they want to use drugs or think they are cool. They wish to see proper legalized regulation because they are witnessing, on a daily basis, the dangers and futility of prohibition. 'Legalized Regulation' won't be the complete answer to all our drug problems, but it'll greatly ameliorate the crime and violence on our streets, and only then can we provide effective education and treatment. The whole nonsense of 'a disaster will happen if we end prohibition' sentiment sums up the delusional 'chicken little' stance of those who foolishly insist on continuing down this blind alley. As if a disaster isn?t already happening. As if prohibition has ever worked. To support prohibition is such a strange mind-set. In fact, It's outrageous insanity! --Literally not one prohibitionist argument survives scrutiny. Not one! The only people that believe prohibition is working are the ones making a living by enforcing laws in it's name, and those amassing huge fortunes on the black market profits. This situation is wholly unsustainable, and as history has shown us, conditions will continue to deteriorate until we finally, just like our forefathers, see sense and revert back to tried and tested methods of regulation. None of these substances, legal or illegal, are ever going to go away, but we CAN decide to implement policies that do far more good than harm. During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on treatment. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar?

Dude, I think you are incapable of listening to reason, how many times do I have to state the same thing to you! The users were there already, have been for thousands of years. Then the war on drugs started and these users went underground, which caused these crime waves you speak. It was the attack on the users that caused these problems, not the users themselves, therefore the war on drugs is at fault, not the users, do you get it now?

After WWII. Japa had a big drug problem. How did they solve this problem? Did they legalize drugs? No! They instituted the death penalty to ANYONE smuggling or selling drugs. Overnight, the drug problem was solved. The Japanese criminals even had thier hookers go cold turkey to get them off drugs. When smugglers are caught or dealers are caught, they should be executed, not 30 days in jail.

You have just crossed the line loser.

We can either ask the Tooth Fairy to stop people taking drugs or we can decide to regulate them properly. Prohibition is not regulation, it's a hideous nightmare for all of us and our families, except of course for the lowest lifeforms amongst us. Because Drug cartels will always have an endless supply of ready cash for wages, bribery and equipment, no amount of tax money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safe again. Only an end to prohibition can do that! How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution? Debating whether a particular drug is harmless or not is missing the whole point. Is marijuana dangerous? I simply don't care if it is or isn't. If someone wants to destroy their lives with drugs, thats their business, not anybody else's. Their lives aren't ours to direct. We can certainly voice an opposition to drug use? but who are we to imprison people over it? which ultimately we do if we support prohibition. If you support prohibition then you've helped trigger the worst crime wave in history. If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike. If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons. If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging. If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords. If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent. If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets. If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries. If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property. If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others. If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.

The West is creating demand for these drugs that is causing mayhem throughout the world causing the deaths of thousands of people and destroying local communities. The rat race that the West is puts people under such pressure to succeed, to be someone, that either some take it to cope with the stresses of success or those who can't 'make the grade' feel they need to take them to cope with failure. The underbelly of Western society is in a mess and they are transferring that mess to other nations whose ability to cope with such trauma is sadly lacking. If you take an illicit drug you are supporting the demolition of other people's lives no matter what laws do or do not exist and whether they are addictive or not.

Rubbish, it's the war against drugs which has caused this problem, not the usage. Alcohol is a drug my friend, as is nicotine, you have no problems taking either or both of them I'd imagine, and there are plenty of other legal drugs out there on which you can mash yourself up with. By criminalizing certain drug users (a key point, CERTAIN drugs users) we have pushed them underground and created this mafia style underground of brutal drug traffickers. Come on people wake up!

You could of course do what the Europeans did fifty years ago and decolonise. Just give back the territories that you took from Mexico and then colonised in the nineteenth century. Then you won't have a problem with "illegal" immigration. The Mexicans are just taking back what belongs to them from your empire.

You are quite correct the border does need to be sealed to protect Mexico from the US. It is your country?s insatiable appetite for drugs, and none existent controls on the sale of military hardware to civilians that is destroying Mexico.

Those are called "legal" caches and perfectly fine. What you are refering to is called "fear mongering" that is being propelled by MSNBC. Go Grow a brain, if that is possible.

nope just a couple of seconds, funny... I was expecting something witty, but alas, I am disappointed.

It's always nice to see a little overt racism on display. Jerk.

Are you so lazy you can't or won't research that? I would think you would delight in proving someone wrong. And NO, Moveon.org doesn't count as a research site.

"major consumer of cocaine are - gasp - hispanics"
Care to provide some evidence of this, or are you just happy to be a little bit racist?
Might be of interest to note as an aside that the coca leaf has been part of the culture of South America for thousands and thousands of years. The rise of powerful concentrated forms of cocaine powder and crack is a direct result of prohibition by the US (YES YOU) and the glamourisation of its' use in Hollywood in hundreds of films since 'Easy Rider' in the 60s (YES YOU).

", a large proportion who are probably snorters"
oh, more stereotyping and racism. Lovely.

I think Americans like yourself should take a long hard look at yourselves and your prejudices before you go blaming the results of prohibition on others.

Sadly it is not that simple, most of the regulations relating to drugs are bound up in international treaties, these cannot be changed without agreement from all of the signatories and there is of course one country that is wedded to this, (and other) unwinnable war(s).

Why do you claim all this stuff? Is your life so unfulfilling that you have to get on here and claim to be a vet and stomp on virtual people that couldn't give a rats ass what or who you are?

Then why do the rightwing militias have cache of weapons all over America? The revolution isn't coming in 2012, the Confederacy will not rise again and Sarah Palin will never be elected President.

Another ill informed socialist. Did you happen to forget Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito started WWII? We didn't intervene until the Japanese hit us. Same thing in each and every war AND every war was under a dem pres. Same thing in A'stan, THEY asked for help. You really are rather dense.

Would legalizing drugs in Mexico really lower demand in the US? Or would it just legitimize the industry of drug smuggling? If Mexico passes legislation, the US must too - or it will only make things worse in the US.

Well, if they really want to do something about the drug problems in Mexico, it has to start in THE WHITE HOUSE. Most of the consumption is in the US. They created and exacerbated the problem with their insane obsession with weapons. Gun-related violence used to be mostly a US disease but now it has been fully exported to their unfortunate southern neighbours.

Three or more years ago, it was announced that Mexico was the HEADQUARTERS of the WORLD-MAFIA. From Colombia to Afghanistan and from Russia to England, the mafias of the world wanted their share of the lucrative and ever flourishing US drug-market. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, they were the logical door to that market of death. Politicians from the WHITE HOUSE to LOS PINOS (Mexican equivalent), were just too happy to turn a blind eye to the problem. Many times they actively encouraged it making a quick buck in the process.

For decades, the links between the drug cartels and the politicians on both sides of the borders have been an embarrassing scandal that the police on both sides of the borders have been forced to ignore due to links, bribes, corruption and threats. So now that the body-mafiosi located in Mexico have started to show their might and ugly face and threatening the very existence of the Mexican government, people would expect some change. But this is unlikely to come any time sooner.

The mafia groups from the 5 continents have a huge stake in the matter and they will not give it up quietly. If ever there was a deity, surely this would be the time for the poor Mexicans to start praying. Ghastly affair.

No one is buying your garbage. You are not a vet, so quit posing as one, that is illegal. Also, you haven't offered one viably smart thing to add to any of this.

Jorge, You know what causes all this? Because the government are not interested in people. Government are just puppets being controlled by a minority, which is called an oligarchy. Kill a gang member, there are 100 more people awaiting to fill the left gap. Did you know this saying amongst the people who choose to join the cartels?: "I'd rather live 5 years like a king instead of a whole life like a wan**r" The lack of opportunities and their misery lead all those people to take the easy way of drug-dealing. What the government are doing is just hitting the peak of the iceberg. There must be more social programmes, employment, public investment, education, and, more importantly, JUSTICE. When you realise that NOBODY in the country gets justice, you do whatever you want. "What the hell? Even the bloody president is a fake" There is no justice in the country. Mexico is tearing down.

The fact is, prohibitionists don't care! And if they don't care about the fact that, historically, the prohibition of any mind altering substance has never succeeded, then why would they care about spawning far worse conditions than those they claim to be able to alleviate? These despotic imbeciles are actually quite happy to create as much mayhem as possible. After all, it's what fills their prisons or gets them elected.

Dangerous things like assault rifles.

Homeschoolers are far smarter than their public school counterparts, so your comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Man, you really are a stoooooooopid troll.

But where would we start regulating? A new drug aimed at white elementary kids these days is called Cheese, a mixture of pharmas and heroine. Has an appealing look and name to kids for $2 their lunch money, and can easily be snorted with a piece of paper rolled into a tube. Bingo they're addicts. Parents and teachers must tell them why, not just don't.

You are so full of caca.

IF ... Drugs=Money and Money=guns and Guns=death and IF ... Mexico=Corruption and Mexicans=Poverty and Cartels=Power then Powerfull Cartels will operate in Mexico and use Mexicans to get them money with guns and drugs and that creates lots of DEATHS. Stop the Mexican Illigal "migration"

Open the borders and lets share in all the fun that Mexico has! Shooting, killing, raping! We are missing all the wonderful aspects of Mexican life by trying to control our borders!

People in GB do not understand that one of the major reasons, if not the main reason there is so much violent crime in the US, is due to black youth gangs in the inner cities and illegal Mexican youths and youth gangs. These black and Mexican youths, mixed with illegal drugs makes for quite a combination. Everyone here knows this fact even if the PC media attempts to always use code words for it.

"Instead of legalizing" What exactly is wrong with regulating and controlling harmful or even lessharmful substances than alcohol or tobacco? ", like the truth we finally saw about the Tobacco Industry and they are legal" Exactly. You argue against your own point! We can only educate and regulate an industry when it is taken from the black market and controlled through legislation. " Drying up the usage" The demand for the use of drugs recreationally hasn't 'dried up' in millenia, I'm not sure how you think that is a remotely viable possibility?!!That is why we regulated and controlled alcohol and tobacco - because we could not address demand, and therefore a more rational and realistic approach was taken, where personal responsibility, coupled with education and regulation seeks to contain problematic usage.

I'm glad we see the truth now, the reason the Drug Trade has gotten so big in Mexico is because they make all the Illegal immigrants coming to the USA carry drugs across the border. This is a direct correlation with the flood if Illegals into the USA and no Border Security what so ever on the USA side. If an American tries to sneak into Mexico he will be going to jail for at least 2 years

Has anyone realized what is happening to our Mexican borders. Is this an Iran-Syria-Venezuela connection Question is why are there large caches of assault weapons comparable to caches of weapons found in Iraq and Afganistan being found spread out around the border? Question is , like a chess game, is Hugo Chavez, marxist leader of Venezuela, is training and / or inserting his FARC comrades and/or Iranian covert troops on our American Border, as a move after America place their troops on the Colombian / Venezuela border. The Iran-Syria-Venezuela connection with that Venezuelan Airlines...has a purpose....They say it may be so Iran can bring Weapons closer to our America...in Mexico maybe??? 28,000 dead since 2008???? not your cartel statistics,,but much more...Venezuela's or Iran's intention to wreak havoc on American proximaty...Food for thought...

Thanks for the come-back. a) "Mexico and Central America are overpopulated and corrupt, and there is no shortage of stupidity down there." Not a projection on my part - fairly racist by all accounts. Seems you are too stupid to realise this as I suspected. b) Your comment didn't piss me off remotely, I just found it amusing. c) My quote is from Bertrand Russell. OK now? d) Your vague point being there are too many people in the world (well you imply South America, which is racist as I mentioned above). You then imply that either the war on drugs is a good thing because people get killed, or that people who take drugs kill themselves off; thus creating your own 21st century, overly simplistic, war on drugs social Darwinistic theory. Pretty damn funny/stupid. Thanks for the lengthy Nietzshe quote anyway.

People need to understand that the violence is escalating. You have a 3rd world country army fighting against factions that are equiped with high tech, powerful weapons. The mexican government is doing all it can up to a certain point. It is widely known that the govt has aligned itself with the cartel to fight the zetas which have become uncontrollable. The cartel was only dealing in drugs and really wasn't involving the citizens of mex. The zetas started extortioning, kidnapping, killing, and essentially raping the citizens of mex. It is a very complicated issue in which mex might end up legalizing drugs in order to reduce the problems. Mex would become the supplier for the US which actually has the resources to purchase the drugs. What has happenned is that banks in the US are also involved in laundering a lot of the money that is made in mex. Google "blog del narco" and check out what is really happening in mex.

It's pretty obvious I am sugesting violence against the cartels not drug users.

So will legalizing drugs stop them from kidnapping people and holding them for ransom, or getting into the forced prostitution business? Those are rather lucrative operations themselves. The solution, and this is really going to upset the stupid american liberals, is violence. Yes, I actually said that out loud, Violence. Go medieval on the Cartels, kill them. The Roman empire had the Pax Romana (The peace of Rome) because they kicked a** and didn't put up with junk like this. You got tacked up on a tree for stuff like these cartels are doing. Put a bounty on their scalps. Brutal force, not legeslation, is the only language ruthless men understand. Give 'em both barrels.

Now let the "violence never solved anything" idiots sound off. Read history, violence has solved lots of problems.

The problem is not about drugs. The problem is that there are too many people on planet earth, and at least fifty percent of those people have IQs that are below average. Even most people who are "above average" are pretty useles. Mexico and Central America are overpopulated and corrupt, and there is no shortage of stupidity down there. Stupid people are the problem with the world. Our economies can no longer support people who have no ability to play a productive role in the system. If there were no stupid people, the smart people would not be able to use and manipulate the idiots to maintain power and influence. (Obama is an idiot, but David Axelrod and Rahmbo are two very intelligent men. The same argument could be made with Bush the Idiot and Karl Rove the Brain and Cheney.) If we just let things slide, many of the masses will die (of disease, starvation, and/or war), and the severity of the problem will abate. Besides, once this depression really kicks in, even Americans will not be able to afford cocaine. As for marijuana, I cannot believe that these Mexican cartels would be able to "make bank" on cannabis alone. The real money has got to be in coke and smack, no? Meth is usually made in the States, right? Most of the hippies/Phishead types that I know get their weed from British Columbia, California, or local growers in Vermont. Where is the demand for this weed coming out of Mexico? I just do not believe it. Please ask yourself a few questions: Do you come from an extremely wealthy or politically-connected family? Answer: No Do you work in a job that is totally accountable (i.e., you could lose your job tomorrow if you screw something up in a major way?) Answer: Yes Do you work 50, 60, or 70-hour weeks? Answer: Yes Do you pay ridiculous percentages to taxes (income, goods, etc.)? Answer: Yes Do you generally refrain from excess (drinking, eating, drug use, etc.)? Answer: Yes Do you try to help others and observe the law? Answer: Yes Did you ever have the time or money to "Take a few months off to travel"? The people who actually work, follow the rules, and pay taxes are now the slaves. When all of these people start to die off, do not feel so bad. It's the best thing that could happen to the human population. If you do, good for you! Here is what I say: The rest of them

I think you are the one mistaken, there was no fraud in 2006 elections.

I am Mexican. There is an important mistake here. Most Mexicans DO NOT support Calderon, a fraud in 2006 elections allowed him to take over the presidency. Hes is hated throughout the country, only a minority (entrepreneurs and a few people who controls the country) support him. What we are living is a nightmare caused by this stupid, senseless "president" we unfortunately have.

Show me some statistics that say more people have been killed in Iraq by insurgents than US troops.

So you finally admit to your true hobby. I suspected it because most conservatives (Republican Senator Larry Craig) are covering up the fact that they are gay. No reason to hate yourself and owning a gun wont cover-up your homosexual tendencies. Embrace your true self and your other gay conservative friends.

Of course, George Bush was perfect in every way. Its so patriotic that half the population in the USA do not support their own President but are happy to go invading other countries and telling the rest of the world how to behave. Not to mention supporting Sarah Palin for VP.

....and we have nothing against Mexicans who want to go through the legal channels to pay taxes and work here. When you hop the "fence" you lose your credibility. My immigrant grandfather didn't hop a fence to get here. He got in line like everybody else, payed the fees and became a citizen.

and not a word blaming Obama! Well done....................it sometimes looks like Yanks blame him for everything.

Excellent point. And talking about cruelty: have you been aware of the sickening types of torture, maiming and slaughter being carried out by those adherents to the "religion of peace" in Iraq? Not the US or UK soldiers but the local psychopathic religionists have been stocking up with powerdrills and other delightful tools to inflict as much pain as they can on their innocent victims (usually women and children! Tough guys, eh?). The vast majority of deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are being committed by their fellow compatriots. So you are right: there are a lot of vile cultures around the world - many with one thing in common. Can you guess what?

Americans use their guns for self defense. Good guys in Mexico cannot have guns, so only the bad guys have them. Puts the good guys at a little bit of a disadvantage there. Explains the disparity between El Paso crime figures (very low, where everyone has a gun) and Ciudad Juarez one mile away (very high, where only crooks have guns)

There are illegals from Honduras (MS-13 is HUGE), Nicaragua, Ecuador as well. Not just Mexico.... There are other countries south of the U.S. border.

It's this attitude to guns that has Mexico flooded with guns... American guns!. The average mexican is not nearly this gun totting and more over, the average mexican could not afford a miserable gun, let alone the rocket launchers that the drug gangs own and display at every hit.

That is absolutely false. I was in LE for 20 years and I darn well know those stats. Quit your flippin lying.

NO, the biggest fact is that the United States has shredded its commitment to educate and employ at a living wage , the children of the working class,, lower middle class and poor. It is that the United States has decided that an uber class should exist that fancies itself a privileged elite, and has turned our once thriving participatory democracy into political gridlock and plutocracy supporting global oligarchs who care not about our nation, but their own power and filthy riches. It is that the USA is a nation of addicts who self-medicate to get through each day and have sold out their integrity, honesty, and moral courage to become a bunch of whinging, lying, cheating, vain and shallow materialists whose major hobby is affluenza. I am an American. And my heart is broken for Mexico and for USA.

El Paso doesn't welcome "Life Partners", Gayry. You are lying.

Legalizing drugs might help. Legalizing self defense would definitely help. How scared must the rich elite Gunvernment in Mexico be, that they can't trust their own citizens to own guns to defend themselves against thugs. In El Paso everyone has a gun and hardly any violence occurs. 1 mile away in Ciudad Juarez, only crooks have guns, and of course, incredibly high rates of violence. Just sayin.

The blood be on the hands of Obama and Bush for not getting a wall built. If you build a wall then you won't have immigrants traveling from C. America to try to get in. If they know that the wall exists they will stay where they are and this sort of thing would be avoided. Shame to our leaders for their blatant irresponsible behavior regarding the handling of our border security. Put up a two story concrete wall along the border and let Mexico implode. M

Guess what Gary, these gunmen got their weapons in the face of illegalization. The situation where law abiding citizens carry no weapons and become prey to criminals who acquire guns illegally and are emboldened by the widespread lack of self-protection would become a reality. Just look at drugs, it is illegal and SO easy to obtain. Illegalizing guns, just like illegalizing drugs, would ironically increase crime. The only way gun control would ever work would be in a totalitarian, non-private, police state. Would you be willing to sacrifice your freedoms for an effective gun control method? I don't think so.

With regards to how the war is currently being fought, then I agree there is no way to win. A change of attitude on both sides needs to occur and joint cooperation on how to deal with the threat. I don't see either side willing to step up at this time or if ever.

This is what happens in unarmed societies. This is the future the d'rats want for us.

Give me a break. Alcohol is a much more violent drug than pot. When was the last time you saw a pot smoker beat his wife or start a fight? Pot is far less dangerous and far less addictive than alcohol. In fact, the only reason pot is illegal is because big cotton found it to be a cheaper alternative and wanted it outlawed. It has absolutely nothing to do with being smoked. I would rather hang out with pot smoker than alcoholics, any day. They are friendlier and way easier to get along with than a piss poor slobbering drunk.

Your post proves my point. The killer at Virginia Tech was a typical gun owner; unsure of his sexual identity and unable to make friends. Sounds like a typical conservative redneck to me.

If we posted anything like that, you would counter with something by a "reliable" source like say, Firedoglake, DU, or DailyKOS - heck we know they have credentials, they posted Bozo's "Birth Certificate".

Its like when people say "Who are these terrorists?.... those bloody muslims again". It comes from narrow minded idiots who like to tar one brand of people with the same brush! One word... Ignorance.

Does anyone seriously think that legalizing drugs will suddenly result in these diabolical cartels vanishing. If the revenue from the drug trade disapears, does it not make sense that they will seek out other illegal ventures to enrich themselves. More human trafficing, prostitution, etc... etc... Does anyone think that these brutal killers will have an epiphany and "go straight". Obviously, the anwer is no, they will not. They will continue to engage in violence, corruption and the destabalization of Mexico and the US border, and most likely branch out into the US and fight it out with the already existing gangs here over a dimished pie so to speak. What would we do then, legalize and permit those other nefarious activities they may engage in. Where would that end? What seems to be in the offing is a capitualtion on the part of the civil society. It reeks of appeasement. What is required is a will to eradicate this menace, which would require a "total war" against groups like the Zetas etc.... Unfortunately, it seems that neither the Mexican Government, both at the federal and local level is prepared to do this giventhe fear and corrupton, nor the US federal government as evidenced by it's unwillingness to secure the border despite all these things taking place. There may be some hope on the US side come the NOV elections. If a change takes place in D.C. and a focus is given to our border security, there may be hope on this side. However, as for the average Mexican, I regret to predict things will only get worse before they get better.

For one thing, the right to posess a gun is a Constitutional right. At one time in America, that answer would have been obvious. To be a little more specific, I have never heard of anyone protecting themselves or their property by tossing pot seeds at a perp. However, based upon some of the comments, I now believe there may be some who would discontinue the robbery in order to collect the seeds. Anyway, these people would not be dead if our immigration laws had been strickly enforced over the last 40 years. Had they been, individuals would not be subjecting themselves to the possibility of death so they can come to the USA just to be deported.

Who are the 'druggies' btw? Everyone who drinks alcohol? People who smoke? People who like cannabis?
Bit harsh to sterilise millions upon millions of people and essentially lock them all up don't you think? How am I a 'danger to the public' if I smoke cannabis, or take ecstasy occasionally? Those who have drunk too much alcohol present a far greater 'danger to the public' due to the decrease in inhibitions brought on by its' comsumption.
It might be time to examine your prejudices and knowledge about all drugs.
Grow up.

So alcohol in the US is controlled by the mafia because it was during prohibition? The mafia made their money because of prohibition and now there are more gangsters making money because drugs are illegal and people want them. During WW1 you could go and buy morphine and cocaine at the local chemist and send them to the troops on the front. In those days the government made money from drugs, now we just spend money on it.

Wild Bill had a gun. He was right down the street. If the residents of Ciudad Juarez had Wild Bill right down the street, disarming all the thugs, they would'nt need guns. You make the argument FOR gun toting. Thanks!

Now can we have a serious debate re border security? //

No demand equals no sale. The problem is the AMERICANS who use and buy the stuff. Don't blame the suppliers alone, if they had no customers there would be no problem and they are just taking advantage of the situation.. Of course, the Yanks reading this will claim 100% innocence, they are so bloody perfect in every way. Yet another "war "that they cause and cannot win but expect everybody else to act and die for. No mention here of the massive number of drug-related murders in the USA ,which would be far more than the total number of murders in Mexico.

You don't need a bazooka when your victims are unarmed. A single shot will do just fine. If you made guns legal there and dropped guns from helicopters, it wouldn't take long before all the bad guys were dead. You see, good guys far outnumber bad guys. It is disarming the good guys that allow the bad guys to flourish. More guns equals less crime. Statistical fact.

Alcohol destroys many more lives and costs the state far more than illegal drugs. Legalise drugs, tax drugs, now we have money to pick up the 'wreckage', plus all the money saved on pathetic enforcement.

Whilst I too have disdain for the glamourisation of drugs, the glamourisation is because of the fact that they are prohibited, and therefore alternative and therefore 'cool'. I save my disgust for ignorant people like you who regard drugs like cannabis to be 'life destroying'. Are you campaigning for 'life destroying' drugs like tobacco and alcohol to be prohibited? No, thought not.

So you admit that your friends are stupid drug users, no surprise there. What else should we know about your friends?

Excellent observation hugbear. I bet you are closer to the truth than many realize. The 28,000 is a VERY big number just for warring cartels.

Simple solution from our end. You get caught with cocaine you are an accessory to murder. You get caught selling cocaine you are a willing participant in murder. While it's ok to say close the border (which I'm for) it's hard to take the high ground on this issue when American's are fueling the violence by providing an all too ready market for the product.

This will doubtless entail the need for 'black' incursions into other Central and South American states What a short memory you have, the US has been doing this for at least 40 years. Sometimes actively promoting the sale and production of drugs itself, (CIA Iran Contra), to absolutely ZERO effect. It is the curse of South America to have a neighbour to their north with such an enormous appetite for these destruction drugs.

Again...American citizans are the ones buying the drugs and funding this war...The US has done enough. "it may take 40-50k troops and 2 years to accomplish the mission" Seriously?!?!?! The troops left YESTERDAY, and already you've forgotten what happened in Iraq! Let's look at the US's general performance in war. The only wars you ever won were one where you stabbed us in the back in order to ethnicly cleanse the land we gave you, one where you had to resort to dropping two nukes because you knew that was the only chance you had of winning, and one against yourselves...Every other tin pot nation you've gone up against has thrown you into recession and Humiliated you, then continued to do so for decades after. Perhaps if you got your information from sources that don't have John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone in, you'd have a better idea of what's actually happening in the world around you!

I was stationed at Ft. Bliss and I think it interesting that someone who only feels like a man when he has a gun would try to insult me. Do you spend of lot of time in airports with your friend and fellow conservative, Larry Craig?

The war is ALREADY close to home. It's IN our home.

Okay sure. So you strive to turn America into a police state by deploying 50,000 troops to our southern border states to secure the borders. You can claim that it's not a "front" all you want, but when prices shoot up in the states from the choke hold placed upon supply from your "secured borders", to claim that these cartels won't resort to wide scale violence against our troops on the border to secure those profits is delusional on your part. They've already demonstrated a willingness to do what was previously considered unthinkable, taking on Calderon and the Mexican government on all levels and its affect upon Mexican society has been catastrophic. So yes, securing our borders in the fashion you have in mind would very much open up a "front", but this time it wouldn't be in some far off middle eastern country but right along our southern border.

Charlie68 defends the same religion that would handle Adam and Steve "marriages" by throwing them off rooftops and/or decapitating them. Liberal logic, amazing.

Think of it this way. Beware of the sleeping giant. We are not the only players in the world that might want to use their military. If we open another front with our already spread forces then I wouldn't be surprised if someone came in to take another country or take the opportunity to attack us.

"Illegalizing guns", where did you attend school, Texas, or at home with your mommy.

Negative our forces are already spread to thin throughout the world. The last thing we need is to bring war close to home.

The flow of money stops the moment the US legalizes their main product. Buying arms and influence then becomes problematic for the cartels. The US addiction/prohibition is directly killing innocents in Mexico and the US. The most effective method to cripple a product in the US: Legalize; regulate; tax; subsidize; promote; and designate a cabinet post to foster its growth and easy access. Legalization is now a moral issue...the morals of supporting the brutal murderers that prohibition has created, and no longer merely the morals of substance abuse.

Already there. The Durkadurka's run the place. Sharia law is slowly creeping it's way into all folds.

Who the hell are you to decide that I should or should not smoke pot? Maybe I have a problem with YOUR consumption of Alcohol. And if you don't like that, well, you need to justify the legality and consumption of Alcohol. Well? I maintain that I have near absolute sovereignty over my own body, and people like you, and the gun grabbers, the nanny staters and the shrill chorus of moral scolds need to keep your mouths shut and back off. If you don't enjoy a substance, don't consume it. Next.

Yeah, they're probably guns stolen by illegal immigrants and sent back home. We should open the border and allow our weapons to come back in. Then appeal to the druglords' honor to register or turn their weapons in.

You answer makes even less sense than your original comment. You really do need to check your underwear, as most ringhtwingers try to substitute a a gun they can buy for the tiny one nature gave them. Time for you to grow a pair and not hide behind a gun; real men don't need one. By the way, which branch of the service did you serve with? (crazy militia membership doesn't count)

Decrimilization or legalization of just marijuana, would have an immediate impact and positive affect to our troubled economy. In all reality marijuana is just a dried leaf that originates from the hemp plant (cannabis sativa), that when smoked or digested releases THC into your body that causes a euphoric affect. This in effect is what marijuana is. It is not a life threatening drug that can kill you. It is not as addictive or dangerous as alcohol yet alcohol can be bought in almost every store in the country.

LOL! What an illogical comparison. Not to mention, Hickok spent very, very LITTLE time in law enforcement. He had a history of being arrested and womanizing. He also committed murder. Hardly a role model much less a statistical comparison given to the populations of the time, the lack of illicit drugs being sold, etc., etc. Times and society have changed or have you failed to recognize this fact?

No problems until you are wandering around in your underwear at 3AM in my neighborhood with Gayry and co., high like a mo-cho-fo, chomping on kitty litter.

Albert Einstein once said, "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.? If there is a perception that a ?drug? is addictive and it has a high likelihood of being abused and that there is no medical use for it then it is considered a Schedule I drug. Marijuana has medicinal value and is least addicting then alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. So no it would not but all other drugs on the same path.

yeah...all that healthcare is gonna slaughter people in their thousands.

Seriously...Comrades? You think he's a communist?
the fact that you can call Obama a Communist only shows that you have no knowledge about communism other than how it's spelled...Seriously, when Obama is grinding down prisoners to make roads from, and yo've all got the choice of one cheap car only! THEN you will be able to compare your country to Russia.
Until that moment comes i think you seriously need to go out into the real world, and possibly buy a history book that doesn't come with it's own Crayons or Glenn Becks name on it (or more likely both).

And what does YOUR solution solve? Nothing. You kill them, they will come back, and most likely a shed load of people will be destroyed in the process. Your method of using violence is proven to be an ineffective way to deal with the problem, so why don't do you insist on not listening to any other solutions? I don't think any of us believe that simply taking away the drug trade will destroy the cartels, but it will do far more than your kill them all method, which once again is proven to not be an effective method. Wise up man! This has nothing to do with left or right or hippie or not hippie, it's just common sense, plain old common sense.

Why should we continue to overpopulate the already overcrowded prison systems? This puts a financial drain and burden on not only the individuals and their families affect by this bogus law but the American taxpayers and government who have to pay the check and end up taking the bill. Right now this is causing more harm to our way of life by fining and incarcerating users then the actual plant itself. Instead of fighting a prohibition that isn?t working and that is causing a anti productive effect why not legalize it, tax it, take the revenues to build schools, hospitals, community centers and such. Free the non violent convicts let them go back to their families and jobs, save money, free up prison space, and redirects the police force freed from this bill and have them go after the murderers, rapists, and hard criminals. The respected DAs (District Attorneys) and judges around the country will now have the much needed time, money, and resources to go after more compelling cases.

Apparently Gayry doesn't own a gun. He's going to fabulously wow them with "the look"!

Most of those who made millions in alcohol did so during the prohibiiton, it was because alcohol was illegal that made it expensive. Joe Kennedy who is often cited as one who made his milions when booze was legal actually made his dough importing illegal scotch and jacking up the price. He was lucky that Teddy wasn't around;he would have drank all the profits.

Then go live in Mexico. I'm sure they will respect your "lifestyle". The wall would have a gate to pass through. This is a "checkpoint" to weed out bad goobacks.

You never miss a chance do you, to copy and paste that old nugget?

It may be surprising for you to learn but last I checked in Iraq hundreds of people were not killed every there week before the US invasion.

Do you actually believe that you'd be safe in little old England if France decided to destroy all law and order over the weekend?

Spot on :- "If we didn't use the drugs this wouldn't be happening",

The sad thing is that at the time I post this reply 28 people 'like' the fact that you seem to think Obama has opened the borders in some way. Nothing has changed since GW, Bill, or any of the predecessors, but that won't stop you fantasising.

Absolutely stupefying what Rattling Bones and his 28 (and counting) supporters are suggesting isn't it?

So Obama is responsible for the tens of millions of Americans who take illegal drugs? And of course before he was elected there was no drug problem in the US and all of the borders were sealed? You surely must realise how utterly dumb you sound making such poorly thought-out comments? Gee, there are some really poorly educated Americans posting here....

Interesting take on the problem. Could you explain how the current president has reduced the security of the Arizona borders over the previous incumbent? Of course he hasn't but the fantasists are out in force again on our lil ole website - let me guess, Matt Drudge head you over here again?

drugged up invasion from the South. Surely you mean drugged up evasion from the North? No USA addiction to hard drugs and weapons = no drugs civil war for the Mexicans. If only these poor people could seal their border to the North, many of their social problems would go away.

Is the invasion "drugged up"? I thought the problem was that it was the US that was "drugged up". Of course, you could propose that no Senator (for example) should be permitted to take his seat unless he has taken and passed a drug test. After all, if it's good enough for the flower of American youth when they go in for the Olympics, it must be good enough for some cheapskate Senator. Funny that any such suggestion in the UK falls on amazingly deaf ears!

During the Vietnam war one of the greatest threat to the GI's were our own claymore mines. The VC would redirrect them back at our troops during the night and when they were detonated they killed our own troops. They were also highly prized by the VC who disonnected them and then used them on trails to kill our own soldiers. Neal, you are obviously a very stupid person who should never utter your opinion about anything.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but kicking all the Brown people of Arizona isn't going to solve this.
This war is the product of Prohibition and is being paid for by the US Citizens who buy the drugs. So please don't pretend like you're some kind of repressed minority under threat from the savages abroad.
I guarantee that you know someone who has paid money, which has financed this war in some molecular scale. (mind you if your a republican you're probably only really upset because 'Merka didn't get to sell the guns to these gangs...like it has every other gang/militia in the world.)

You want this problem solved, there's only one way to do it. legalize the drugs today, and this war ends tomorrow as the gangs lose all their business and influence and have to move on to something else, which will never in a million years bring them the kind of influence and income that drugs bring in. You then tax the drugs and bring all those Billions of dollars (or pounds over here) add that to the hundreds of thousands of new jobs created by the birth of a new industry, and we're all out of recession by the time the kids go back to school in September.

Also please don't talk about "Biased liberal media", considering the disgusting recent display the Fanatical Faux news et al have made about this Ground zero mosque that isn't at ground zero or a mosque.

it's spelt H-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y and you're swarming with it.

If tobacco was 'illegal' you would see people killing each other over it. If you can't see that then you are 'goofy and illogical'. Meth and crack are direct (and dangerous) products of prohibition. Educate yourself and learn some history.

yeah, let's not worry about little Mexican kids getting their legs blown off...Perhaps drugs would mellow you out and give you a bit of human compassion for your fellow man. (or are you the type that does not see the Mexicans as people).

google "more guns less crime" If you care to know the facts.

....add to that drug crazed, truck stop trollers and frequenters of men's bathhouses.

Well, you aren't supposed to be driving under the influence. Likewise, I wouldn't skydive under the influence either. Legalize the drug, and let people be responsible for their own actions (like your friend).

Estimates show America has 5% of the worlds population but consumes 80% of illegal drugs. Instead of legalizing, perhaps a better solution would be to make Americans aware that what's entertainment to us, costs the lives of many people to get here. Winning the hearts of our compassionate country may do the trick. For years the Entertainment Industry has been advertising drug usage as cool and sexy. We've never been shown the truth of mutilated bodies. We can begin with graphic ads showing the drug trade from start to finish. I believe it will turn our stomachs, our minds and our money, like the truth we finally saw about the Tobacco Industry and they are legal. Drying up the usage, would dry up the supply and probably even stop the war in Afghanistan, where Opium has been funding terrorists throughout the world.

Actually, that statistic is "Acquaintances" and applies to rival drug dealers you might have known, a rider in your cab, etc... These false statistics are debunked. Google "John Lott" or "more guns less crime" if you care about facts.

HAHA! So the "distant relative of Wild Bill" is asking for a "scientific study" that proves jdieters fact. Right, because everything YOU say on the internet is fact but every argument everybody has against you has to be backed up by a study. You fail again, you bundle of sticks. .......figure it out.

Gary is right on the money when he says that it is Americans' lust for drugs that fuel the violence. I think that the best short term solution is to legalize the cash drugs. Definitely not a perfect solution but it takes away all the profit potential in the black market and would force these drug cartels to compete with legitimate US firms, at the expense of having more drug addicts and the increased burden of more psychological maintenance. Rich people aren't just going to stop doing coke. Let's face it, the only way to make them stop would be to invade their privacy and initiate a police state, the last thing we want.

Ah yes, just like in your warped mind, the government FORCING people to pay taxes is also socialism and communism wrapped up in one big quasi label that you think is unfair. Just like how its been so detrimental to capitalism that the government has FORCED taxation upon its people the past couple hundred years to pay for public utilities and projects like public transportation, roads, and of course that quintessential evil and waste of your hard earned income in your mind aka "public education".

Go back to your mountainous hideaway where you can play with your stockpile of automatic weapons and lie in wait for that day when the ATF storms your HQ for exercising your constitutional right not to pay taxes you retro loon.

If you take illicit drugs you are supporting crime and all it's attendant chaos whether in the back streets of England or Mexico, just don't take drugs, just a simple idea with few words. Not you of course, but most of the supporters of no controls on drugs on these pages I suspect actually take these drugs and will do everything under the sun to escape personal responsibility for the crime waves they induce to justify their actions.

No, you mentioned Russia by saying Comrade (a term of address used by the USSR).

I used it as an analogy, But the same thing can be said for China, Cuba, North Korea.
this isn't an arguement about geography...please stop trying to distract.

The beginning of Communism traditionally starts with a revolution (again a history book please, you'll learn a hell of a lot of relevant stuff you currently don't have any grasp of)

You're old Healthcare system was a disgrace, a corrupt, abusive, and elitist system that priced many Americans out of a healthy life. Not something to be proud of!

Making sure the poor can get healthcare is not the beginning of Communism! that is a hysterical overreaction.

I feel it nessescary to say that the only reason Obama can't do anything is because his every move is followed by legions of screaming fanatics who, lament wildly about Whatever he does, solely because it's him doing it, using nonsensical arguments and mis-informed accusations like yours, which he is then, instead of focusing on his policies is forced to spend hours, days, weeks, months, making sence of whatever circus has been set up for him to dance through, and then he has to try and address said nonsence, which is impossible because however he addresses it will somehow be warped by loudmouth lunatics into proof he to is either Cambodian, a Muslim a communist or all of the above and Hitler's secret love child all rolled into one.

For many, legalization is not an option. These are often politicians with links to organized crime. On the surface, Japan is draconian in it's punishment of drug users. However the large-scale importers/manufacturers are controlled with a very light touch with the police making token arrests. As a result, cannabis, for example, has a street price of around �50-75 a gram (depending on quality). The most popular drug of choice here are amphetamines. So, any drug cartels out there - Japan is THE place to make your easy riches.

Your comparing third world sheeple to US citizens?

Why not? They are the ones causing the problem.

An acquaintance of mine got high and went skydiving. Forgot to open his chute. What was the drug? Marijuana. Try again, Gayry.

And the days of the wild west are long gone. Most productive people have to worry about a much different kind of life. Perhaps we should require people to take an IQ test before they can buy a gun. I wouldn't be against that.

Now you know why people in Arizona want secure borders. But everytime we try to tell this boob in the White House, his operatives and the ever licking biased media accuse us of being racist. How about protecting your citizens Mr. President. For once, be for us.

You have a very strong opinion, but Statistics don't lie. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html Facts: per capita crime figures for Ciudad Juarez VS El Paso. El Paso has ten times less crime. I'm the farthest thing from "right wing" if you even know what that means. You are a hateful person who hates other Americans because politicians told you to hate them. I'm a Libertarian, and I love you. Because I understand it is not your fault. You have been taught to hate by others. You spit vile comments and suppositions at people you don't even know. Politicians use your fears to keep elite utopian big government central planners in control. Keep on hating. I'll keep on loving.

You are more likely to face a crime from a citizen than any illegal immigrant. More than that, just like drugs, illegals only come over because there is an incentive for Americans to hire them. Blame the employers not the employees. Stop whining about illegals and do what you "free market" types profess. Adapt and take lower wages than the Mexicans and then you will get the jobs they "stole"!

Your insane. Do you ever stop to think about what you say, or the consequences of such a proposal?

Gayry, your husband is calling you.

Americans rearely use their guns for self defense. They are used to kill people they are angry at or to committ crimes.

The answer is "Salad", Gayry. You toss it. There's no typo.

The vast majority of people who are killed by the gun owning public are family members (children playing with dad pistol, jealous husbands).

Sick people should be sent to doctors. Addicts are sick. Most people are for reform of drug laws, not outright legalization. We want addicts treated medically, and those who sell dangerous things punished.

The point was the US would have organized militias and NOT a standing army. The Founders, most of them, felt that a standing army like we have now is a poison to democracy, and they are not wrong. We were never meant to be the World's superpower military, instead an example of how a Republic works. We lost our way.

The absolute majority of their money is coming from the sale of drugs to American citizens. The kidnappings, the prostitution, and the rest is side money to these cartels. Would legalizing pot fix the problem? No, probably not since Cocaine is the real money maker and I don't think anyone is thinking of legalizing that highly addictive substance. However, legalizing pot would put a cut into the profitability of these cartels and would help to limit their purchases of firearms, ammo, and any payments that might be made to foot soldiers (assuming they aren't simply forced to do the bidding of those who are being paid, which I think is probably more likely.) Cut off their money, and the rest would soon fall apart. As a side note, 'sealing the border' probably won't work either. It's a huge border, and there is simply no possible way to seal it all off. Especially when the sale of these drugs nets them enough money to be worth the while of anyone who tries to run drugs into this country. (And then even if you're caught, what, deported back to your cartel?) I'm not sure what the solution is, but the repeated mantra of 'seal the border', while perhaps being a part of the puzzle, is far from the whole thing.

You presume I am "right wing". I'm a Libertarian. Facts do not lie. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html You are apparently ignorant of the statistics. What good would it do me to converse with someone that has no idea what the facts are? None. Senseless uneducated personal attacks do not faze one that is armed with reason. I referenced a comparison between the violent crime statistics in Ciudad Juarez (self defense illegal) and El Paso (gun ownership legal). You respond not with facts, but with anecdotal "feelings" regarding the "gun shots" you hear every night. Perhaps it is the murdering thugs being shot by honest law abiding legal gun owning citizens you hear?

Most of the weapons come from the US, not Middle Eastern states. By the way, most of the countries buy weapons from us too.

I am originally from South Dakota and a distant relative of Wild Bill, who was well known as a lawman who could tame any town. One of the first thing he did was to ban the wearing of pistols in town as he knew that drunks and guns were a lethal combination. Anyone who disagreed with his rule soon regretted it. It is one of the great myths of the American West that most men carried guns, but one that appeals to those who otherwise feel inadequate and have to try and prove their manhood. By the way, I be interested to know the scientific study that provided your "statistical fact".

Put up a big wall, and shoot anyone who tries to cross it. American side of the problem solved.

Gary's right on the money. it's our lust for drugs and guns that feed the unfortunate and tragic situation in Mexico. To be fair, corruption is the number one problem in Mexico but with the fuel that we constantly throw on that fire in the form of drug money, a solution is far away until we curb our lust. Building a wall do nothing to solve the problem.

You have sat under to many liberal professors soaking up the learned spewings. Let me tell you simply what the human nature of the men who ruthlessly killed these 72 people is like. They chase shiney objects with cruelty, violence and purpose. That is they pursue wealth and power with horrible means. What you, and so many others, are proposing is to take away those "shiney objects" and the problem is solved. Wrong. What do you propose to do about these men themselves? Are they going to simply go back to whatever conditions they where in before? Are they going to lay down their guns and vanish? I think not. They will find other sources of revenue, of power and they will get it by the same means, from the same society, that coddles them and tries to be all nice. You're the one with a fantasy view of human nature. Keep singing "Kumbaya".

The reason there are so many weapons on our border is that America refuses to regulate the sale of guns. It is the stupidity of conservatives and the greed of the gun makers that have created this problem.

American consumption provides the largest incentive profits for drug cartels. The very reason most the drugs are illegal in the first place is ridiculous. The whole "sinking to their level" argument is also idiotic. Whose morality are you going by? Last I checked what people do to their OWN body is none of your damn business. More than that, study after study after study has shown that drug rehabilition is MUCH more effective than throwing them in prison and waging a fruitless war. We have been fighting the war on drugs for DECADES. Drug use is higher than when it started, Cartels are more powerful, our police forces are corrupted and turned into enemies as they are forced to wage this war. End it now. Legalize, regulate and then focus all the money of enforcement on prevention and rehabilitation.

You are absolutely right, and I regret my earlier like of the comments about legalization. I do believe that marijuana should be legalized and taxed, but heroin, cocaine and meth are nothing but poison. I think every user of hard drugs should have to work with poor and exploited people of Mexico and Latin America as a form of education and punishment. Thousands of people in these countries work as virtual slave to keep Ameica supplied. Growing your own pot seems like the one way to satisfy the urge to get high that harms only the user.

When used properly guns kill quickly, whereas cocaine and marijuana do not. This is what America now stands for ...Quick Death.

Another really stupid comment by a rightwing looney. I have lived in El Paso and nightly could hear gunfire from dueling gangs. The people have to live in gated communities with quards and are still not safe. The idea that everyone would be safer if they would just carry a gun is proven to be a lie every night in El Paso. Only fools believe gun ownership is the cure for what ails America, and only the gun manufacturers and dealers profit from the absurd notion that the more guns the safer we will be.

A goofy and illogical argument. Meth and Crack are not cigs and beer. This retarded economic argument always gets thrown out there by white guys who play video games and beat off all day. Meth is illegal for a reason and that reason is that it is dangerous to the innocent public. Tabacco is not. Meth kills users and bystanders when used properly. It is not a widget!!!!!!!!

Can someone explain to me why cocaine and marijuana are illegal and guns are not ? Really! I d like to know.

Prostitution used to be legal and regulated. Brothels were the hangouts for mayors and the elite of town. Then minorities got into the business and society couldn't handle that.

Drugs aren't killing people, guns are. America is addicted to guns, there should be a war against guns!

Stop blaming the USA. Stop ALL tourism into Mexico and apply a 20% surcharge to all monies going into Mexico until the crime wave stops and you will see how fast it goes away.

Dalton, you said "When giant pharmaceuticals monopolize the legal drug trade and reap 100's of billions in profit at the mercy of theweak, sick and dyinng, something is not right." Where you kidding? Or are you just that ignorant? Without a profit incentive, why should people (shareholders, pensioners and others who make up a corporation) risk their money by investing in the buildings, labs, research scientists, and deal with layer after layer of federal administrations, teams of lawyers looking to sue, etc. etc. etc. Private enterprise is responsible for all the life saving, life extending drugs we now have--not communist/socialist monoliths. Your comment is assinine in the extreme. Have you donated half your annual salary (presuming you work) to the sick and needly? I thought not.

What are you? Some Obama hack hired to go around posting for his agenda? No one is kicking 'brown people'. Brown people from elsewhere are just fine (those from India for example). The problem is ILLEGAL immigrants regardless of their skin color - black, white, brown or any shade in the middle. In this case the problem is latin illegals because they are bringing in ridiculous amounts of drugs, violence, and support for handout-giving dem governments.

The pro drug argument always neglects the true face of drug abuse which is destructive to society not just to the individual! If some person's addiction and it's consequences was simply confined to that person without any potential effect on people around them or innocent people caught in their path then I wouldn't personally care if they destroyed themselves? However that is not the case, already we have issues with alcohol as well as tobacco and now we have those who want to add pot, heroin, meth and cocaine to the mix? What about all the hallucinogens and designer drugs which we don't even know what the long term side effects are? What is the true cost of legalization? Drug impaired drivers, women using while pregnant, more young people using heroin, meth and coke in addition to alcohol, more addicts than we already have and public support of those addicts when they are unable to work? We definitely already have a serious drug and associated crime problem admittedly, but where do we draw the line? Will legalizing less destructive drugs like marijuana versus hard drugs like meth, coke and heroin have any kind of detrimental effect to the cartels? I don't believe we should legalize hard drugs like meth, coke and heroin! Marijuana on the other hand is probably not any more harmful than alcohol and thus should not be something to incarcerate anyone over and it may be a source of tax revenue like alcohol and tobacco are in addition to depriving the cartels of those dollars? Either way even if all drugs were completely legal the cartels will not just go away and will find another source of revenue, they are criminals nothing more!

Wanna fix this problem (aside from decriminalizing drugs in the US)? REFORM THE GUN LAWS IN MEXICO! If you issued a regular bolt action rifle to any Mexican citizen who wanted one, and placed ammo in buckets on the street corners, two things would happen: 1) blood would flow from one end of the country to the other (like that ain't already happening??????) for about 3 - 4 weeks 2) every narco and dirty cop would be dead. The civilian populace knows who the bad guys are, and would kill these bastards in a heartbeat. Mexico has the most draconian gun laws imaginable, and the law abiding civilians are defenseless sheep, and the cops are in bed with the narcos. You wanna flush the trash down into the sewer? Allow the civilian populace to defend itself.

I obviously think it's an effective solution or I wouldn't have posted it. What do you propose? Cookies and milk? Rational discusions? Oh! Legalize pot then they'll just be nice and go away...perfect!!! They really want to be nice. Dude, they have money they have guns, they have power and they have meanness. If you remove one revenue source they will find another that will also involve violence. The point is wicked, violent men must be delt with in like manner. You read history, these types of men can only be delt with one of two ways; 1. Cower and pay whatever "tribute" they require and hope to not tick them off. 2. Kill them. Sorry to burst your little bubble about society having finally become "civilized". The only difference between us and those a hundred years ago is our clothing and technology... same animals man.

Stop blaming the USA. Apply a 20% tax on all monies entering Mexico from ALL contries and STOP all tourism into the country until the corruption and killing stops. Let me know if it works out??

If you remove their revenue source they have a harder time funding that violence. When Alcohol Prohibition ended crime didn't shoot up, did it? The Mafia and other groups adapted, but they weren't bloodbaths in the streets. Also, your fantasy movie style analysis of human nature is a joke. You've seen too many action movies.

You, sir, are in danger of being sane! (That means I totally agree with you.)

You know me better than I know myself .

What happens to drug smugglers and drug dealers in Cuba? Are they given deluxe accomodations in a plush jail for 2 years? I don't think so. They are put to a quick death by firing squad.

Wouldn't work. The profit incentive would just go up and with that, the bribes and money made. It would also make us a monstrous, hideous state and reviled by the parts of the world that barely like us now. Truly what the Founders envisioned!

Last I checked a lot of the research for drugs came from large Federal Grants to universities. More than that, pharmaceuticals are spending their time with the profit incentive to make drugs for erecticle dysfunction whereas we have not had a new antibiotic in years to face the rapid change.

Medicine doesn't develop itself. Someone works hard to create it and distribute it, so your comment makes about as much sense as saying the Easter Bunny should pay for it.

They'd just switch to Euros or a basket of other currencies. At the end of the day, people want to leave the dollar behind long term anyway.

If you were a drug smuggler and you can make $1 million per year smuggling drugs 12 times a year and risked 2 years in jail if caught, would you? Probably If you knew you would be put to death if caught, like they do in Singapore, Turkey, or Malaysia would you? Forget it! We have a drug problem here because the rewards of smuggling and selling outweight any risks......period! 2-3 years in jail versus $2 million in profit? A no brainer for dealers and smugglers.

"...for some bizarre reason the USA seems to like having a drug problem." That's right, but it isn't bizarre. Nor is it a problem for those not addicted or involved at the low end of the trade. It is a multi-billion dollar industry with the rewards permeating through all levels of society, right to the top. Death, murder, torture, suffering innocents? It's just business. Holler all you like, but they're not giving it up just yet, thanks.

Most of the backing for the "war on drugs" comes from the cartels. They have studied history and understand that legalization means bankruptcy. That's what happened to most of the mobs shortly after Prohibition was repealed. But I take issue with the "guns and money flowing South." The money part is correct, but as Mexican law makes citizens owning 'military caliber' weapons illegal, the cartels prefer to go full auto and get their toys from China, Venezuela, et cetera. Easier and cheaper. The ATF has already published reports that very few guns to south, simply because it is easier to get 'useful' weapons elsewhere. Bring back the "shoot to kill" regulations for the border patrol.

There is slightly more to it. How much money are the political parties taking from legal (alcohol) drug companies?

I am not making any suggestions about what should Mexico do or not do. What we know for certain is that what we have now is not working and IS getting worst. If you legalize drugs in US you get the demand part of the equation and psychological glamor out of the way. There is much bigger picture behind all this. It relates to the nature of freedom. Possession of anything construed to be dangerous (drugs, guns, "subversive" material, to name a few) becomes an instrument of control and oppression in the hands of government. If you have or take drugs, it should be your problem. If you force someone to take it is a crime. 80% (of 2.5 millions) of the prison population are in for possession and distribution. This concept that doing the same thing as things get worst is going to give different outcome is idiotic. ________________________________

Absolutely. When the money runs out, you can use your gun to end your suffering instead of planning that leap in front of a speeding train. Its an issue of convenience. Your itching typing fingers give it away.

$113 billion is spent on marijuana every year in the U.S. and because of the prohibition *all* of it goes straight into the hands of criminals. According to the ONDCP, two-thirds of the Mexican drug cartel's money comes from selling marijuana in the U.S., and they protect this cash flow by brutally torturing, murdering and dismembering thousands of innocent people. Instead of preventing people from smoking, the prohibition creates zero legal supply amid massive and unrelenting demand - this is where the cartels get the incentive and ability to pay their hitmen. If we can STOP people using marijuana then we need to do so now, but if we can't then we need to legalize the production and sale of marijuana to adults with after-tax prices set too low for the cartels to match. One way or the other we have to force the cartels out of the marijuana market and eliminate two-thirds of their income - no business can withstand that!

I am in your debt sir . I was not aware of that . Daresay, I would also imagine that it would be much cheaper to kill oneself with a gun . No? If it be so then the idea of bearing arms grows on me by the minute .

You are either : 1. Incapable of understanding what sarcasm means - in which case I pity you. OR 2. Are another crazed obama kool-aid drinker -- in which case you're irrelevant to intelligent discussion and therefore, it doesn't matter what you think (can you still think as a kool-aid drinker?)

If one chooses to lob hemp seeds at unsolicited house invaders as a means of defence why can t it be a constitutional right to bear cannabis seeds, blunts etc etc ( Please excuse my inquistiveness for I am British).So say I.

Why is the US ignoring this horrid reality of a beautiful people and country? Instead of appeasing Pres Calderon view of immigration policy we should be helping/advising/joining Mexicos efforts to bring back stability/safety/Rule of law to the joined borders and Mexico as a whole. Mexico is bleeding to death! Virgen de Guadalupe salvenos!

Legalizing drugs means merely giving up and telling the drug kingpins that they are more powerful than the law and the government. THAT WOULD BE THE LAST THING to do, as the criminals will merely turn to kidnappings and extortion without the drug income. Criminals will ALWAYS find an activity to make money....and they are armed to the hilt, and they are the only payroll for their gangs....so if they KNOW that THEY CAN WIN....they merely switch to getting Middle Eastern Terrorists into the US with dirty bombs for pay...and so on. The issue is simple. Close the border and shoot to kill anyone coming across illegally so that ALL parties get the point...stop and don't try. Stop NAFTA and any Mexican financial aid or subsidy until the Mexican government reforms itself, or goes into open revolt. Tell them that if the US is attacked in any manner from Mexico or people IN Mexico, that the USA will invade and destroy the attackers....and put C-130A gunships and blackhawk helicopters on the border ready to go into Mexico on a moment's notice. The present US Administration is TOO weak, and the Congress is too frozen trying to pander to Hispanic votes to take care of the citizens of the USA, as they swore to do when they tookk their oaths of office. If they do not protect us, the States should sue for treason and for impeachment of EVERY congressperson and the President if our Southern border is not secured THIS YEAR. Otherwise....start voting every single person that does not demand the borders be secured AT ALL COSTS IMMEDIATELY, out of office and replace them with people COMMITTED first and foremost to immediate border control with full military committment and funding.

Picking a random year for deaths due to alcohol related car crashes; in 2005 it's 43,443 (deaths in one year) www.car-accidents.com/pages/fatal-accident-statistics I drink alcohol and I am not a proponent for a prohibition of it, however how many more deaths would we have by JUST legalizing Pot? Those same people who ask if people who promote persecution of drug lords would be willing to accept the death of a loved one due to the increased violence against the cartels have to ask themselves if they are willing to accept the death of a loved one killed by a driver who was high on pot. Instead of legalizing illicit mind altering drugs, why not launch into a crazy media campaign to make the use of these drugs unpopular. If Al Gore spent his time and money assailing substance abuse as he did against "global warming" or "climate Change" (the seasons of the year), Then the demand goes down and suppliers go out of business. I'm not saying another version of "just say NO" but a complete cultural shift away from drugs. Just we are currently shifting away from burning dead dinosaurs and "going green". Liberals, Conservatives, Independants et. al. should LOVE that.

According to all studies legalising drugs will is less deaths as the drugs will have to be prepared to legal standards. The death count will also be lower due to fewer drugs wars. Also please name other sources of revenue cartels can use that make as much money as drugs.

Oh no, a smaller dountry doesn't want your 'help' in fighting its war on drugs. Lets see how the current fights in Afghanistan and Iraq are going shall we. Hmm before 9/11 Afghanistan had virtually no poppies because the Taliban introduced draconian laws banning its growth, now Afghanistan is once exporting huge quantities of opium. My question is who is protecting the poppy growers when only one side has air power to find out where they are growing. If only Sly, Arnie and Steven could get in there and sort it out eh.

Legalise pornography and prostitution in the USA - god forbid. Oh, hang on amoment though...

Are you also proposing using violence against Americans who use drugs or do you only support violence against non-Americans? It seems that you've decided to use Pax Romana to justify your own insane crusade without any idea what it was about. Pax Romana was a period in Roman history where they didn't go to war with anyone and decided to live peacefully. In other words the opposite of what you're proposing. Also legalising prostitution ends forced prostitution. Germany and Turkey are good examples of this.

USA: THIRD WORLD RISING - http://www.BorderInvasionPics.com

That'd also probably help the Mexicans, too. What people don't realize is that closing the border would cut off a huge artery of income to drug cartels, dealing them a massive blow. The controlled border isn't all just so Americans can have an excuse to ignore Mexico. Justice cuts both ways.

Did you copy and paste this from some website? You had me until you started the cliche bitch-rant about giant pharmaceutical companies.

If you don't want 'no English speakers' around, why did you invade Mexico in the first place? Non-English speakers were there before you, and will be there long after your obscene empire has been tossed into the garbage bin of history. And it's a bit rich for a white american to be calling others fat and ugly.

their sex maybe, or fighting a war? Nicechappie on a trolling crusade I see.

Why on earth does anyone think it's acceptable to want to control certain behaviors, such as the bedroom habits or choice of poison of fully grown adults? Isn't it high time we evolved enough to get past this crap? Debating whether a particular drug is harmless or not is missing the whole point. are drugs dangerous? I simply don't care. If another adult wants to destroy their lives with drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, heroin or meth thats their business, not anybody else's. Their lives aren't ours to direct. Surely we need to accept, that the only way to truly be free, is that you agree, in return, to allow other people to be free, even if it offends your personal sensibilities. What's more; if it's not directly hurting you and you forbid it, then you can be sure that it will create unforeseen circumstances, which WILL have an adverse affect on YOUR wellbeing! -- Actually, a large proportion of those arising circumstances may not come as such a surprise to those of us who are capable of paying due attention to historical precedent. If you support prohibition then you're not only a black market profiteer, a sadomoralist. a socialist or a fake-conservative, but you've also helped trigger the worst crime wave in this planet's history. If you support prohibition you've a helped create a black market with massive incentives to hook both adults and children alike. If you support prohibition you've helped to make these dangerous substances available in schools and prisons. If you support prohibition you've helped raise gang warfare to a level not seen since the days of alcohol bootlegging. If you support prohibition you've helped create the prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords. If you support prohibition you've helped remove many important civil liberties from those citizens you falsely claim to represent. If you support prohibition you've helped put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets. If you support prohibition you've helped to escalate Theft, Muggings and Burglaries. If you support prohibition you've helped to divert scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting your fellow citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property. If you support prohibition you've helped overcrowd the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others. If you support prohibition you've helped evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.

The one thing Iraq and Afghanistan have got in common is that they are being bombed by the likes of you in the USA!! Idiot.

They have blind religious faith in a Book, perhaps? Certainly a problem. More to the point, as was stated during the Nuremburg Trials, the ultimate crime against humanity is to launch a war of aggression, as this leads directly to all later evils. The fact of people torturing and murdering is unforgiveable, but without american aggression it wouldn't be happening in this manner in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

So you would rather have a government that cuts a deal with the drug cartels so that we can have some peace and quiet? I hope you realize that really isn't the solution to the problem, it's just sweeping it under the rug.

And what code words do Fox and Bill O'Reilly use for it?

The only people that believe prohibition is working are the ones making a living by enforcing laws in it's name, and those amassing huge fortunes on the black market profits. This situation is wholly unsustainable, and as history has shown us, conditions will continue to deteriorate until we finally, just like our forefathers, see sense and revert back to tried and tested methods of regulation. None of these substances, legal or illegal, are ever going to go away, but we CAN decide to implement policies that do far more good than harm. During alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, all profits went to enrich thugs and criminals. Young men died every day on inner-city streets while battling over turf. A fortune was wasted on enforcement that could have gone on treatment. On top of the budget-busting prosecution and incarceration costs, billions in taxes were lost. Finally the economy collapsed. Sound familiar? Pragmatic libertarians (minimal-statists) and "true" Conservatives agree that many, if not most, of society's problems are caused by government usurping choices that could better be made by individuals and that government is just about the worst way of doing almost anything. Where libertarianism normally parts company with "fake" conservatism is over moral issues. But a true conservative would have no problem with agreeing, that what people do with their own bodies, and especially in the privacy of their own home, should be supremely their business, and that anything else would entail ignoring the basic tenet of limited government. Fake-Conservatism on the other hand has much in common with socialism; Both Leftists and Fake-Conservatives appear to harbor the belief that nature does not exist and that any human can be anything he wants to be, or can for the "greater good", be "re-educated" into being. Leftists therefore think little boys can be conditioned into preferring dolls over toy soldiers, and similarly Fake-conservatives believe that adults can be coerced into choosing alcohol over marijuana. A true conservative, just like a pragmatic libertarian, would immediately reject both ideas as nonsense.

MAKE WEED FREE and ALL MEDS and DOCTORS .....FREE TO ALL then NO problems

PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS MEDICATED IN ..ALL WAYS.... AND i ALWAYS WILL > GOV"S CAN NOT CONTROL THERE POPULATIONS MEDS

What you propose is more bloodshed, more warmongering, more of the same basically.

The problem is the laws against drugs, not the way in which we are enforcing said laws, that is what we have been discussing, and if you took your head out of the right wing media's bunghole for a second or two you might realise this.

Your post merely says that we should do the same as we are now, but take the war to the next level. When has this ever helped in the past? Do you know anything about history?

"THAT WOULD BE THE LAST THING to do, as the criminals will merely turn to kidnappings and extortion without the drug income." Not only is this much less profitable but the criminals have a greater risk of getting caught. Also most Drug Lords are also involved in kidnappings and extortion, so these crimes are unlikely to increase by any significant amount. "The issue is simple. Close the border and shoot to kill anyone coming across illegally so that ALL parties get the point...stop and don't try." That's assuming that drugs are smuggled illegally across the border, rather people going through the border legally or by sea. So this won't work. "Tell them that if the US is attacked in any manner from Mexico or people IN Mexico" Yeah cos that worked so well in Afghanistan. "Congress is too frozen trying to pander to Hispanic votes" So they're pandering to the Hispanic who make up 15% of the population, most of who don't vote, rather than the 85% of non-Hispanics. Can you see the flaw in your argument? This is what happens when you rant without thinking.

Now is reported that the dead are Central and South Americans trying to cross the border to the US. They were killed because their relatives were unable to pay the ransom money in addition to what they pay to the human smuggles.

I once read that a very effective method to destabalise drug trafficking would be for the USA to regularily update its bills. It is only because the cartels can hoard and launder USD that they can generate the huge profits. If the current bills were no longer legal tender all those 'profits' would be worthless.

yup, the Quran.

Mexican cartels can be called "non-state" actors, Irak proves that wars against non-state actors might well be useless.

By any definition the so called cartels are effectively terrorists. They are terrorising Mexico, the death toll is astounding, in fact it is incomprehensible, yet they still call this a war on drugs? Redefine the war, stop calling it drug crime when it is terrorism.

It is very convenient for America to compartmentalise its various war efforts with simplistic definitions when in actuality it has a very real and malignant form of terrorism on its doorstep.

It's also very easy to see legalizing drugs as a solution to this problem when you don't understand the nature of the kind of men that are in these drug cartels. Once you grasp how truly wicked these types of men are you cease to believe in the silly bubble gum and lollipop ideas about working out all differences peacably. God knows I wish we could, but where ideas diverge from reality... reality wins. Every time. I hate violence, it's ugly and painful and often harms the inocent with the guilty. However nothing else will work with these people. It's as simple as that. You have to kill them. What's your solution? Just because its easy to say, but hard to do does not mean, it isn't true...

When you take into account the millions of law enforcement personal from the various agencies FBI, DEA, CIA, ATF, DHS, Border Patrol, Military and other state and local drug enforcement divisions and pile on the justice system, prisons, layers and other support entities, you have a combined enforcement cost that reaches into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year.
Thats a lot of jobs to secure and maintain that tax payers fork out each year in a never ending drug war that only seems to grow bigger and more violent.
The United States Constitution, Article. IV. Section. 4 - states that the federal government shall protect each of its States against Invasion; and against domestic violence.
When 20 million illegals cross the US boarder, I think we have an invasion.
When giant pharmaceuticals monopolize the legal drug trade and reap 100's of billions in profit at the mercy of the weak, sick and dying, something is not right.
The question here is ..who's in charge here?, and is this the right solution?.

Amazing how the stupid pot lovers with no value systems other than their own love of self and need for personal mind alteration to escape their pathetic lives, can JUMP ON DEATHS of innocent people, and use that as a FORUM to try to get a rational citizenry not filled up with a need to zone out with pot, to LEGALIZE marijuana. What pitiful people you are and how single minded and unproductive rejects of society you exemplify. This is not about getting your hands on some cheap pot...so you and your idiot friends can get all fried up in the head like highschool kiddies with no since of reality or responsibility. THIS IS ABOUT PEOPLE GETTING KILLED. So stop with the "legalize pot"crap...you fools.

America may be "addicted to guns" Julianzzz , but Mexico is addicted to bent police and politicians, clean those out or you will have this trouble for ever. The sort of money these cartels have access to can buy guns and people anywhere. Don't legalize the drugs, they will think they won, kill these cartels first, then think about legalizing. Never give in to them.

"It's also very easy to see legalizing drugs as a solution to this problem when you don't understand the nature of the kind of men that are in these drug cartels." I completely agree. "It's as simple as that." No, this is where you are wrong. It is not as simple as that. Neither is it as simple as legalising drugs. Their bubblegum and lollipop ideas are just as crazy as your cowboys and indians ideas - neither should have survived the move to senior school. "Go medieval on the cartels..." "Kick a**" "Brutal force" "Give 'em both barrels" This is the language of the playground. I maintain the point I made.

As a first priority, the US needs to put a minimum of 2 divisions of infantry on the US-Mexican border to stop the illegal crossings and prevent the border violence from spilling into the US. Then, we need to work more aggressively with the Mexican government to help them cleanse their military, national police, state police and judiciary of the corruption that plagues their law enforcement and legal institutions. In parallel, there need to be focused attacks on the command and control king-pins of the cartels - take no prisoners. This will doubtless entail the need for 'black' incursions into other Central and South American states - chasing the thugs back to the source of the drugs. In all, it may take 40-50k troops and 2 years to accomplish the mission. A bargain when you weigh the alternative of Obama's do-nothing strategy of "look-the-other-way."

Anyone that believes legalizing would end this s as foolish as those who use the drugs!

Yeah they should get out more and find a country to invade. Now who whould they use as an example of that behaviour?

You spell it with a "u" as in stupid; not with an "o" as in you proved my point about home schoolers.

Well stop bleeding over into the US. We have had enough of illegals coming across the border!

what is your solution O civilized one?

"The same problems will arise again, and again, and again, as they always have done. You should know this already Mr.History buff."
I do know this already and hopefully there will be enough people of my point of view to keep putting it down again, and again, and again until you and the other really smart people are able to engineer a permanent solution to the problem of some men using violence and force in their pursuit of shiney objects. You know WWII was supposed to be the "War to end all wars". Cause the "really smart" guys had found the solutions. These are problems of human nature, so figure out a way to change human nature on massive scales and you might get something done.

Picking a random year for deaths due to alcohol related car crashes; in 2005 it's 43,443 (deaths in one year) www.car-accidents.com/pages/fatal-accident-statistics I drink alcohol and I am not a proponent for a prohibition of it, however how many more deaths would we have by JUST legalizing Pot? Those same people who ask if people who promote persecution of drug lords would be willing to accept the death of a loved one due to the increased violence against the cartels have to ask themselves if they are willing to accept the death of a loved one killed by a driver who was high on pot. Instead of legalizing illicit mind altering drugs, why not launch into a crazy media campaign to make the use of these drugs unpopular. If Al Gore spent his time and money assailing substance abuse as he did against "global warming" or "climate Change" (the seasons of the year), Then the demand goes down and suppliers go out of business. I'm not saying another version of "just say NO" but a complete cultural shift away from drugs. Just we are currently shifting away from burning dead dinosaurs and "going green". Liberals, Conservatives, Independants et. al. should LOVE that.

You think there is a problem with drug smuggling now? How bad do you think it would get if they were to legalize drugs in Mexico. Theoretically, you could have hundreds of legal grow-ops minutes from the US border making drugs for the US "consumer" and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. Don't you think that would make it worse than it is now?

"when's the last time you seen a field of coca plants here in the states or opium poppies of sufficient quantity and type to produce raw opium grown here? " Errm - it is illegal so I haven't seen it, but there are places in the US with the perfect growing conditions and if it was legal you can bet farmers would grow it. "Should a drug like that be legalized when it's known to be very detrimental to it's users and to the society in general?" Surely you mean Alcohol?

what if someone handed you drugs at gunpoint and then you got caught? Death penalty for you? I don't think so. This is a complicated issue and obviously there is not an easy solution.

I started to read your post and then had to stop. You're lack of intelligence is astonishing and fills me with fear. Shoot, kill, invade, destroy, attack....the good old US of A! Uneducated bigot.

We are discussing the implications of how legalization could stop said deaths, and further deaths, and how the war on drugs has caused these deaths, a point that is very relevant to the article wouldn't you agree? If you are unable to comprehend this then I think you should consider never speaking out loud ever again, you will just embarrass yourself.

That "stupid" President is attempting to clean up your country. If Calderon lost, Mexico would have elected another Hugo Chavez. That would be a greater loss to your country. Calderon is the ONLY President in the History of the modern drug war age that is doing something about the problem in Mexico. He lifted up the rug and all the cockroaches are scurrying about. I do not agree with everything he believes. His stance on illegal immigration in the US is something I do not support. It is Mexico's welfare program. Calderon has to fight through Mexico's institutionalized curruption of government, the fact that the populace does not respect local and federal law enforcement, there are no jobs so the poor and the trapped are forced to join the cartels, there is no version of a US second ammendment in the Mexican constitution. (The right for citizens to own firearms, which at this point in time would be too late. Maybe 10 years ago it would have helped) Therefore the current population is easily cowed by the criminals who have the guns. He has to deal with the Liberal press in Mexico which dislikes his policies since he is from the conservative party in Mexico. Finally he has to deal with all the "anti-prohibition" bunch that are so self absorbed, that they fail to see that it is their problem of lack of self control making them complicit in the killings during this drug war. Every puff on a joint or sniff of coke or shot of heroin and is is their hands that are also firing the weapons. http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/fatal-accident-statistics.html in 2005, 43,443 people died in alcohol related car accidents. THAT'S ONE YEAR. (I drink so I am not saying we should prohibit booze) What type of stats would we have with ONLY booze and pot legalized? 28,000 died in Mexico since this drug war... vs 43,000 deaths by drunk drivers....

Haha, you have not burst my bubble friend, I am a fully aware, real world person, no question.

The problem I have is that your violence solution will not solve the problem. It may do so temporarily, but as history shows it will not solve at all in the long term. The same problems will arise again, and again, and again, as they always have done. You should know this already Mr.History buff.

What I propose in reaction to your statement is that we take a different tact, and that violence has not worked and never will as a long term solution, surely you can see the clarity in this reasoning?

Take the market away from the cartels. Yes they may move on to other things, but these will be less profitable, we can try to take those markets away from them too. The more we diminish their markets, the less their profit, and the less their power. Intelligent deconstruction, not mindless destruction makes much more sense to me.

And it has also caused a shed load more, I suggest YOU read some history. What you propose is rolling back human society a few hundred years and becoming barbaric once again. The cartels may operate in this way, but do you really think that sinking to their level is an effective way of combating them? Look at what happened in Jamaica, you want that again do you?

I have seen some moronic posts here but this is a league of its own. I salute you and your ignorant racist rant, for someone from the US to call another group fat and uncultured is a truly awesome thing to behold. Sorry - tried to reply to raceball and it put it here because his message is gone?

But you're not missing anything. How many gun-related murders, how many rapes have been experienced today in the US? How many Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis or Somalis have been brutalised by your brave boys? The american culture is just as vile.

blaming the US for our craving for drugs isnt facing the issue or solving the problem calderon......blame games get you know where..... btw.....while we're on the subject of BLAMING....can you pay us back for all the American cities and neigborhoods that were nice 30 years ago, that have been DESTROYED by YOUR FAT, UGLY WELFARE-DEPENDANT, NO ENGLISH SPEAKING, NON-CULTURED, SUB-HUMAN PEOPLE??? and the American citizens killed by your DRUNK-DRIVING, RETARDED, CHILD-MOLESTING CRO-MAGNON MEXICAN CITIZENS?? gracias, PUTA..... Calderon: WORST MEXICAN PRESIDENT EVER....

It's very easy to see violence as the answer when it isn't happening on your street. Sure a pile of innocent people will die, but I don't know any of them, so that's OK. Let me put a question to you, TJWL. If the solution to a problem involves the probable death of you mother, your wife, your children, will you vote for it?

I'm not sure why you say that an informed electorate is essential to democracy and then major on some notion that stupid people vote in stupid leaders. We all know, don't we, that even the most died in the wool political opponent might not be "stupid". Isn't that part of what "freedom of speech" means? For your opponents to have "stupid" ideas? So turn to your other suggested reason. Political warfare in the name of argument gets bums on seats and makes money from ads. America (and the UK) will continue to pay dearly while they permit multi billionaires of dubious nationality to pour venom into their ears in the name of news. How do you know what Obama promised? Are you sure? We've just had one psuedo American try to fix our election - sure he hasn't tried to fix yours? I just wonder where your ordinary mid west farmer gets his political info from, and how much he should trust the source. If it's his only source, what choice does he have?

Hey USA if you don't like Hispanics stop giving them citizenship. Also stop blaming them for failing to curb you addiction to drugs.

Correct. When prohibition was ended the Mafia didn't become a group of legitimate brewers because other brewers were able to produce better quality alcohol much cheaper.

The UK government has also done likewise with its handling of our borders.

Liberal American politicians got these 72 people killed. By refusing to restrict the border, their policies and public stances have encouraged those people to arrive at our southern border in this manner. This is why so many of my neighbors and fellow countrymen are livid and fed up with our current politicians. Talk and proposals of amnesty only serve to send ever more to our border and into the middle of this violence. The U.S. governments dereliction of its constitutional duty to protect the border is directly to blame.

They train very effective police forces.... who then desert the police/army/navy and join the Zetas, as the money is better there. It has nothing to do with a conservative gov. and everything to do with money!

There is a reason why drugs have been banned and prohibited. Opium, herion, cocaine are highly addictive and debilitating drugs. Destists, doctors, nurses were using these drugs bug time when they were legal, causing major problem with hospital care. Also many youing people overdosed and died by the 10's of thoudans each year. Do people want thier children getting these drugs and dying by the 10's of thoudans again. Do you feel safe that people will be on drugs while driving? Yes, I know there are morons driving while drunk but that does not justify making it worse.

Was it not Bush who wanted to give millions of "illegal?s" American citizenship?

Yep first crush the cartels, then legalise anyway just like the US did when they ended prohibition. Or was it the other way around?

Molly07, There were certainly a few grammatical errors in my comment ("useles", etc.), and I will admit to the redundancy of "at least fifty percent". As for "latent racism", that seems to me a bit of a projection on your part, indicative of a knee-jerk reaction. So far as I know, I did not identify myself or "the stupids" in terms of ethnicity and/or race. For all you know, I could be anything save whatever "race" you project/assume me to be a member of. I suspect that the vile content my comment pissed you off to quite a degree, because you attacked the messenger and not the message. I never once proclaimed that I was of above-average intelligence. I consider myself to be pretty stupid, actually. As far as "doubt" is concerned, Molly07, you have no idea. Your pithy quote grab is nice and all, but it does not change the fundamental theme of my comment: There are too many people in the world. Resources are running out. Technology and automation are squeezing people out of jobs, and societies are collapsing before our very eyes. "The falseness of a judgment is for us not necessarily an objection to a judgment; in this respect our new language may sound strangest. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating. And we are fundamentally inclined to claim that the falsest judgments (which include the synthetic judgments a priori) are the most indispensable for us; that without accepting the fictions of logic, without measuring reality against the purely invented world of the unconditional and self-identical, without a constant falsification of the world by means of numbers, man could not live - that renouncing false judgments would mean renouncing life - that certainty means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil." Nietzsche And cite your quotations, please.

A good point and might have been useful a few years back. Now everybody who watches TV and reads papers should know what is going on in Central and South America. The fact is druggies don't care. If they don't care about poisoning their own bodies, ruining their families lives etc. why would they care about a few thousand Mexicans. They only care about the next high if they addicts, who are dead people walking; and the 'recreational' drug takers only care about their own pleasure

WE TRIED A WAR LIKE THIS ONCE BEFORE by Mike Gray In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated limos built to his specifications by General Motors. Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had permeated everyday life that this was considered normal. Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago, the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we'd ever seen. Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15 months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants off Al Capone. Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this direction. Too late: They're already here. And they're in a good position to take over organized crime in this country as well. After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income. At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs. One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange happened: California's chief tax collector said that the measure would bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing. Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who's no legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at marijuana prohibition. "The most effective way to establish a virtual barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of it," he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee. The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the 13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in California's eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto legalization. At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy. "No," he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an "utter failure." And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it's hard to believe that he'd cancel some kid's college education over a crime he got away with. Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in Washington among those who can't face the failure of prohibition. But that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the rest with pure drugs under medical supervision. When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we created the major crime syndicates -- and the U.S. murder rate jumped tenfold. Fortunately, the Roaring '20s were interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half. Today it's back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition -- 10 per 100,000 -- a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone who's watching what's going on south of the border can see that we're headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello weak in the knees. Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians. Last fall, Mexico's attorney general announced that his former top drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting $450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel can of course afford to be generous -- Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzman recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires. The depth of Guzman's penetration into the United States was revealed a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests all over the country in a major operation against the "dangerously powerful" Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States. This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of cash headed south, they decided that they didn't need the Colombians at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution network that covers all of North America. As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border, Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned reconnaissance drones into the fray -- and it wants the Pentagon to train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics. Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay. Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000 deserters. The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but we are the primary consumers. The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring '00s have hit the Crash of '09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II. Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared the war on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is "urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption," they are demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies. Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times reported that "a staggering 94 percent" agreed with him. This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But the party's over. Here is a glimpse of what lies ahead if we fail to end our second attempt to control the personal habits of private citizens. Listen to Enrique Gomez Hurtado, a former high court judge from Colombia who still has shrapnel in his leg from a bomb sent to kill him by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. In 1993, his country was a free-fire zone not unlike Mexico today, and Gomez issued this chilling -- and prescient -- warning to an international drug policy conference in Baltimore: "The income of the drug barons is greater than the American defense budget. With this financial power they can suborn the institutions of the State, and if the State resists . . . they can purchase the firepower to outgun it. We are threatened with a return to the Dark Ages." Ending prohibition won't solve our drug problem. But it will save us from something far worse. And it will put drug addiction back in the hands of the medical profession, where it was being dealt with successfully -- until we called in the cops. Mike Gray, the chairman of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is the author of "Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out."

The real purpose of being allowed to own a gun as a citizen is quite simple, and is enshrined in public record if you ever care to check instead of insisting you be told by someone who actually has read up on the subject. "I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ? Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." Thomas Paine

There is no problem on the American side, because everyone has a gun in El Paso with which to shoot back!

Why guns are not illegal? So we don't wind up like Mexico. Really! When the good guys can't defend themselves, the bad guys have a slight advantage. Well, actually, a tremendous advantage. the only reason you don't need a gun, is because your neighbor might have one with which to defend you. You are enjoying a safe life, where you don't need a gun, precisely because guns are legal.

I disagree on your choice of words. A 'boob', or a breast, is life giving in providing for little children. Obama provides nothing...I therefore say that he is a 'reverse boob'. Give him a little child, and he will dry it with taxes that are not taxes and healthcare that robs the child of their health. In the future, we will look back and hold Obama, Pelosi and his 'comrades' directly responsible for deaths through gross negligence.

Now now..lets all calm down and understand that not ALL drug cartels are bad...nor are ALL human traffikers bad...we just need to stop being such 'vocationists' and understand tolerance towards people of all professions. (sarcasm) Just go away Obama...please...go away.

May I kindly remind you that we are debating the damage done by prohibition, which is far worse than all the damage caused by all of the illegal drugs combined. I assume that 'NONE' is not your real name. So may I make an appeal to you: If your argument sounds ridiculous even to you, and to such an extent that you don't even want your real name attached to it, then save us all the trouble of reading your silly nonsense and find yourself another lost cause. I know you feel it sucks to see support for your beloved prohibition fading rapidly, but your stupid ideas are what got us into this mess in the first place, so to continue to spew your cognitive dissonance isn't going to help at all. Unless, that is, you enjoy being the centre of ridicule. It takes all sorts I suppose! Mexico's civil war is a product of our failed policy of drug prohibition. Prohibition isn't like a disease where we're still waiting for the cure to be discovered - we know the cure for this. This isn't like putting a man on the moon or inventing the Internet - it doesn't take some stroke of genius or feat of technology. We have everything we need, right now, to end this moronothon. Rarely in the history of mankind have we encountered a problem of such magnitude and consequence that is so eminently solvable.

So we should return to alcohol prohibition then? I'm sure that will work this time around... I could apply your argument to politics in Northern Ireland - in the search for peace it was necessary to allow former IRA terrorists into public office. There has been much progress in Northern Ireland because of this reconciliatory approach. What you are advocating is that we should just continue fighting a war purely and simply out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

On what basis? I think you should educate yourself about the past history of prohibition and the damage that placing the supply of certain drugs in the black market does. Otherwise you just look utterly ignorant. Drug cartels are funded, in large part, by the huge demand for marijuana in the US and their prohibitionist stance. History will show you to be foolish I'm afraid. The fact that you cannot see the elephant in the room shows you to be foolish right now.

What a fear mongering joke. You have seen too much propoganda. When those drugs WERE legal in the US they weren't tens of thousands of deaths at all. Doctors regularly prescribed them and last I checked there wasn't an epidemic of "OPIUM DEATHS". A human should be able to do whatever they want with their body so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Drug use only does when they are illegal and criminals fill the void in selling them. Rehabilitation and education work better than enforcement. Look at nicotine. Years of anti-smoking ads have reduced the use of cigarettes in many areas. Years of the war on drugs has seen an increase in the use of drugs.

One (of many) major obstacles is that the Mexico will not stand for US troops/aides/"observers" in Mexico like Columbia did. Mexican media would go nuts. The U.S. gov't constantly asks Mexico if they would like assistance and they reject our offer feeling that they can do it themselves and knowing that whatever politician in down there does it, they would be torn apart by the Mexican media.

"By refusing to restrict the border" In what way are Obama's policies different from GW?

Jesus Christ, that's a long bow you're drawing. No I'm saying nothing of the kind, especially since the cops are a big part of the problem. It's a matter for the community. Quite an imagination you've got. If you think the drug cartels are going to spontaneously demobilize if dope is made legal then you're living in a fantasy world.

If the Libnut Dems keeping screwing around and not doing a d*mn thing about border security and illegal immigration we will have Los Zetas along with the other cartels up here in the States conducting business! I hope the American public is ready for kidnappings, massacres of men, women, children and beheading of law enforcement and political personnel? On top of that Al Qaeda will be joining the party as they are well aware of the weakness of the Mexico-US border and are quietly sending their people into this country as we speak! Sooner or later it is my belief we will be seeing a horrific attack from them again here in the US? God only knows what they will do for an encore to the 9/11 attack? Even if Mexico legalizes drugs more than they already have (small amounts of narcotics are currently legal to possess in Mexico as they have decriminalized small amounts for personal use) it will not amount to a hill of beans since the real money comes from the sale of illegal drugs here in the States, as well as Canada and Europe to a smaller degree! People here will never stop using illegal drugs, drug legalization here in the states will not solve the problem since the cartels will still be the ones supplying the drugs legal or illegal and thus continue to profit, when's the last time you seen a field of coca plants here in the states or opium poppies of sufficient quantity and type to produce raw opium grown here? Marijuana is the only illegal drug which may possibly be grown here in enough quantity to supply the domestic market? What about meth? Should a drug like that be legalized when it's known to be very detrimental to it's users and to the society in general? The corrupt government in Mexico will continue to be beholden to the cartels and nothing will change unless the whole country revolts and eliminates the corrupt politicians and basically rebuilds the government from the ground up? Otherwise everything will continue to deteriorate and the bloodshed will go on and on and on!

What are you? Some Obama hack hired to go around posting for his agenda? Wow a rightwing paranoid Narcissist...how very refreshing. Could it not be possible that i'm just a guy that disagrees with you? (or is your head so far up your own backside you can't understand how people might possibly be able to disagree with you?) As for the topic at hand: Drugs Americans are buying...Violence America makes profitable. America is as much if not more to blame for this than Mexico.

You Americans who buy illegal drugs from these drug cartels have blood on your hands. You are financing the murders of thousands of innocent people. While you may think these drugs are "cool," they are not.

Well that might at least slow down the flood of weapons from the US into Mexico.....

Wow so much learning, so little understanding.

The American mobsters (Mafia?) are virtually totally legitimate today. Big money made in illegal market "invested for the future". Exactly, they made their money illegally because they had a product (booze) that people wanted. So we legalized alcohol, which is far more dangerous than weed. Lets take the money from the mobsters and tax every drug transaction.

:- Especially when you claim to not be a part of the US? You are posting on a UK based website, i guess if you came here to discuss things about your country then the people who actually live here, rather than in the US might well feel as though they have a right to comment on what you post. If you do not want an open discussion stick to Faux News.

Just returned from two weeks touring Cuba. Poverty yes. But also free healthcare/education and an insignificant crime rate (streets of Habana a damn site safer than London). Are all the Cuban gangsters in Florida? I am certainly no communist and wouldn't want the Cuban model in Europe. But if the alternative is Galtieri or Cocaine cartels?

You claim: "The only wars you ever won were one where you stabbed us in the back in order to ethnicly cleanse the land we gave you, one where you had to resort to dropping two nukes because you knew that was the only chance you had of winning." Okay, I get that you're maybe a member of the British Nationalist party with that first bit. But that second part about resorting to nukes as the only means of winning veers off into the lala land of fictitious hyperbole. I'm sympathetic to your original point, but when you have to resort to myth making, no matter how desperate you are, it ends up nevertheless killing your credibility. "Every other tin pot nation you've gone up against has thrown you into recession ... " Oooh ... is that supposed to be an insult, suggesting that US victories are accompanied by recessions, which historically have been rather brief? You can do better than that ... better yet, you could even try rising above it.

Are you speaking to the drug addeled idiots who would rather be high than anything else? They couldn't give a shit how many civilians the drug cartels kill as long as they get their next fix. It is J. Edgar Hoover who started this war many years ago all for political reasons, none of which anything to do with people and their addictions. We should make all drugs legal, and then make them only available at drug stores, as is the case with all other drugs. That would end the drug cartels grip on that market!

Unlike GW and his policies of invading countries on a lie.

Legalizing marijuana and cocaine might ease the problem but you'll still have a heavily armed gangster militia to deal with. Take away one income source and they'll look to replace it, just as America's prohibition era gangsters did. Only a united Mexico will get them out of this hole.

People who get high typically do not care about how they get their high. Once the fix is done, pictures of mutilated corpses will not matter to them.

can't disagree with your first sentence, but you are wrong re the weapons. Over 90% of weapons found in the cartels are sourced directly from the US. Do some research and should be able to easily verify this figure. Mexico is one of the world's leading exporter of drugs. The US is the world's leading exporter of guns, weapons and death.

What an ugly, shrill slag you are. Perhaps your mother should have aborted you, yes?

"If stupid people vote in stupid leaders, you end up in a mess." Finally 'Free - Make Money Online' makes a decent point. The mess being Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hey , I have a good idea, let's keep that border WIDE OPEN!!! We NEED more problems in this country and what better way to insure that? Quick, someone stop Obama from implementing his plan to sealing off the border. .........oh, wait.....

You of all people are the last to be lecturing anyone about adhering to "facts", as you've obviously drunk from the Faux News kool-aid, claiming what the "media" portrays is "false" and your opinion of course the ONE TRUTH, just like your god. Go back to listening to AM radio where you belong you clown.

"in which case you're irrelevant to intelligent discussion and therefore, it doesn't matter what you think"

some would say that you're contempt for democracy is contempt for your own country. And i'd have to agree. (also in reply to the next post), pointing out the hypocrisy between two posts on the same thread is not twisting words, it's merely pointing out hypocrisy. You are in fact the one twisting words by trying to cover that Hypocrisy up by talking some TL:DR guff about a Honda that i didn't really care enough about to read (i won't deny you you're voice...i'll just choose not to listen if i think it's wrong...like you are)..The point goes to me on this one I think.

Why don't you go away, scumbag troll.

BTW, FMMO, Did you know that Glen Beck supports legalization? Get with the program, one of your biggest personal demagogues actually SUPPORTS the legalization of cannabis as a means to resolve the very intractable issues this article addresses! Talk about ignorance! You should at least have a clue about the position of one of your biggest personal gods.

That still happens now! Drugs are already freely available pretty much, the war on drugs has not stopped their supply at all. A society where drugs are regulated, and people are properly educated on their usage is what we should be heading toward. The whole point is that the war on drugs has not worked, get it?

Picking a random year for deaths due to alcohol related car crashes; in 2005 it's 43,443 (deaths in one year) www.car-accidents.com/pages/fatal-accident-statistics I drink alcohol and I am not a proponent for a prohibition of it, however how many more deaths would we have by JUST legalizing Pot? Those same people who ask if people who promote persecution of drug lords would be willing to accept the death of a loved one due to the increased violence against the cartels have to ask themselves if they are willing to accept the death of a loved one killed by a driver who was high on pot. Instead of legalizing illicit mind altering drugs, why not launch into a crazy media campaign to make the use of these drugs unpopular. If Al Gore spent his time and money assailing substance abuse as he did against "global warming" or "climate Change" (the seasons of the year), Then the demand goes down and suppliers go out of business. I'm not saying another version of "just say NO" but a complete cultural shift away from drugs. Just we are currently shifting away from burning dead dinosaurs and "going green". Liberals, Conservatives, Independants et. al. should LOVE that.

Maybe it's a good way to deflect attention from other matters? And as long as the drug cartels aren't on US soil there not doing any harm to them, in fact these cartels are buying guns and weapons from the US which is pretty beneficial all in all! All the cartels are doing is causing strife in other countries, which the USA has always actively encouraged to keep themselves as the top dog. If that's all true then it's pretty sickening really.

Don't kid yourself legalizeing these drugs, like alcohol will just put the drug criminals in political office. Never heard of Joe Kennedy? biggest booze smuggler in history.. Al Capone had to pay Joe off. People talk about how this could start in USA.. news flash it's been going on here for years, so far they just hide the bodies better.

You would deny someone his opinion because it doesn't agree with your own...That's not democracy, infact that's kind of the exact opposite of democracy...it appears you need a History book AND a dictionary "my point was that IF someone is a 'kool-aid' drinker (as in they have made up their mind to close their eyes and mind to support their chosen 'good leader') " Like you you mean?

I have nothing against democracy. However, Democracy is built upon on proper information and intelligent voting. If stupid people vote in stupid leaders, you end up in a mess. If manipulative people make false promises to get in power and then abuse it, it is no longer a true democracy.
Besides, my point was that IF someone is a 'kool-aid' drinker (as in they have made up their mind to close their eyes and mind to support their chosen 'good leader'), their comments become irrelevant to meaningful debate. Don't try to twist my words and make it seem like I'm opposing freedom of speech. Everyone has a right to share their opinion and NO ONE has the authority to stop it. My point is very different. It is a difference between a capitalistic transaction and a fraudulent one. Lets say you bought a lawn mower for $700 because it was self-propelled. When you get home, you find out it isn't, even though the box said so. You just made a choice based on limited and misleading information. But your neighbor is a HUGE Honda fan, comes around and says 'no way dude! it's a Honda - it's worth WHATEVER you paid for it!'. At this point, the neighbors input is irrelevant. You're not telling him to shut up - you're simply choosing to ignore his position because he has an outside bias not based on facts. Similarly, if Obama made promises and claims that he was elected on, and a false history that the media portrayed, then it is no longer true democracy, but a manipulation. Point being : if you're just going to try and defend someone because you like them regardless of the facts, your input is irrelevant to a debate. There is a big difference between declaring someone's opinion irrelevant vs denying them any input at all.

'People here will never stop using illegal drugs' Agree. 'drug legalization here in the states will not solve the problem since the cartels will still be the ones supplying the drugs legal or illegal and thus continue to profit' Disagree. This assumes the status quo. People will change their behavior and enter the new American market. Massive American agriculture will drive the cartel production out of business on both price to consumer and quality, which I expect to be highly regulated. Legalizing the primary products of the cartels would be my primary concern because of the loss of life and freedom that has occurred as the result of the prohibition that has made the cartels rich. I don't believe meth is on that list.

I wish. I would put drugs in my ex's car, call the police and report her as a dealer. Woot, there goes the alimony checks. Hopefully you can see where this type of law would lead. Also, lets not forget, Japan during that time believed in Seppuku. (self inflicted capital punishment)

If Obama made it clear that our borders are not wide open and you are wasting your time trying to sneak in, this wouldn't happen. Obama is responsible for these deaths.

We have engineered a solution! To this problem anyway, take the bottom out of the markets that the cartels operate in, and then keep on attacking the source of their income, that's the solution. Not beating them up over and over again in an endless cycle of violence.

"It has made potential drunkards of the youth of the land, not because intoxicating liquor appeals to their taste or disposition, but because it is a forbidden thing, and because it is forbidden makes an irresistible appeal to the unformed and immature. It has brought into our midst the intemperate woman, the most fearsome and menacing thing for the future of our national life." "It has brought the sickening slime of corruption, dishonor, and disgrace into every group of employees and officials in city, State, and Federal departments that have been charged with the enforcement of this odious law." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/judgetalley.htm

"It has made potential drunkards of the youth of the land, not because intoxicating liquor appeals to their taste or disposition, but because it is a forbidden thing, and because it is forbidden makes an irresistible appeal to the unformed and immature. It has brought into our midst the intemperate woman, the most fearsome and menacing thing for the future of our national life." "It has brought the sickening slime of corruption, dishonor, and disgrace into every group of employees and officials in city, State, and Federal departments that have been charged with the enforcement of this odious law." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/judgetalley.htm

Total BS, the usage of drugs is nothing new, it has been around for thousands of years. The demand has not been 'created', all we have done is criminalize certain users, which is what caused this problem. Do some research.

We have friends working in this area. They just returned to the US b/c they do not feel it is safe for their children. They just wrote that America has not been given information about what is really going on down there. Very sad times.

And for those of you who are still living in some strange parallel universe, one where prohibition actually works, here is part of the testimony of Judge Alfred J Talley, given before the Senate Hearings of 1926: "For the first time in our history, full faith and confidence in and respect for the hitherto sacred Constitution of the United States has been weakened and impaired because this terrifying invasion of natural rights has been engrafted upon the fundamental law of our land, and experience has shown that it is being wantonly and derisively violated in every State, city, and hamlet in the country." "It has made potential drunkards of the youth of the land, not because intoxicating liquor appeals to their taste or disposition, but because it is a forbidden thing, and because it is forbidden makes an irresistible appeal to the unformed and immature. It has brought into our midst the intemperate woman, the most fearsome and menacing thing for the future of our national life." "It has brought the sickening slime of corruption, dishonor, and disgrace into every group of employees and officials in city, State, and Federal departments that have been charged with the enforcement of this odious law." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/judgetalley.htm And the following paragraphs are from WALTER E. EDGE's testimony, a Senator from New Jersey: "Any law that brings in its wake such wide corruption in the public service, increased alcoholic insanity, and deaths, increased arrests for drunkenness, home barrooms, and development among young boys and young women of the use of the flask never heard of before prohibition can not be successfully defended." "I unhesitatingly contend that those who recognize existing evils and sincerely endeavor to correct them are contributing more toward temperance than those who stubbornly refuse to admit the facts." "The opposition always proceeds on the theory that give them time and they will stop the habit of indulging in intoxicating beverages. This can not be accomplished. We should recognize our problem is not to persist in the impossible, but to recognize a situation and bring about common-sense temperance through reason." "This is not a campaign to bring back intoxicating liquor, as is so often claimed by the fanatical dry. Intoxicating liquor is with us to-day and practically as accessible as it ever was. The difference mainly because of its illegality, is its greater destructive power, as evidenced on every hand. The sincere advocates of prohibition welcome efforts for real temperance rather than a continuation of the present bluff." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/walteredge.htm And here is Julien Codman's testimony, who was a member of the Massachusetts bar. "we will produce additional evidence on this point, that it is not appropriate legislation to enforce the eighteenth amendment; that it has done incredible harm instead of good; that as a temperance measure it has been a pitiable failure; that it as failed to prevent drinking; that it has failed to decrease crime; that, as a matter of fact, it has increased both; that it has promoted bootlegging and smuggling to an extent never known before" "We believe that the time has come for definite action, but it is impossible to lay before Congress any one bill which, while clearly within the provisions of the Constitution, will be a panacea for the evils that the Volstead Act has caused. We must not be vain enough to believe, as the prohibitionists do, that the age-old question of the regulation of alcohol can be settled forever by the passage of a single law. With the experience of the Volstead law as a warning, it behooves us to proceed with caution, one step at a time, to climb out of the legislative well into which we have been pushed." "If you gentlemen are satisfied, after hearing the evidence supplemented by the broad general knowledge which each of you already possesses, that the remedy that will tend most quickly to correct the wretched social conditions that now exist, to promote temperance, find to allay the discontent and unrest that the Volstead Act has caused, is to be found in the passage of one of the proposed bills legalizing the production of beer of an alcoholic content of 4 per cent or less, there is no doubt, in my opinion, elf your power to do so; and we believe that our evidence will show that the passage of such a bill will greatly help the situation. We do not claim that it will do away with all the evils produced by attempted prohibition, but it would be a step in the right direction." http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/HISTORY/e1920/senj1926/codman.htm

and a false history that the media portrayed what the f? Oh please, not that rubbish again! You really should no take Fox News seriously, no one else does.

This is the result of the demand in the USA for these drugs.

yeah then we can put all the undesirables into camps....

I'll agree with drug legalization under these conditions. The druggies get all the drugs they want provided they live in one walled up ghetto and agree to be sterilized. If they leave the drug ghetto they must successfully complete a rehab program. If they slip up they go back permanently to the drug ghetto. They can fry their own brains, but never present a danger to the public.

I can't blame a President for what's happening when it was before he was in office. I don't like many of his policies, but that holds no bearings on this current situation. I also disagreed with many of Bush's policies. Obama is deploying National Guard to help and that's more than can be said for most.

Estimates show America has 5% of the worlds population but consumes 80% of illegal drugs. Instead of legalizing, perhaps a better solution would be to make Americans aware that what's entertainment to us, costs the lives of many people to get here. Winning the hearts of our compassionate country may do the trick. For years our Entertainment Industry has glorified drugs as cool. We've never been shown the truth and we can begin with the folks in Hollywood who can reach so many especially the young. Drying up the usage, would dry up the supply and would probably even stop the war in Afghanistan, where Opium has been funding terrorists throughout the world.

I thought the drug cartels were totally useless scum but if they're killing our 'soon to be illegals', they may deserve a little respect.

The report you are referring to was not published by ATF but by Fox based on an incorrect analysis. Have a look at the Newsweek Factcheck piece or even FactCheck.org, who quote: "Correction, April 22: We originally concluded that Obama?s 90 percent figure was ?not true? and based on' a ?badly biased? sample of recovered guns. We are retracting both those characterizations, and we apologize to our readers for this error. We have rewritten the article throughout to correct this. Our error was to think we had confirmed that Mexican officials submit for tracing only those guns they believe likely to have come from the U.S. Law enforcement officials say they don?t know if that?s the case."

you aren't very smart!

As I understand it (and I have no direct source), under the Taliban Afghanistan largely ceased growing poppies. You might infer that the American dislike for the Taliban had something to do with this lack of poppy growing, and you might also believe reports that the CIA have encouraged the growth of poppies in order to give the Afghans a cash crop. BUt don't go as far as believing that Putin recently complained to Obama that the Americans are flooding Russia with cheap hard drugs, or that the Americans vetoed the introduction of a poppy disease rather like the tobacco mosaic virus.

you got some Cocaine in for the weekend then :D

Prohibition also proved another thing...that making something illegal (surprise!) decreases use. If you start selling pot and cocaine in the party stores, the only thing you will do is legitimize these drug empires, and addict a new generation of americans on dangerous, mind-altering substances. Legalizing drugs will make demand skyrocket, prices will soar, and the same people who have to commit crimes to get their fix now will just have to do so to a greater degree. In the long term, production will increase, prices will fall, and even more people will be lured in by the idea of a cheap high... the dozens of deaths in Mexico from drug violence will be replaced with hundreds or thousands of deaths in the United States from drug use itself.

So taking drugs is cool is it ? Genocide by default.

Some people surprise me. While this post may have indicated marijuana, it's not cannabis which is found in droves and fought over. Police find that lovely white powder known as cocaine far more often. I live in El Paso, Texas and Juarez is our sister city. 2,600 + people have died this year alone in this needless war in that one city. The cartels are battling each other for territory. Also FYI: the war is not on our doorstep anymore. They're sneaking in the side windows to find and kill rival cartel members. It happened the other day. The cartels put word out they would be coming in here to do it. Gunfights spilling over the border, murders in our backyards, kids finding burned cars with burned bodies and a bus of kids watching a man be kidnapped at gunpoint is only the beginning. Legalizing cocaine is not a solution. Trying to stop every shipment of cocaine is not a viable solution. And the corruption runs too deep to cleanse. Personally, I'm glad to getting out of here next year. I don't even feel safe taking my kids to school anymore since it went on lock down. And I live inside America, not Mexico.

I agree, as well as my son who is a Federal US Customs and Immigration special agent. Bring them all home from the middle east to our southern border...now.

What is it with the number of American commentards posting here? Displaying their inability to distinguish between two issues: immigration and the American created 'war on drugs'; at the same time displaying varying degrees of xenophobia and racism whilst being mindfully ignorant of the fact that the US has created this problem, and continues to perpetuate it. Educate yourself for god's sake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91y9KqvVggY

So many utterly ridiculous comments on here that it beggars belief. Especially, the one by Not Surprised, who happily glosses over the billions upon billions spent by the US in trying to fight drug cartels over the last 40years, not to mention the carnage that has ensued and continues to ensue. Legalisation of certain drugs is not about 'surrender' or 'defeat' it is about winning the 'war on drugs' simply by removing ALL the funding and incentive that the opponents (cartels) receive. The war on drugs is like a war on terror - they simply cannot be 'won' with violent means. Legalisation of cannabis alone will go a long, long way to 'winning' this war if that's how you want to see it. It would be infinitely more successful than 40years of attempted supply-side enforcement. Prohibition will eventually be a dark stain on history. Unfortunately, it will probably be repeated again, in vain.

"...and at least fifty percent of those people have IQs that are below average." A true genius you are. Yes indeed.

no they wouldn't. the drugs (primarily cannabis) would be grown legally in the US by taxable corporations.

Worst then what is now? How?

It's Mexico for God Sakes! And the illegals want the same thing here. As Obama refuses to protect our borders!

If Osama is deploying National Guard...... where are they?

It's a problem of demand. When, if ever, the U.S. comes to grip with it's drug problem is when the third world will find a way out of it's drug abyss. Fighting a drug war in the third world is like fighting muslims in the Middle East without dealing with them at home first. The last time anyone did anything effective about drugs in this country was when Nancy Regan said "Just say no". Which worked inspite of the pink diapered whining liberal bedwetters comments to the contrary.

"Grown legally" - well, yes after it's legalized.
"By taxable corporations" - Yes, who do you suppose might control those "corporations"? Taxpayers left with a citizenry with minds rotted out, on welfare and public support.
The American mobsters (Mafia?) are virtually totally legitimate today. Big money made in illegal market "invested for the future".
Enforce drug laws as done in Taiwan, and bring back the death penalty. The mindless worthless slugs on drugs contribute nothing to humanity. Too violent for you? What do you have now?

Trying to peddle your LIEs here? "Well, if they really want to do something about the drug problems in Mexico, it has to start in THE WHITE HOUSE. Most of the consumption is in the US." Ad hominem wont work. turn off the crime in MEXICO where the drugs are transported through, then turn off Mexicos SOUTHERN BORDER where they come NORTH FROM. Take your lies and your thinly veiled case for legalization of abomination elsewhere, no one here is stupid enough to fall for your games.

GOOD. Let it die, its been a rat infested hell hole for CENTURIES. Once its dead, Id be glad to buy part of it. Another reminder of the world wide FAILURE of the Roman catholic church.

What I find amusing about Calderon's accusation that he has a highly addicted neighbor who deals through his house, is that - besides the selfish partying millionaires and their effete consorts - the major consumer of cocaine are - gasp - hispanics. I wonder, once we filter out the 11 million illegals in this country, a large proportion who are probably snorters, just how addicted would the US be? Probably not as much as Calderon believes. In the meantime, he needs to stop encouraging his citizens to hide illegally in the US.

So...since alcohol and tobacco and cheeseburgers and cars that go more than 15 mph kill tens of thousands of Americans each year...those have to go too, right?

What you fail to understand is that this is not a front. This is our border that is completely open and unprotected to any real degree. We are guaranteed a secure border by our constitution. Every administration to date has failed miserably in their responsibility to our southern states and our country. End of story.

By all means, Obama. Wimp out when faced with thugs and criminals. That'll teach 'em. This is a no brainer. The thug is on your front porch and he's got the police in his hip pocket. Do you defend your family, or let him in the front door?

So, we should give everyone the OK to go get high on pot, then on harder stuff, and destroy their bodies, effects on the country be damned, right? We need to rethink how we fight the war on drugs - but legalization should not be an option.

You can't legalize marijuana for recreational use without putting the country on the path to legalizing all drugs.

Earth to Eric!

This war is on your front doorstep... and it's coming whether you like it or not.

The last thing we need to do, is to leave our troops half-way around the world, fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or any other country Israel decides is a 'threat'.

It's time for our soldiers to come home from the Mid-East and defend AMERICA!

My disgust is aimed at the consumers of these products and those who glamorize such drug use and particularly the Hollywood glitterati where illegal and dangerous drug consumption is the object of their mirthful jokes; ha ha ha. How funny they are. Ohhh let's legalize these life destroying drugs. Our welfare state has plenty of cash to burn picking up the pieces of the wreckage created by the drug trade.

MEXICANS=ROACHES

yes i agree, it is an insult to roaches

there are 6 living ex presidents of mexico and each one costs the mexican society / taxpayer $5 million dollars a year in security , housing, living etc... i want a wall (not a fence) but a double wall with landmines on the border with mexico, lets not forget the canadian border as well. many drugs come in from canada and illegals as well. oh come bob illegals from canada ?! yes, many people immigrant to canada each year , the canadian government runs a scam. they make billions off these people and when they discover the only job they can find is shoveling snow.... guess where they go to ? the usa !

Tell you what.......you can have him and keep him. We Yanks have figured out that his policies are not helpful, and in many cases have proven harmful.

Obama's Drug Policy http://www.youtube.com/user/PoeticaUK#p/u/7/hGJMGnV2LwQ

Obama's Drug Policy http://www.youtube.com/user/PoeticaUK#p/u/7/hGJMGnV2LwQ

You don't have to legalize drugs to stop the flow of drugs across the border, you just have to control the border, which this country refuses to do. It is not an impossible job to do if you decide to direct the proper resources to do it, there is just a lack of political will to take the proper steps. If the US government truly cared about it's citizens they would do whatever it takes to control the southern border, but as is increasingly becoming apparent, they really don't care about us as citizens.

I repeat --- put claymore mines on the border and more on!

What if the drug cartels in Mexico have decided, "Hey USA, you cant shoot illegals, you cant close your borders, so, let us murder them by the hundreds, scare them out of attempting to come to the United States, and in return, allow us business as usual in the drug trade." Hmmmmmm. The rancher shot on the US border was known to aid illegal's thirsty or hungry. They knocked him off. Think about it. The White House do something??? Come on and get real for christ sakes. The war on drugs started with Nixon and we have spent billions and billions. The government cant do shite, except legalize it. Let those who will do, and those smart enough not to, succeed. My neighbor works at Home Depot, he is a retired salesman for a truck company, and he has this little demographic, 67% of applicants to work at Home Depot, can not pass the drug screen. 67% FF Sakes. I think I may be on to something.

That may be true of 20% hard core drug users but 80% of Americans do it for recreation only because we've been conditioned by a mafia paid entertainment industry that modern society accepts this. America is so profitable to Cartels because we consume 80%. Come on guys we can do better than that and tell them where to stick their stinking blood laced drugs. We begin by telling our kids, families, neighbors, coworkers the truth about Cartels, Mafia, murders, rapes, mutilations, they're not stupid unless they're not told.

We're down to 50,000 troops in Iraq - from over 100K....The surge in Afghanistan does not replace this. Troops on our border would be near home, near bases, without the rates of injury and death we see in Iraq. We're not spread that thin anymore - and we wouldn't be with the above proposal.

And if drugs were to be legalized these same drug cartels would be in charge. Its called surrender, too the victors go the spoils.

And yet the incompetent Obama Administration continues to resist securing our own border at the peril of our own citizens! The government in Mexico is either corrupt or incredibly weak. They have a fairly substantial army at their disposal, yet they can't hunt down these barbaric clowns living their own version of "Scarface"..........

Thats a damn good idea. Pity the Yanks will call it discrimination, cruel and unusual etc. They could always ship them to Guantanamo, as they have a ready made ghetto there now.

Knock, knock, knock. Oh I'm sorry.... I thought this was the age of Aquarius. I can see I was mistaken.... please pardon my intrusion.

Teddy was around..and did his share of drinking, but it never came close to putting a dent into the profits from Scotch controled by the Kennedy's.

Just throw them back over the fence if they are not ours. As in American...

I disagree. Alcohol is legal in the US, but absinthe is still prohibited. Marijuana has as much to do with crack cocaine as Miller lite does to heroin. Prohibition in it's current state, Does Not Work. Legalize industrial hemp, legalize and heavily regulate marijuana. Legalization would take much of the 'cool' factor out of smoking pot.

Isn't this belated birth control or the ultimate pro-choice stance! Who needs an pre-birth abortion in Mexico - Just step outside any day after your birth and see if you live long enough to get to the corner store and back. I am so glad Obama has closed our borders and come to the support of Arizona. Maybe with the fence he is building and the extra agents we have hired along with the 20,000 National Guards the border States requested and received from the Administration. There is no way under this could migrate north of the border! Thank GOD we have such a strong leader in the White House protecting us.

Rogue US soldiers killing Illegal Immigrants on the US-Mexican border! Just imagine what would be said about our "terrible" country. It is all our fault. If we didn't use the drugs this wouldn't be happening, BUT don't seal the border! We might offend the illegals, instead killing them!

These Mexican cartel members are sub-human animals.

Uhhh Dude, put down the bong and the Kool-aid. Fershurrr...

Please.... Don't waste the electrons. Put down the kool-aid and the bong, dude.

This post was mainly about marijuana which has been proven to have medicinal use.

Isn't this belated birth control or the ultimate pro-choice stance! Who needs an pre-birth abortion in Mexico - Just step outside any day after your birth and see if you live long enough to get to the corner store and back. I am so glad Obama has closed our borders and come to the support of Arizona. Maybe with the fence he is building and the extra agents we have hired along with the 20,000 National Guards the border States requested and received from the Administration. There is no way under this could migrate north of the border! Thank GOD we have such a strong leader in the White House protecting us.

And the Mexican president has the gall to lecture US??? Screw him! He needs to get his own country in order. Bastard. We end up having to deal with the lawlessness across the border every day as it spills over.