EL PASO — South-West city Rep. Beto O’Rourke has been in the hot seat since he successfully lobbied the rest of City Council to approve a resolution that included an amendment that asked for an open and honest debate on the legalization of narcotics.

The resolution by the Border Relations Committee called for federal intervention to quell the crime wave in Juárez that claimed 1,600 lives in 2008. O’Rourke added the part of a debate on legalizing narcotics, the rest of council agreed with him but Mayor John Cook vetoed it.

After making national headlines, being on the losing end of the veto and taking on a congressman, O’Rourke discussed the interesting week-and-a-half he has had.

Q All city representatives said they received a lot of calls and e-mails on this issue. Can you share some of the feedback you received?

A Right off the bat most of my correspondence was split 50/50 pro and con. Later on, I got more 70 percent pro and 30 percent con. Someone at my Monday morning breakfast meeting said that when they first read the headline he wondered what I and the rest of City Council were doing. But that then, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that we were right. That all options needed to be on the table.

Q Is it your belief that El Paso would have lost federal and state funds if the veto had been reversed on Tuesday?

A The honest answer is I don’t know. And part of why I don’t know is because the congressman (U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas) and his office and the state House delegation offered no specifics or facts. In fact, what they did offer was speculative. It’s speculation. There is no specific threat, no specific dollar amount or no specific project that is in peril. 

via Rep. Beto O’Rourke: 70% now back drug legalization resolution – El Paso Times.

The American People are ready to talk about legalization.  Every call for issues to discuss through Change.gov and Change.org has seen marijuana law reform rise to the top of the list, over concerns with the economy, foreign policy, the environment, and war.  It is not because marijuana law reform is more important than those issues, it is because those issues are at least allowed to be talked about.  

Americans recognize the fundamental unfairness and unAmericanness of silencing any discussion on this issue.  Americans have recognized that not only has the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs failed to stop any American who wants to use drugs from doing so, but that it has wasted billions of dollars, ruined millions of lives, and created the unintended harmful consequences resulting in the erosion of our 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 14th Amendment rights, America as the world’s largest prison state, and the creation of needless violence and despair.

Related posts

• DC to El Paso: Shut up about marijuana legalization or we’ll bankrupt you! (17)
• El Paso Council to re-vote on marijuana legalization, mayor calls out the “potheads” who support it (7)
• Stash for Mon, Jan 19, 2009 (0)

Regarding the call by the El Paso city council to begin a debate on the wisdom of the drug war, and the subsequent blackmailing of the city council by Rep. Silvestre Reyes, I failed to include this pithy little quote from the blackmailer:

“Reyes, however, told the Huffington Post that he doesn’t oppose a debate on legalization. He only opposed the timing, coming as it did as Obama was meeting with the Mexican president and Congress was debating the stimulus.”

Oh.  Well, excuse us.  We tried bringing this up before, but we were told the timing was bad because of Vietnam / Watergate / Recession / Rise of Communism / Iran-Contra / Fall of Communism / Fixing Health Care / Dot-Com bubble burst / 9-11 / Afghanistan / Iraq / or Wall Street collapsing.  We’ll try to be more polite next time and only bring legalization up when absolutely nothing else of importance is going on in Washington DC.

Sincerely,

The American People

And this extra little nugget of reportage I had forgotten that should make Rep. Silvestre Reyes one of the first people to call for a debate on the drug war:

A woman who reportedly is a relative of Congressman Silvestre Reyes was kidnapped in Juárez, then released with the help of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The incident comes as kidnappings have become more common in Juárez possibly due to drug trafficking gangs snatching victims targeted for death or marks held for ransom to raise funds for the ongoing war for control of the region’s smuggling corridor.

Related posts

• Rep. Beto O’Rourke: 70% now back drug legalization resolution (0)
• El Paso Times: Juárez cartels beating 10,000 Mexican feds (4)
• DC to El Paso: Shut up about marijuana legalization or we’ll bankrupt you! (17)

The city of El Paso buckled to unusually explicit federal government pressure Tuesday and withdrew a call for a national debate on ending drug prohibition.

Last Tuesday, the El Paso city council voted 8-0 to express solidarity with its sister city in Mexico, Juarez, which has seen its murder rate double this year alone as the Mexican government has waged war on powerful drug cartels. To slow that violence, the resolution called for “an honest, open national debate on ending the prohibition of narcotics.”

That was enough to get Washington’s attention.

Mayor John Cook vetoed the resolution and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, lobbied each councilmember, making it clear that if the resolution calling for a debate passed, El Paso would risk losing money in the upcoming stimulus legislation. Five Texas House representatives made the same threat.

“Funding for local law enforcement efforts and other important programs to our community are likely being put in jeopardy,” lawmakers warned in a letter to the city, “especially during a time when state resources are scarce.”

Four members of the council switched their votes and supported the veto; three of them publicly cited the funding threat as the reason for backing down.

via El Paso, Texas, Calls On Congress To Debate Drug Legalization: Dems Refuse.

What is the feeling that goes through your mind when you read that our federal government is openly blackmailing local governments to shut up about even discussing legalization of marijuana?  In the piece, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, who represents the Texas district that contains El Paso in Congress, said, “Please let the mayor’s veto stand and put this behind us. We’ve got huge issues that are facing us as a Congress,” as if the mere mention of trying something different in this escalating drug war is going to completely derail working on the economy, fighting terrorism, fixing health care, and creating new jobs, when in fact marijuana legalization would help solve all those issues!

It’s not like we’re asking you to impeach anybody; God knows we can never again put that on the table because it will supposedly grind the country to a screeching halt.  The resolution simply called on the city to call on Congress to take a look at potentially forming a commission to study the possibility that maybe perhaps arresting our way out of a drug problem isn’t working and we ought to examine other scenarios for drug control that might include an investigation of the feasibility of considering the regulation and sale of a non-toxic mood-altering herb.

NO!  It’s like our Congress are the Knights Who Say “Ni!” and “legalization” is the one word they cannot bear to hear.

So how do you feel?  Me, I’m ecstatic.  Thrilled, actually.  When one little town in Texas calls for a conversation on the drug war and Congress immediately pulls out all stops to shut it up, that tells me the Berlin Wall of prohibition is about to come tumbling down.  Americans aren’t too fond of “Just do what you’re told” as a policy justification.  Before, the prohibitionists would engage with their silly little slippery slope arguments and trumped up statistics; now they won’t even engage the dialogue because they know they’ve lost before they open their mouths.

Related posts

• Rep. Beto O’Rourke: 70% now back drug legalization resolution (0)
• El Paso Council to re-vote on marijuana legalization, mayor calls out the “potheads” who support it (7)
• El Paso City Council says “Let’s talk about Legalization”, mayor says no (1)

Reyes relative kidnapped; U.S. helps secure release – El Paso Times
A woman who reportedly is a relative of Congressman Silvestre Reyes was kidnapped in Juárez, then released with the help of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Reyes, D-Texas, declined to comment. The kidnapping was first reported on the Narcosphere Web site, which attributed the report and knowledge of the victim’s relationship to Reyes to a DEA official in El Paso.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the lead U.S. agency in the incident, but the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration were also involved. However, neither agency would release any details, including when the incident took place.

The incident comes as kidnappings have become more common in Juárez possibly due to drug trafficking gangs snatching victims targeted for death or marks held for ransom to raise funds for the ongoing war for control of the region’s smuggling corridor.

Fears of kidnappings, extortion and violence that has claimed nearly 500 lives this year have caused some Juarenses to move to El Paso and even seek asylum in the United States.

The killings have continued daily. Monday, an unidentified man’s dismembered body was found in Rancho Anapra, state police said. The head, arms and legs were found in separate backpacks about 50 meters away from the torso, which was wrapped in a blanket. At least four deaths occurred Tuesday.

A group of about 300 owners of junk yards, mechanic shops, used-car lots and other auto-related businesses have closed down because of kidnappings and robberies, the Norte de Ciudad Juárez newspaper reported Tuesday.

Last week, four members of the union of yonkeros (junk yard owners) were kidnapped and released after paying thousands of dollars, the Norte reported.

A current U.S. State Department travel alert for Mexico mentions that dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped or murdered in Tijuana in 2007.

As the US has strengthened its efforts to interdict cocaine and marijuana smuggled in boats through the Caribbean, smugglers have now switched to land routes through Mexico to move the drugs we Americans demand.  This has turned the northern border of Mexico into a war zone, with the Mexican police, army, bureaucrats, and judges often targeted by vicious Mexican drug gangs for kidnapping and assassination.

Just like the brutal criminal gangs of the ’20s and ’30s that terrorized our citizens the last time we enacted a prohibition against a popular drug.  Prohibition creates profit, potency, and violence – always has, always will.

Related posts

• DC to El Paso: Shut up about marijuana legalization or we’ll bankrupt you! (17)
• Will you enlist in the war to end adult marijuana prohibition? (15)
• Violence in Mexico – It’s the prohibition, stupid! (1)