Violence in Mexico – It’s the prohibition, stupid!
Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 4:03 pm | By: Radical Russ
Brutal Drug War Fueled By U.S. Appetite, CBS Evening News Exclusive: Mexico’s Ruthless Drug Cartel Violence Now Crossing The Border – CBS News
Bill Gore has witnessed the carnage, first as the FBI Special Agent in Charge in San Diego, now as the county’s undersheriff. He says American drug users should realize they have blood on their hands.“This is not a victimless crime,” Gore said. “That people are dying, literally hundreds of them, on the streets of Tijuana, so they can have their recreational drugs on this side of the border.”
| * Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice at about $1,000/lb. It only grows in limited places on earth, with 94% of saffron production coming from Iran. It must be harvested by hand, for the saffron is actually the individually-picked stamens (or “threads”) of the saffron flower. It takes a football-field sized plot to produce one pound of saffron, which takes about 20 hours of labor per pound, and only one harvest of saffron can be cultivated per year.
Cannabis, a weed that grows damn near anywhere on earth, that produces a pound or more of product per plant, that can be harvested at the rate of about an hour per pound, and can be cultivated up to four times per year, costs about $2,000/lb. Only prohibition could make a weed worth twice as much as saffron. |
Question for you, Mr. Gore: How many Mexicans have died this year so Americans can have José Cuervo tequila and Dos Equis cerveza? The answer would be zero, because we learned 75 years ago that prohibiting a drug that many Americans want to use causes worse problems than the use of the drug itself.
It’s the prohibition, stupid!
Question #2, Mr. Gore: How many Mexicans have died this year from Americans growing their own domestic marijuana for personal use? The answer would again be zero, because domestic production of marijuana, which you are so strongly against, means no lucrative drug trafficking for violent Mexican cartels.
It’s the prohibition, stupid!
Question #3, Mr. Gore: How many Mexicans have died this year because the profit margins on drug trafficking are enormous enough to arm cartels like death squads? The answer would be over 6,000 because prohibition adds an unnatural risk and scarcity to cannabis that jacks its price up to four-to-six times as great as saffron*.
It’s the prohibition, stupid!
Ironically, this orgy of violence erupted after Mexican president Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels last year, dispatching 40,000 troops and federal police to cities under siege. They’ve killed or captured scores of drug kingpins.
Ironically? I do not think you know what that word means. You thought sending 40,000 armed troops to interrupt the lucrative business of well-armed criminal cartels was going to lead to hand-holding and choruses of “Kumbaya”?
If prohibition could eliminate the demand for illegal marijuana violence like this would never happen.
But it can’t.
There’s only ONE way to eliminate this demand. Prohibition can’t do it, violent SWAT teams can’t do it, draconian mandatory minimum sentences can’t do it.
The ONLY way to eliminate the demand for illegal marijuana is by licensing reputable businesses to LEGALLY produce and sell marijuana to adults. That’s right, the exact same solution that’s kept the alcohol industry safe and free from organized crime for SEVENTY-FIVE years!!
We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to learn from our mistakes.