kirktastic

The US media has finally glommed onto the drug wars in Mexico. The stories breathlessly warn of the violence “spilling over” into the United States. The dipshit governor of Texas wants 1,000 troops sent to keep this spilling over from happening. Obama asked him what exactly they’d do on the border and why 1,000 were needed.

Hills Clinton was in Mexico last week and actually said that the US is partly responsible for the violence in Mexico because of America’s insatiable taste for drugs. Truer words could not be said. The reason the Mexican cartels send tons of drugs into the US every day is because American’s are their number one customers. In a way the cartels are nothing more than freight forwarders: they are taking the drugs from their source and delivering them to them to customers in the US. The only difference between them and FedEx is their product is illegal and operates outside the law (although a significant amount of drugs in the US are transported via FedEx, UPS and the good old Post Office). The cartels fight for the drug routes among each other in Mexico because there are billions of dollars at stake.

The “Build the Fence” crowd like stirring up this “spilling over” myth. Sure some drugs come over the same routes as immigrants — the human smugglers often need to pay the drug cartels for protection in ferrying people northward. But a 100 mile tall fence from Imperial Beach CA to Brownsville TX would only slow down the drugs. The drugs are coming in on airplanes, rail cars, semi trucks and in passenger vehicles. The drugs come with immigrants too, sure. But the guy that came to the US to do your landscaping didn’t bring a ton of dope with him.

Mexican border towns have felt the most from the violence in the cartels’ war with each other and against the Mexican government. It is a shame really. In my travels into the interior I’ve often passed through these border towns. In the past the streets would be full of gringo shoppers buying medicine in the pharmacies, getting drunk in the bars, and buying curios from shops. Bus loads of senior citizens would come for the brand name medication at prices that were cheaper than in the US. But now it is pretty devoid of that activity. The Americans stopped going years ago when they heard about the drug wars on the border. Just like when the gangs were running Chicago in during the US prohibition the “civilians” are pretty much not the subject of violence. But they all stay away anyway. The last time I was in Nuevo Laredo the busy main street was pretty much a ghost town at sundown. Many of the souvenir shops, pharmacies, and bars are closed now since there’s no stream of tourists crossing the bridge. The military is in town and you see troop carrier trucks throughout town and there are checkpoints. For the most part, as a güero I’m pretty much not hassled by the military and am allowed to pass without hindrance. There aren’t massive shootouts every day where innocents get killed. There are isolated violent activities between the various cartels and between the cartels and the police or military. But the violence isn’t “spilling across” the border. For one thing, in the cities where this violence happens the US border is pretty established and well guarded. It isn’t a “war” like imagined where there’s a front line. There’s a narcotraficante’s safe house that gets raided by the police several kilometers from the border. Nothing is happening on the bridges or border crossings. The cartels are violent and evil but they’re also businessmen and there’s no business benefit of “invading” the US. They don’t have to.

There are Mexican gangs in the US but they aren’t sneaking across the border as the media suggest. They’re already here. They’ve been here for generations and many of the people in el norte are US citizens. They own the wholesale network of getting the drugs to the dealers. The dealers get the drugs to the end user. The “Mexican drug gang violence” is the same old drug distribution violence we’ve always had but just as after 9/11 every terrorist organization was “linked to al qaeda” it is simpler to just say these are the new Mexican drug gangs. It also helps with the whole racist element of pundits like Lou Dobbs to say they’re dirty Mexicans. Let’s not forget that one of the reasons that marijuana was made illegal in the US was because many Mexicans and Black people smoked it and “real Americans” were afraid their white children may consort with them.

A lot of the violence in Mexico would go away if their neighbors to the north faced its drug problem. Billions are spent each year fighting the “war on drugs” which has been a gigantic failure. Billions more are spent incarcerating drug users — creating a whole industry of private prisons and lots of profit. So you have the cartels making billions on selling the drugs and you have the government spending billions on stopping it. But they can’t be too successful in the war on drugs or they lose billions of dollars. So like immigration, they have to put on a show that they are fighting the drug menace without being too successful or the money dries up. The cartels spend billions paying off government officials on both sides of the border to get their product through.

So if the US legalized (or rather, decriminalized) drugs, the criminal element goes away. Instead of buying your drugs from a dealer who gets his supply from the local gang who get its drugs from the cartels. Instead you go to the “drug” store and buy it from a licensed store. The dope is taxed and some of the tax programs could be used to fund drug abuse programs. Farmers could legally grow and sell their marijuana. There wouldn’t be so many people in jail for having a small amount of drugs on them. It would still be illegal to smuggle drugs. You would need to be an adult to buy or consumer drugs. It would still be illegal to drive or do other things under the influence of drugs. But having a small amount on your person wouldn’t be a crime.

In the 1980s there were shootouts in the streets of Miami between the Colombian cocaine cartels and the police. The US government was successful shutting that trade route down. It didn’t stop Americans from doing drugs, it just moved the route through Mexico. If the US and Mexican governments are successful shutting down the Mexican route to market, it will go through Canada, China on container ships, anywhere. People aren’t going to stop getting high.

I mentioned immigration earlier. Our economy is dependent on the cheap labor from the south. The government makes some show of trying to crack down and works on projects like the border fence to show it is being tough. But it isn’t sincere. They can’t be or it would harm the economy! The reason people risk their lives to come to work in the US doing shitty jobs for low pay is to support their families. If there were no work, they wouldn’t come. This is pretty evident now as many illegal immigrants are going back to their home countries because the work isn’t available. It is sad the economy had to shit its pants to prove my point.

So if the US government only enforced the laws that already exist regarding the hiring of illegal workers, there would be no immigration problem. I can be nearly anywhere on the planet and buy something with my Visa card and immediately the purchase is authorized by my bank in California. A similar system couldn’t be done with employment? You mean to say the country that put a man on the moon couldn’t have a system where even day workers could be instantly verified? And if there were strict punishment for companies that knowingly hired illegal workers, the profit motive for hiring illegal workers goes away. If the CEO of Hormel could go to prison if his company knowingly hired illegal workers, do you think they’d hire so many. But today they can hire anyone they want because they know they won’t get caught (or if they do the fine is so little it makes economic sense to take that risk).

You take away the demand for illegal workers, the supply will go away.
You take away the demand for illegal drugs, the supply will go away.