War On Drugs

Real old stuff: I think drugs should be legal. I don't think the government had any business making them illegal in the first place. If they were legal, we probably wouldn't have as much trouble with addicts stealing money to support their habits because drugs would be a lot cheaper. It might be that the number of people who are destroyed physically or mentally because of easy access to drugs might go up, but I doubt that the increase would be significant, at least compared to the number of people's whose lives are being destroyed by our system of justice.

Medium old stuff: I don't think drugs are going to be legalized. Too many people are making too much money off them the way things are. Too many people have a vested interest in the status quo, and I'm not just talking about drug dealers. There are all the people who benefit from drugs being illegal: all the people in the business of supplying drugs that are legal, like cigarettes and alcohol, and all the people in all the various police departments and prisons who make a living off of catching and imprisoning people who were caught up in this War.

Now: We have a minor shooting war going on in Mexico because the President there has decided to wage war on the cartels.

Where is this going? I do not believe they will ever be able to suppress the drug trade, shoot, I don't think they are even going to be able to put a dent in it. Everytime they bust someone, someone else will step in to take their place. Doesn't matter if it's a low level delivery man, or the head of a major cartel. Taking out the head of the cartel might slow that organization down for a while, may even put them out of business, but there are other cartels out there just looking for a chance to expand.

There was a big bust in Queretaro this summer. Soldiers found a warehouse full of chemicals that could have been used to make meth. This warehouse operation was undoubtedly owned by one of the cartels. I suspect a competing cartel got wind of it and tipped off the government. I would not be surprised if the chemicals were now in the hands of the tipsters. Maybe I'm being too cynical, maybe the government actually destroyed them. Seems a pity since they were probably worth a couple of million bucks.

Are things going to change? Well, yes they are, as we all know, change is the one constant in life. But are we going to have a dramatic change? Or are things just going to muddle along getting progressively worse? I'm thinking it's the later. The drug cartels are going to start increasing their security, which is going to mean more guns and bigger guns, which in turn is going to mean more jobs for gunslingers, and we know there is nothing a kid wants more than to be a gunslinger. All you have to tell him is he is working for the good guys. And pay him.

Drug cartels are run by the rule of man, as opposed to the rule of law, so more people's lives are going to be subject to whim. I suspect the cartels are going to increase in power and influence. I wonder if they will ever start paving streets, or supplying clean water to people's homes. Somehow I doubt it.