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- cross-posted to:
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The mayor of a Mexican city plagued by drug violence has been murdered less than a week after taking office.
Alejandro Arcos was found dead on Sunday in Chilpancingo, a city of around 280,000 people in the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been mayor for six days.
Evelyn Salgado, the state governor, said the city was in mourning over a murder that “fills us with indignation”. His death came three days after the city government’s new secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot dead.
Authorities have not released details of the investigation, or suspects. However, Guerrero is one of the worst-affected states for drug violence and drug cartels have murdered dozens of politicians across the country.
If there wasn’t such a strong black market for illegal drugs in the US, these cartels wouldn’t have this much power/money.
Cartels sell more than drugs these days. They learned in the 90s that diversifying into different products gave them more stability against drug enforcement. Avocados have turned into legal profit. Logging in another business. Neither of these things will be affected by someone quitting drugs. Stop building houses and stop eating avocado now.
They might be only able to do those other things since they are able to pay an army to terrorize, intimidate and bribe local and state government’s into allowing them to exist and set up these protection racquets. It takes a lot of money to be able to be more powerful then a government, I don’t think selling avocados or logging could generate that much
Avocados and logging also don’t need to worry about getting shut down by the law like the cocaine and heroin business does.
Legalize the coke and dope, and the incentive to resort to violence to avoid criminal penalties goes away.
Muh avocado toast!
I think I heard from somewhere that while that might have worked decades ago the cartels have diversified their ‘business’ to the point where drug legalisation wouldn’t kill them. We should still legalise drugs but I doubt they’ll fix the cartel issue.
So, I don’t disagree, but we legalized weed in the civilized parts of the country and it had little effect, I’m not sure I want to legalize cocaine, it’s much better at killing people.
I think legalizing weed didn’t make that much of a difference because the whole claim that buying random weed from a random dealer put money in cartel or terrorist pockets was a lie.
Not that there weren’t any large weed organizations, they just weren’t murdering people at the scale the cartels are or doing it to fund violence.
They’d also rely a lot on temporary workers since trimming was really the only labour intensive step, and then it would be sent out into a distribution network that wasn’t so much an organization as it was a collection of independent or small scale distributors. Which in some locations might have been gangs, but I’d guess was mostly normal people looking to make some extra money.
Portugal set the standard years ago. Legalize it and divert all the money that would go to incarceration to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation for drug addiction.
Minor clarification -Technically it was decriminalized, not legalized. Distribution will send you to jail and, after 2 or more possession offenses, you’re forced into a treatment program.
And sadly, things have started to get worse again in Portugal. Lately they’ve been sending fewer people to treatment, and surprise surprise, usage and deaths have gone up.
I believe Switzerland was the first country to establish centers where drug addicts would receive a controlled dosage for “free.” Of course paid for by taxes. The Suisse found out crime decreased, the parks were cleaner and emergency rooms saw fewer overdose patients. Basically a win across the board.
Little effect in what regard?
I think they’re saying that legalizing weed hasnt done anything to reduce Mexican cartel influence or violence.
Why would it? It’s the bulkiest, smelliest, lowest cost drug there is. Mexican weed sucked ass too. Moving cocaine or especially ultra high strength opiate analogs is significantly more lucrative.
Making things illegal doesn’t work. Not alcohol, not drugs, not abortion. It needs to be addressed by education. The current just say no abstinence approach leaves people ill prepared for when they encounter drugs. Our relationship with drugs is fucked, currently. Altering our state of consciousness with drugs is a fundamental part of being human.
The whole argument for legalizing weed was that it would cripple the cartels.
That doesn’t seem like it’s worked so much.
So again, we have to legalize cocaine before the cartels are weakened?
Then we have to legalize heroin? Fentanyl? Anything else?
I’m in favor of legalizing weed, but this seems a lot like it’s actually not helping.
The whole argument, or the part of the argument that you are able to argue against? In my opinion the “whole argument” is that getting caught with relatively harmless plant matter shouldn’t ruin your entire life.
Happy Cakeday! 🍰🎂
I don’t know anyone who was touting the cartels as a reason to legalize weed… weed is usually being legalized because 1) it’s (relatively) harmless, 2) it has medicinal uses, 3) it was outlawed for racist reasons, and 4) it was causing mass incarceration and devastating black communities due to clearly racist enforcement.
First I’ve heard of this, and I’d consider myself a pretty big follower of drugs and drug culture. Who thought weed was lucrative for cartels? The plant you can easily grow, and is challenging to transport?
Calling it the “whole argument” is very disingenuous. People have the right to get high.
Yeah, all of it. You can legally buy chemical analogs of just about any class of drugs because the laws simply can’t keep up. Prohibition isn’t working, and it hasn’t ever. What you’re seeing today is a result of prohibition (and prescription painkillers in the 00s, I’d argue).
The problem won’t be fixed by making things illegal. What, are you going to make opiates more illegal or something? Education and learning how to have a proper relationship with mind altering substances is the way forward, IMO.
Shoutout to erowid.org.
It’s harsh, but El Salvador did what was necessary to fix their problem. They saved countless men, women, and children both inside and outside their country from monsters walking in human skin.
What???
They jailed 1% of the population and devastated an entire generation at the very least, often for nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time
https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-bukele-central-america-crime-gangs-60c3a34c571dfdbdf0a203deb85abf71
We don’t need to legalize. If we decriminalized, then took the money for jailing and funded mandatory treatment, we could do what Portugal did in the early 00’s.
I’m actually fine with decriminalizing consumption so long as distribution (real distribution, not piddly shit) stays illegal, at least without proper licensing, etc.
I’m not thrilled about it but I’m open so long as cocaine and heroin aren’t fully legalized.
I am sure. Legalize all of it. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, use half of the new income for prevention and education, one quarter for medical support for addicts and the rest fills the coffers. You take away the power from the criminal gangs, while at the same time increasing your tax revenue, adding new legal avenues of business and minimizing the health impact considerably.
Still waiting for legal grass.
Assuming you’re in the US:
It’s called THCa and is the same weed you’ve been smoking your whole life. You can get ounces to your door in the mail 100% legally thanks to a poorly written Farm Bill.
The farm bill only states a certain % of THC is illegal. Well, THC isn’t on the plants in large quantities - that only exists once you heat the cannabis to isomerize it from THCa to THC. It’s not delta 8 or some weird synthetic cannabinoid, weed has always been THCa before it’s heated.
There are dispensaries all over Texas these days selling great weed with this loophole. Texas, of all places.
Good to know. I moved out over a year ago. Going back EOM for a family visit. Hate landing anywhere dry, so I’ll probably check these out.
California announced they’ll be opening cannabis cafes
Come do some smoking tourism in BC!
As I said, the civilized parts of the country.