Alejandro Arcos is the second politician to be killed in a week in the city of Chilpachingo.

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.

  • @InverseParallaxEnglish
    -20•9 hours ago

    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 AssmanEnglish
      33•9 hours ago

      The whole argument for legalizing weed was that it would cripple the cartels

      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.

    • @[email protected]English
      25•9 hours ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]English
      11•9 hours ago

      The whole argument for legalizing weed was that it would cripple the cartels.

      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.

      Then we have to legalize heroin? Fentanyl? Anything else?

      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.

    • @CliveRosfieldEnglish
      -3•9 hours ago

      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.