Is Legalization/Decriminalization the answer to Mexico's drug cartel violence?
 

There seems to be no end in sight to the violence.

The newly elected government of AMLO hinted at drug legalization as one possible solution.

Do you agree? If you take away the economic incentives for drugs the violence decreases.

True or false?

according to the DEA 90% of all crime is directly or indirectly linked to narcotics and the war over the market...so basically you are asking: do you want to reduce crime by 90%?

that is not a hard question to answer...

Unfortunately, there are BILLIONS invested in keeping the drug war alive. Police unions. Corrupt police and judges, etc etc.

Prior to the 1960's when the war on drugs went into overdrive, there was a flourishing opium business in Mexico. Their farmers grew it and sold it to US pharmaceutical companies. The entire thing was run by businessmen and professionals and was a normal business. When the war on drugs came around, they started arresting people and burning farms and the legit people left the business so it go taken over by cartels.

Make it legal and it should curb a lot of the violence and craziness surrounding it.

In no ways, the violence decreases with this. If the government legalize it, crime will be more.

There is way too much involved at this point, money being made on every aspect, legal and illegal. Nothing will change.

Is alcohol and gambling safer or more dangerous because they're legalised?

The too much money argument is also wrong. Their will be less money, but more in the hands of large corporations, taxed and accounted for.

Crime flourishes when the people demand something the government denies. We all know that and can prove it. Pornography, Prostitution, Alcohol, Gambling and even drugs are safer in the hands of government rather than criminals.

The deaths in making drugs illegal is higher that the deaths from over doses.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ence-up-report

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/02/w...cts/index.html

https://www.google.com/search?ei=DGt...30.-WZ_uoe_ZaU

The cost to American Soldier.

Looking for simple solution to an incredible complex problem.

obviously more heroin, more crack and more methamphetamine will make the world a better place for everyone.

when crack swept through inner cities and nearly destroyed the nation, legal or illegal had nothing to do with it. cheap, widely available and addictive did. thinking that expanding on that plan is a great idea is pure insanity.

There are places where they have experimented with decriminalizing and focusing more on rehab and prevention than law enforcement and it has worked for them.

The war on drugs has been a failure. Pretty much anyone who wants heroin, meth or coke can get it without a whole lot of difficulty. It's time to try something different. Legalize, regulate, educate, and rehabilitate. The drug problem in this country is a medical issue, not a criminal issue. We need to treat it as such.

The war on drugs is going so well LOL

Well, to be perfectly honest, i do respect you and i do kinda agree with the above. However, i also don't believe that making highly addictive drugs widely available is going to help anything.

Though this is a very long discussion in how the brain works, the "for or against" with drugs is a moral question in peoples brains for most and a question of reason for some. You won't win the debate with reason because the brain is using different areas to process each... There won't be agreement on legalizing meth, heroin etc. anymore than there will be agreement on whether or not abortion is or isn't ok.

Drugs are illegal all over the planet for this reason and viewed the same way in almost any culture... it's fundamental human neurobiology.

So in your world, once it's legalized, crime goes away? Yeah ...no.

Portugal decriminalized all drugs about 15 years ago and from what I've read: it's working.

Canada legalized marijuana recently and early reports signal that there hasn't been a huge increase in consumption. I don't know if its had any impacts on the black market.

Either way, the war on drugs is a colossal failure. Continuing it might be a sunken cost fallacy. So why not try legalizing it?

Yes.

The govt. didn't learn it's lesson with alcohol prohibition. That created some of the bloodiest violence in American history and made the mafia super-rich.

Now they've done it again with drugs.

Maybe it's time for the govt. to get the hell out of people's lives and stop telling us what we can and can't do with our own bodies.
Remember...the founding fathers set up a govt. OF the people. They are supposed to work FOR us, not RULE OVER us.

Agreed. If they used the money they spend on drug prevention and invested it into drug education and treatment, the results would be much better.

Don't get me wrong, drugs like heroin and meth are terrible and people can become addicted to them in a heartbeat. I don't want to see them for sale in stores or in vending machines etc. What I would like to see is a change like they made in Portugal where it is still illegal to sell drugs, but not to use or posses them. If you get caught with drugs, instead of going to jail they put you in rehab. The idea is that they greatly reduce the number of users. With fewer users there will be less demand and by default less violence and other issues that come with it. It is working there.

I would just like to see us try something new. The 50+ year war on drugs we have fought seems to have gotten us nowhere.

I would also like to see us invest in our inner cities and work with the groups of people who are most likely to sell drugs in hopes we can convince them to get an education and show them there are other ways to make money and have a good life. It's not going to be easy, but I fear things will only continue to get worse. Drugs are only getting more and more potent and more and more dangerous.

yes, they must legalize it. I know that many people get wounded or get in influence of drug kartels only because they want to smoke some weed. On the big University in Mexico City (350.000 students..) some drug dealers have control, but only that group and the director of the school knows. But when they start competing the guns start, now is realtively quiet and save. Just control it like in Holland so people don't come in contact with the crazy gangs.

I was on the UNAM university in Mexico City and there where kilo's marihuana spread out on tables where student could buy weed... getting Instagram pictures with 50 centimeter big buds.

I was in Jamaica last month and there it is legal. All small street sellers and poor or homeless people sold marihuana and made enough to buy some food every day. And sometimes get lucky when people from a cruise ship paid 100 USD for wat was wordt 5 USD.

They start legalizing medical Marihuana in Thailand already.

The problem with that line of thinking is: they ARE highly available. And after 40 plus years of Nixon's "War On Drugs" the result is that there are MORE drugs than ever before.

Best to find a "cure" for addiction. There are already several medical and scientific groups that worked on this and have found that using hallucinogens in a controlled medical facility for a few sessions can "reboot" the brain.

They are "curing" alcoholism, depression, PTSD, opiod addiction, etc.

Looking past addiction to recreational drug use: People have been getting high since the first caveman licked a poisonous frog and started tripping.

It's natural to us. Work hard all week, then blow off some steam on the weekend.

The govt. tried to pull this shit with alcohol. And the results spoke for themselves.
The same thing is happening now with drugs.

Hell, alcohol has more people addicted and kills more people every year than drugs ever will. Same with nicotine.

what would the gangs sell?...what would they fight over?...

crime will always exist, but when 90% of it is linked to a single activity, selling narcotics, when you take away the money then crime drops sharply...

Education isn't the problem. Anyone who doesn't know crack, meths, etc are going to ruin your life is a moron. What needs to be tackled is the reason people take such harmful drugs.

Kinda but not really. They'll still be a ruthless criminal organization, but not as dependent on drugs. We've already seen them get into the steel industry, and more recently fuel.

Mexican drug cartel moves from meth to iron ore mining

Mexico's drug cartels, now hooked on fuel, cripple nation's refineries

Same tactics, just diversified.

Yeah and where are all the meth and heroin zombies going to get the money to buy their drugs? They're going to rob and steal all your shit lol

I'm all for decriminalizing personal amounts of all drugs but you cannot even think about just wholesale legalizing meth, heroin and cocaine.

Can you imagine the financial toll on society? Imagine if you could walk into a 7-11 and buy a bag of meth or heroin? Imagine how many people that are having a really bad day say fuck it, i'm going in balls deep today and getting high. The loss revenue, crime, property values, it would be nuts.

Totally agree.

It is cheap as shit to make...they will get them for pennies, or they will get them expensive and resort to crime...you pick...

Just legalize and let stupid people who take it die.