Mexico, Under U.S. Pressure, Adds Muscle to Fight Against Drug Cartels

Trump has Mexico turning back illegal immigrants from their southern borders and now they have rejoined the war on drugs.
No I'm not tired of winning yet.

"Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, under pressure from the Trump administration, has beefed up his strategy to fight drug cartels, including bringing the marines, Mexico’s elite security force, back to the front lines of the drug war.

The moves mark a shift by Mexico from a counternarcotics strategy that largely ended the pursuit of high-profile arrests and focused almost exclusively on poverty alleviation.

“We are operating again,” said a senior Mexican navy officer. “The targets we need to go after have been defined.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico...cle-to-fight-against-drug-cartels-11581105334

 

That will be a hard battle to fight. The drug trade business in Mexico is not only cartel oriented, but entire villages are dependent on the production of heroin. In early 2018 Showtime featured a 5 part miniseries called The Trade. The show depicts the growing, cultivation, trafficking, deadly competition and the paying off of govt officials in Mexico as well as the millions of customers in the US that will go to any lengths for their next fix. I would compare trying to eradicate heroin production in Mexico to stopping the wheat harvesting in America.

 

Provide addicts the drugs they crave at cost (or less).

 

Yep. President Xi Jinping of China was asked how can a country of 1.5 billion people not have a drug problem. Xi’s reply, “Because China executes.”

 

Wow, did you think of that all by yourself? Nice input. I look forward to your next composition with great eagerness.

 

I thought the drug cartels had infiltrated the police and army of Mexico??? And, that politicians who fought the cartels received death threats and were soon found dead?

This is going to be a hard, hard thing to do.

 

New spirit of cooperation from Mexico is a winner.

 

The goal of the war on drugs is not victory, it is a permanent war footing and the budget enhancements that follow.

It cannot be won. Considering that the government has been trying to stop it since 1914 and the passage of the Harrison Narcotic Act, and we still have drugs being sold by school children and in prison, it's safe to say that the drug 'war' will never be 'won.'

Still, it's good for career bureaucrats in the DEA and the BOP.

 

Drug lords own Mexico is that what you want for us?

 

Drug lords have run the CIA since it began. Alfred McCoy has been writing about it for decades.

What's your point?

During alcohol prohibition drug lords ran many big cities in the US. What's your point?

 

Point is what's worse a war on drugs or a drugged out society.

 

That is debatable. Basically, we are already a drugged out society. Counting prescription drugs and their abuse, we are very much a drugged out society.

Considering that the effects of many of the "illegal" drugs are so benign that a person's urine must be examined to see if he has been using the drugs, the fear-mongering you offer seems absurd.

The drug war, on the other hand, effects all of society, users and non-users alike. For example, the 4th Amendment has been sacrificed in the war on drugs. Police have been caught stealing drugs from evidence rooms, for decades.

The prohibition laws hurt ALL of society.

 

There is a much simpler, much more effective way of dealing with the war on drugs. However the united states society does not have the appetite for actually engaging in such measures.

Prohibition has been tried numerous times, and numerous times it has failed miserably. Perhaps it is finally time for the society of the united states to experience the full, overwhelming weight and cost of their desire to see illicit substances made legal for recreational use, and comprehend just what they are asking for. As those indulging in such substances die off in large numbers through overdosing, and left to decay where others must walk through their daily lives, the significance of their decisions will be made quite clear to them. No one will be able to claim ignorance, and that they had no idea of just how dangerous the use of such substances was. Eventually there will be no one left to become addicted or die of overdoses, and the matter will solve itself. That is ultimately what is desired, is it not?

If individuals wish to knowingly engage in reckless and criminal behavior, they will suffer the consequences of their actions one way or another. They are obviously being done no favors by their government fighting so hard to keep them alive through prohibitions and regulations, so perhaps it is time for a change of pace, and the consequences of their decisions made as plain as day. When children have to see their parents, siblings, and friends laying dead in the streets and on sidewalks as their bodies decompose while others have to walk over them, they will understand the true societal cost of the use of illicit substances. They will no longer question what is wrong with the recreational use of illicit substances, as they will understand why such narcotics were prohibited in the first place.

If the public does not wish to accept that there are certain substances that should not be used, then allowing them to experience the folly of their decisions is the most logical course of action. The more the matter is resisted and fought, the more they are glamorized and desired by the public. It would be the most logical course of action to engage in, seeing as how everything else has failed.

It is a simple, cost effective approach to the problem, and devoid of anything resembling either racial inequality, or political bias. No charges for those who traffic or use such substances, no medical aid for those that overdose. All die equally, and the problem eventually solves itself, potentially within the course of a single generation.

 

Prohibition failed because the popular demand for alcohol was so high. I don't think that's an issue with hard drugs like heroin.
You bring up opioid addiction from prescription drugs which is a good point and exemplary of how addictive they are and how they ruin lives. Making it easier for people to try drugs like this with legalized drugs can't end well for society as a whole.

 

SF is a test for your theory with drugged out homeless people littering the streets with feces and needles. It's become worse over time not better.

 

It is easy to talk this way if you have no children.

 

And yet it is a logically valid.

 

We are winning the war on drugs? Do you understand that we are the enemy and not Mexico? We have the demand for illegal drugs and then want to punish other nations and people for our own stupidity? Having drugs illegal is the stupidest thing that our country does. Fully 1/2 of the crime committed in the country is due to illegal drugs. Legalize drug use, tax it like cigs and alcohol (our legal drugs) and use that tax money to pay for treatment centers. You hear people on the right all the time scream about individual freedom but try to tell me what I can put in my body as an adult American. They make fun of the left's attempt to reduce sugar consumption- a poison per thousand pieces of scientific research, but are aghast that a man would rather get high than drunk. We waste 50% of out law enforcement money on drugs.

And please don't say that legal drug use widens the use, see Portugal.

 

All of which is why we need a secure border with Mexico.

 

Portugal decriminalization of drugs and legalization of drugs are two different things. Drugs are still illegal in Portugal but those caught using them are not treated as criminals but are instead treated as addicts that need medical and or psychological help. I've got no problem with that and a war on drugs should not be a war on drugs victims.
A war on drugs needs in large part to be fought by securing our borders especially our border with Mexico which is a country who's main industry is drugs and Mexico is finally helping in that regard.

 

Yes, but it only valid for the mature and healthy adult population.
Many young people have their own mind (or absence of mind) and their own logic.

 

Medical and psychological help means access to health care. Health care is not popular in the United States, most people reject health care because it is an attribute of Socialism.

 

Then they can experience the consequences of their own actions. No different from adults who are willing to become convicted felons in the name of pursuing something that they should simply leave alone.

 

How well is the health care system in the nation of Venezuela working out?

 

Health care system in Venezuela is way better then in U.S. because everyone is covered. There is no ban on government insurance.
But yes, country has economic problems so medical services are not provided in many cases. But it has nothing to do with Socialism.