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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
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CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War
    #8408065 - 05/16/08 01:31 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War
May 16, 2008 - alternet.org

Lou Dobbs talks nonsense to explain Mexican drug violence. Face it: Drug prohibition creates a profit motive that people are willing to kill for.

Mexico is experiencing a bloodbath right now thanks to drug prohibition. Drug wars are killing more Mexicans each year than Americans are perishing in Iraq. Three thousand Mexicans have died since January 2007. Lou Dobbs addressed the issue on Friday, May 9, after Esteban Robles Espinosa, the head of Mexico City's investigative police was assassinated. Mr. Espinosa's death came on the heels of Federal Police Chief Edgar Millan being gunned down Thursday outside his Mexico City home -- the tenth federal police officer killed by suspected drug cartel members in three weeks. Lou Dobbs was outraged by the mass killings and wondered whether Washington is paying attention.

While I appreciate Lou Dobbs' frustration with the mass killings, his analysis is totally clueless and his "solutions" will no doubt cause more harm than good. Here are three myths from Lou Dobbs that deserve attention.

Dobbs Myth No. 1 -- Washington Is Not Paying Enough Attention and Needs to Step Up Drug War

Lou Dobbs talks about our elected officials not paying attention and then quotes the White House press secretary calling on Congress to approve the Merida initiative. The law would provide funding to the Mexican government to "break the drug pipeline that ends up on America's streets." Far from not doing anything, our government's policy actually fuels the killings. For forty years we have been waging a "war on drugs" and "pushing" our failed zero-tolerance policies on other countries. Just what does our $40 billion-a-year drug war get us? Our prisons are exploding with nonviolent drug offenders, thousands die from street violence generated by prohibition's black market along the border, and drugs remain as plentiful and easy to obtain as ever.

In 2006, Mexican President Vicente Fox urged a bill that would drop criminal penalties for small amounts of drugs, but backed down after the uproar from the Bush administration. The problem is not what Washington is not doing, but what it is doing.

Dobbs Myth No. 2 -- We Need to Amplify the Drug War to Protect the Kids

Lou Dobbs and the Drug War Industrial Complex routinely argue that drug prohibition is there to "protect" the kids. Dobbs' correspondent Carrie Lee recycled the talking points from the ONDCP's press release and said in the same Mexico violence segment, "A new report from the White House finds teens in this country using marijuana are putting themselves at higher risk for serious mental health disorders and even suicide." Ms. Lee then goes on to say, "Most of the marijuana produced in Mexico is destined for U.S. drug markets."

Far from protecting kids, drug war-funded education programs have consistently misinformed our youth, creating an atmosphere of mistrust and disbelief. Despite 30 years of "Just Say No" rhetoric, half of all high-school seniors will smoke marijuana before they graduate. Teens say it is easier to get marijuana than alcohol, as drug dealers never check identification. The bitter irony of the drug war is that the same week the high-level Mexican police were murdered in the streets, 75 college students at San Diego State University were arrested for selling drugs. Yeah, the drug war is really protecting the kids.

Dobbs Myth No. 3 -- "Open Border Advocates Are Responsible for a Losing Role in Our Drug War"

What is a Lou Dobbs segment without slamming the "open border" advocates? Now Dobbs is blaming them for drugs coming into the country. We can't keep drugs out of maximum security prisons, but he thinks we are going to keep drugs out of the United States? Drug prohibition makes plants like marijuana and coca incredibly valuable. We can build as many fences and place as many agents on the border as we want, but as there are huge profits to be made, there will be people ready to smuggle and even to kill over the control of the massive, global drug market.

Lou Dobbs and the drug czar have huge platforms to spin their version of the drug war and their desire for a "Drug-Free America." We have tried to eradicate and incarcerate our way out of this problem for 40 years. There is nothing in the coca or marijuana plant that caused the 3,000 deaths in Mexico since 2007. Rather, it is prohibition that creates a profit motive that people are willing to kill for. Remember, when alcohol consumption was illegal in this country, we had Al Capone and shootouts in the streets. Today, no one dies over the sale of a beer.

It is time for an honest and open international debate about controlling, taxing and regulating illegal drugs so we can find an exit strategy from this unwinnable war. The health and well-being of the people of Mexico and the United States depends on it.

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OfflineCoaster
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: veggie]
    #8408080 - 05/16/08 01:38 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

ya lets throw more money at our neighbors in this futile fight
if they legalized the drugs there wouldn't be any problems


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Offlinemarshalldylan1
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: Coaster]
    #8408109 - 05/16/08 01:51 AM (15 years, 10 months ago)

GREAT Article.

I wish everyone could read this.

This war has got to stop NOW!

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Offlineabica
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: marshalldylan1]
    #8409352 - 05/16/08 12:43 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Legalized cocaine doesn't sound like the smartest idea- how many millions of people would become regular users...it is sort of addictive...and sure as hell does damage one's health.

I see a good portion of the drug war problem coming from lumping pot in with more serious stuff.

The millions of dollars per year and all that manpower dedicated to fighting the devil weed could be funneled to stemming the cocaine flow.

But then I bet coke causes a majority of the gang activity, violence, and crazy shit going on wherever it's going on.

Ahh what the hell, the smoke my nephew's hot teacher's cat smokes with me doesn't come from mexico anyway, it's some dank grown in the hydroponic cat box. But if Bootsie ever gets busted, hot teacher will lose her job. *sigh*

I agree with some of Dobbs' viewpoints on his show, he's more sensible and moderate than a lot of these cable network show-having-people. But this is pretty dumb.

What are shroomerites' views on the cocaine us/mex border issue?

Edited by abica (05/16/08 12:45 PM)

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OfflineVisionary Tools
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: abica]
    #8409421 - 05/16/08 12:59 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Yeah, if you're wondering what a nation where drug users aren't treated as criminals is like, look at Holland and Portugal. Drug legalisation doesn't lead to increase of drug use.


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Offlinekindadank
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: Visionary Tools]
    #8409547 - 05/16/08 01:32 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

I believe Argentina also recently decriminalized all drugs as well. There is an initial spike in usage, and then it drops off. That's pretty much how it works everywhere.

IMHO, it's either all or nothing. You can't legalize some drugs and then keep others illegal. That's pretty much exactly what we are doing right now, and it sure as hell isn't working.

Once you remove the profit motive (the fact that they are illegal and have to be purchased on the black market), there would be no reason for gangs or any other criminal enterprise to be involved with these drugs. This means that violent crime would drop off, and petty crime would drop as well because your local crackhead won't have to mug you or steal your stereo out of your car to afford his habit.

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OfflineMantrippinonX
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: veggie]
    #8411179 - 05/16/08 10:20 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Rather, it is prohibition that creates a profit motive that people are willing to kill for. Remember, when alcohol consumption was illegal in this country, we had Al Capone and shootouts in the streets. Today, no one dies over the sale of a beer.


This is amazing! I wonder if it will work for anything else...?  :gethigh:


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"Shit get on my level you can't get on my level You would need a spaceshuttle or a ladder that's forever"


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Invisiblejohnm214
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: MantrippinonX]
    #8411191 - 05/16/08 10:23 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9

Contact CNN and tell them, calmly, that you're dissapointed on their slanted article.

The crazy soccer moms all bitch en masse if a nipple slips out, now do your part to ensure integrity, or at least even handed debate, in america.

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OfflineMadtowntripper
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Re: CNN's Lou Dobbs Is Clueless When It Comes to the Drug War [Re: johnm214]
    #8411242 - 05/16/08 10:42 PM (15 years, 10 months ago)

Lou Dobbs used to be awesome. He would always grill people and ask the tough questions and generally be what a news-man is supposed to be.

But the last few years he's just completely fucking crazy. I don't know what happened.


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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action.  If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it.  - Ernest Hemingway

If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it.  In the law courts, in business, in government.  There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.    -Cormac MacCarthy

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.  - Aeschylus

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