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Green_T


Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,042
Loc: UK
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Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist"
#13343689 - 10/16/10 12:00 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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NOTE: Both of these articles have appeared in the latest print edition of "The Economist", a prestigious and respected magazine.
Mexican waves, Californian cool Three things to stop the gangs: better police in Mexico, stricter gun laws in America and legal pot in California Oct 14th 2010 - The Economist

THERE have been gunfights outside the American school and a big private university. The mayors of two suburbs have been murdered. And a grenade has been thrown at Saturday evening strollers in a square, injuring 12. All this has happened since August not in Kabul or Baghdad but in Monterrey in northern Mexico (see article). The latest battleground in a multilateral war between drug-trafficking gangs and the authorities, Monterrey is not a dusty outpost. It is one of the biggest industrial cities of North America, a couple of hours’ drive from Texas and home to some of Mexico’s leading companies.
The maelstrom of drug-related violence that is engulfing Mexico has produced exaggerated, sometimes xenophobic, alarm in parts of the United States. The response in Mexico City has, until recently, been defensive denial.
Both reactions are wrong. The violence, in which at least 28,000 people have been killed since 2006, reflects a double failure of public policy: decades of neglect of the basic institutions of the rule of law in Mexico, and a failed approach to drug consumption (plus lax gun laws) in the United States. These mistakes have helped to create the world’s most powerful organised-crime syndicates. Reforms in both countries could help tame them.
Take Mexico first. For much of the long rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party until 2000, the goal of policing was political control rather than crime prevention or detection, and the judiciary acted as a rubber stamp. In these conditions the drug gangs thrived. With increasing urgency the past three Mexican presidents have tried to tackle the mobsters, but have found they lacked the tools for the job. Thus, on taking over as president in 2006, Felipe Calderón turned to the army as a stopgap, sending thousands of troops onto the streets of northern cities. Only now, and with painful slowness, are the elements of a broader strategy falling into place. The new federal police force is growing, but it remains too small. Belatedly, the government has realised that it needs to pursue more active social policies to ensure that young men do not see the drug business as their only career option.
Perhaps the best news is that the mayhem in Monterrey has at last forced Mexico’s politicians and business leaders to face up to the gravity of the threat. Mr Calderón sent a constitutional amendment to Congress this month that would consolidate more than 1,600 local police bodies into 32 reformed and strengthened state forces. It now stands a decent chance of being swiftly approved. Even then, Mexico’s long to-do list includes regaining control of local prisons and local courts.
In all this Mexico is not getting the right kind of help from the United States. Weak law enforcement in Mexico has helped the drug gangs to grow, but their power owes everything to proximity to the world’s largest retail market for illegal drugs. Recent American administrations have at least moved on from the finger-pointing of the past to an acceptance of shared responsibility. But the results are patchy. The Mérida Initiative, a $1.4 billion anti-drug programme for Mexico, is lazily modelled on Plan Colombia. It includes a lot of helicopters and hardware of the kind Colombia needed to fight FARC narcoguerrillas, when what Mexico really needs is far more support with police training and intelligence-gathering.
Mexico would be even better served if the United States renewed a ban on the sale of assault weapons that lapsed in 2004. Sadly, this looks unlikely to happen. Yet since 2006 alone, Mexican authorities have seized 55,000 of these weapons of war. That is enough to equip many NATO armies—and most were bought legally in American gunshops.
The potential of pot
So permissive when it comes to lethal weapons, the United States remains steadfast in its commitment to the prohibition of drugs, in the face of all the evidence that this policy fails to curb their consumption while creating vast profits for organised crime. It is welcome that California is now debating before a referendum on November 2nd, whether to legalise marijuana (see article). This newspaper would vote for the proposition, because we believe that drug addiction, like alcoholism and tobacco consumption, is properly a matter of public health rather than the criminal law.
If California votes in favour of legalisation, Mexico would be wise to follow suit (the bottom would anyway fall out of its marijuana business). The drug gangs would still be left with more lucrative cocaine and methamphetamines. But it would become easier to defeat them. And Mexicans should make no mistake: they must be defeated. The idea of going back to a tacit bargain that tolerates organised crime, favoured by some in Mexico, is inimical to the rule of law, and thus to democracy and a free society. The sooner Mexico turns its new-found sense of urgency into a more effective national policing and law-enforcement strategy the better.
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An altered state A battle about hypocrisy, money and Mexican cartels Oct 14th 2010 - The Economist

OF THE nine statewide measures on the ballot next month in California, and the more than 100 throughout America, probably the most famous—or infamous, according to some—is Proposition 19, which legalises marijuana. According to the polls, it might just pass.
The proposition has a chance of winning mainly because Californians have become rather relaxed about weed. Back in 1972 a proposition to legalise the drug was defeated almost two-to-one. These days, fully half of Californians tell pollsters they favour legalisation, and almost as many admit to having smoked marijuana themselves, which probably means that a big majority have actually done so. In parts of the state, enjoying an occasional doobie is nowadays considered little different from sipping a Pinot Noir.
Proposition 19, which would allow adults to grow, own and consume a bit of cannabis for personal pleasure, would thus remove any remaining hypocrisy. Indulging is already unlikely to lead to prison in California—a recently-passed law will, from next year, treat limited possession as an infraction, the equivalent of a speeding ticket. Using cannabis for medicinal purposes (a doctor’s “recommendation”, rather than a prescription, will suffice) has been legal since 1997.
To persuade those who do not accept the libertarian argument for legalisation, supporters have emphasised two other lines of reasoning. One is financial. Proposition 19 would also allow California’s county and municipal governments to decide whether to regulate and tax the commercial production and sale (of no more than an ounce, or 28g, at a time however) of marijuana. Counties that choose to do this would reap handsome new revenues, goes the argument.
The other argument has to do with the violence in Mexico (see article). Legal and home-grown Californian cannabis might displace the illegal stuff smuggled across the Mexican border, reducing the profits of the trafficking cartels and the horrendous violence they wreak.
According to Mexican officials, up to half the cartels’ income comes from marijuana. Others, though, are more sceptical. A new study by the RAND Corporation, a non-partisan research group, reckons that the revenues that the Mexican drugs cartels get from smuggling cannabis to America probably amount to less than $2 billion a year, or between 15% and 26% of their total. This is much lower than previous estimates. And California accounts for only one seventh of that. If RAND is roughly right then if Proposition 19 merely takes one drug (cannabis) in one state (California) away from the cartels, their revenue losses would be trivial, at only around 2%-4%.
Californian weed may well become competitive in other American states; it is certain to become cheaper on legalisation, and is at least twice as potent as Mexican marijuana. But other states and the federal government are unlikely to allow large-scale domestic smuggling to replace the international sort.
So the immediate benefits that will accrue from California legalising by itself will not be as great as some Proposition 19 people claim. But that does not undercut the general case for legalisation. On the contrary. As Rand suggests, if both Mexico and America as a whole were to legalise marijuana, the economics of the trafficking cartels would take a serious hit. That, though, is very far from happening—at least for now.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson Legalize Meth | Drug War Victims
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2859558484
Growery is Better



Registered: 01/10/06
Posts: 8,752
Last seen: 3 years, 8 months
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: Green_T]
#13343700 - 10/16/10 12:04 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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the economist is good
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veggie

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: Green_T]
#13343967 - 10/16/10 01:00 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
If RAND is roughly right then if Proposition 19 merely takes one drug (cannabis) in one state (California) away from the cartels, their revenue losses would be trivial, at only around 2%-4%.
Two to four percent of a multi-billion dollar illegal income is hardly trivial!
Anything at all that can be done to minimize the profits of violent criminal organizations should be a priority with the Feds instead of encouraging cartels to continue supplying drugs to our nations youth by any means possible. Common sense and simple math indicates that if legalizing cannabis spreads to other states, as I'm sure it will, it will deprive cartels of a huge portion of their income and divert much needed funds to communities to pay for services to actually help people instead of paying cops to lock them up.
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Green_T


Registered: 10/02/08
Posts: 4,042
Loc: UK
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: veggie]
#13344051 - 10/16/10 01:17 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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^ I wonder if the cartels bankroll politicians in the states. If they don't, they will soon. And if they are, it will only get worse.
The more they have to lose from legalization, the more money they will funnel into the US political system to keep it illegal.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" - Thomas Jefferson Legalize Meth | Drug War Victims
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auronlives69
psychedelic monk


Registered: 04/19/09
Posts: 655
Last seen: 4 years, 10 months
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: Green_T]
#13344113 - 10/16/10 01:30 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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theres not much difference bettween the cartel and politicians, both are scummy profit whores
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guest1
Mycena




Registered: 05/25/09
Posts: 852
Last seen: 1 year, 5 months
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: Green_T]
#13344202 - 10/16/10 01:51 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
If RAND is roughly right then if Proposition 19 merely takes one drug (cannabis) in one state (California) away from the cartels, their revenue losses would be trivial, at only around 2%-4%.
OK then, lets pass Prop 19 nationwide.
Perhaps a better solution would be to just add 2-4% funding to drug cartels with our tax money? It is trivial right? So it won't effect us at all right?  
People opposing cannabis, their statements can always either be turned around against them to make them look stupid, or you can say "That statement is only true BECAUSE it is illegal and that statement would be INVALID if it was legal."
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LongStrangeTrip
Deadhead


Registered: 09/19/09
Posts: 5,382
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Re: Prop 19 Endorsed by "The Economist" [Re: veggie]
#13345634 - 10/16/10 07:36 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
veggie said:
Quote:
If RAND is roughly right then if Proposition 19 merely takes one drug (cannabis) in one state (California) away from the cartels, their revenue losses would be trivial, at only around 2%-4%.
Two to four percent of a multi-billion dollar illegal income is hardly trivial!
Anything at all that can be done to minimize the profits of violent criminal organizations should be a priority with the Feds instead of encouraging cartels to continue supplying drugs to our nations youth by any means possible. Common sense and simple math indicates that if legalizing cannabis spreads to other states, as I'm sure it will, it will deprive cartels of a huge portion of their income and divert much needed funds to communities to pay for services to actually help people instead of paying cops to lock them up.
Once again, Veggie lays down some truth 
-------------------- Nothing I say or do is factual; every single thing I write is a work of fiction. Got no idea what I'm talking about here~ "Once in awhile, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right"~ (Grateful Dead) "o puer, qui omnia nomini debes"; "You, boy, who owe's everything to a name"~ Mark Anthony "Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum."; "Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system."~ Cicero
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