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Anonymous Kills Websites, Cartels Kill Bloggers
An anonymous reader writes "While drug cartels in Mexico are disemboweling people they accuse of blogging about drug violence, Anonymous busies itself taking down Mexican government websites. With all the problems facing people in Mexico right now, including drug cartels extorting teachers for 50% of their pay and killing schoolchildren (thus shutting down the school system), Mexico's biggest oil field in terminal decline and drug cartels kidnapping busloads of people and forcing them into gladiator-style contests to the death, Anonymous' actions appear particularly petty."
Legal trade causes far less trouble, clearly the best way forward is to legalise the trade and use the extra tax income to police and jail those who still engage in crime.
... bridges hanging from the cartel members?
Actually the complete opposite needs to happen. The way the government stopped the smuggling of alcohol and the related gang/mob violence during prohibition was to re-legalize alcohol. Make drugs a legal product and have the government tax the profits. It will immediately stop all this wasteful drug related violence and security expenditure.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Or ditch the "war on drugs" entirely... The illegal trade in drugs costs authorities billions, and fuels organised crime such as the drug cartels in mexico and other countries.
So instead, legalise drugs but put in place controls on them:
Quality controls, drugs available from reputable suppliers rather than dodgy dealers, so drugs don't end up contaminated with other even more harmful substances.
Taxes - tax drugs the same way that the currently legal tobacco and alcohol are taxed.
Monitoring - know who's taking drugs.
Government saves on law enforcement costs trying to police drugs...
Government further benefits from tax income from the sale of drugs.
Drug users benefit from cheaper supplies, which are also safer and have a legal avenue for complaint.
Drug companies can develop alternatives that provide the effects the users want, while reducing the negatives (e.g. see electronic cigarettes).
Drug users need not hide their activities, and can more easily seek help to give up.
It's an obvious solution, and the only ones who stand to lose are the criminal gangs who are currently making huge profits from illegal drugs.
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People drinking booze isn't that big a deal. People on the harder drugs leads to all sorts of problems - crime included.
There is no harder drug than alcohol. It is so addictive that withdrawal can kill you. You can't say the same about meth, PCP, crack cocaine, or heroin. Further, no drug is more strongly associated with violent behavior. If society has found a way to co-exist with the most dangerous drug in existance, why can't we do the same for every other drug?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
do you have any idea how many lives have been ruined by alcohol in the mean time?
You mean things were better during the prohibition?
"A good assassination team would remove 100% of the cartel operatives in Mexico fairly quickly."
As if the cartels don't have the money and the will to hire effective special ops types to ensure this doesn't happen. These people ship contraband in submarines, for the love of mike. They definitely can (and obviously do) hire professionals to do security.
"It's my experience that most people with which I've discussed this topic deny the effectiveness of this solution because they do not wish it to have viability."
Your Rainbow 6 fantasies notwithstanding, it's not that I don't wish it were simple. But it's not simple. You're dealing with a group of people who have more money that most of the official institutions charged with fighting them. Don't even get me started on will, either. The cartels don't have to worry about court or political considerations.
You're making up a better video game scenario than actual strategy.
Fewer, proportionally, than were ruined by alcohol and the alcohol trade and its effects during Prohibition.
The problem with prohibition of alcohol was that there was sufficient demand for the product prohibited that its prohibition caused more harm by providing a high-value, easy-to-produce commodity that could not be legally supplied (and thus could only be supplied by criminals), thereby fueling massive organized crime syndicates.
It was not that "nobody was following the law"; plenty of people were following the law. There were plenty of businesses that didn't sell alcohol because it was illegal, and plenty of people that chose not to buy it because it was illegal. There were plenty who didn't, as well, just as with the present prohibition of selected drugs.
Uh, no, we're not. Arguing that we should choose, through the democratic process, an approach to controlling the ills associated with certain currently-prohibited drugs that would, based on past experience with another previously-prohibited drugs whose prohibition had undesirable effects very similar to those that are manifest with the currently-prohibited drugs at issue, produce better net results for society isn't letting anyone undermine democracy. (And, if it was, ending prohibition -- which had no such clear past referent -- would have been even moreso.)
There is certainly plenty of reason to believe that it will be much easier to address those problemsif, instead of public resources being directed to fight the manufacture, distribution, and sale of the currently-banned drugs, those resources are directed at dealing with the problems of drug abuse, and further additional resources are available because the destructive side-effects of the illegal drug trade which consume public resources are removed and the newly-legal drug trade becomes a legal, taxed part of the economy.
Much of the funding for public alcohol abuse treatment and prevention comes from alcohol users through special taxes collected on alcohol, while some law enforcement expenses caused by the prohibition of drugs is funded by drug users or sellers through civil forfeiture of property, its a very small share, and only addresses a small portion of the costs imposed by prohibition, and none of the costs associated with actually dealing with drug abuse itself.
Sure, the problems of abuse haven't gone away with alcohol since the end of prohibition, but we've gotten much better at dealing with them since the government's efforts have been able to focus on the problems of abuse, rather than resources being sucked into the vast law enforcement problems created by prohibition itself.
The choices aren't between the problems "going away" and no effect whatsoever.
They're not my morals, pal. Quit conflating the way the cartel does and would respond to military action and how I feel about that.
As others have said, we've tried militarized action again and again and again. You don't think there were SpecOps folks working with Columbia? You know, since the 80s? And you can still buy cocaine easily in America.
You're arguing for not just more of the same, but a shit-ton more of the same. You are completely ignoring the demand side of the equation. You will never understand much less be able to do anything about the situation on our border until you address and accept the reality of the human desire (and I would argue right) to get fucked up.
You can't shoot enough people to make the people you're shooting stop being humans and having human desires. But shoot enough of them, and you'll find yourself dehumanized much faster than you even thought possible.
Smoking is legal and can kill you.
Drinking is legal and can kill you.
Myriad other things are legal and can kill you.
So why not legalize all drugs, tax the sh*t out of 'em like cigarettes. The self-destructive will be able to do so, the curious ones will be able to try and the recreational users will be able to do so too. I'd be curious to see what would happen.
~Syberz