Mexican Gov't Shuts Down Zetas' Secret Cell Network

Miniaturized stealth submarines purpose-built for smuggling are an impressive example of how much technological ingenuity is poured into evading the edicts of contemporary drug prohibition. Even more impressive to me, though, is news of the communications network that was just shut down by Mexican authorities, which covered much of northern Mexico. The system is attributed to the Zetas drug cartel, and consisted of equipment in four Mexican border states. "The military confiscated more than 1,400 radios, 2,600 cell phones and computer equipment during the operation, as well as power supplies including solar panels, according the Defense Department," says the article. Too bad — a solar-powered, visually unobtrusive, encrypted cell network sounds like something I'd like to sign up for. NPR also has a story.

Comments

Marijuana should be legalized

[circletimessquare]

But I will assert that, unlike nicotine (highly addictive, but not inebriating: you can still carry on a job/ relationship), or alcohol, or other either mildy inebriating or mildly addictive drugs, the combination of high addictiveness and high inebriation means that some drugs destroy a person's ability to maintain their relationships/ job. Therefore, for cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, the costs of prohibition may seem high, but the costs of higher levels of destroyed lives due to addiction to substances which render you unable to function are higher yet.

The "war on drugs" is ugly. Addiction to substances which render you unable to function in life is uglier. Some determined people will always be able to get these substances, but by making it difficulty and costly, you save lives by preventing exposure for some in the first place. Once addicted, healthcare based treatment rather than corporal punishment is of course superior, but there are certain people who will remain unsalvageable from the hell of addiction to personal freedom destroying substances. Therefore, it is superior to never let them fall down that rabbit hole in the first place.

Notice I said "personal freedom destroying substances." It always amuses me to hear certain people say they are championing free will when they propose people be able to take certain substances which are more potent destroyers of free will than the most authoritarian government you can imagine. That people should be denied the full range of their free will by a useless biochemical monkey on their back, just because they were young and stupid once, and lived in a society which allowed them easy access to free will destroying substances, is a form of willful ignorant hypocrisy on the subject of maximizing personal liberty.

The "war on drugs" is therefore a misnamed concept. It is simply a maintenance function of a civilization that values free will. No modern society can or will allow unchecked addiction to highly inebriating substances that rot at society and destroy human dignity, and, as I said before, personal free will.

If you don't understand how drug addiction is more an enemy of the concept of personal freedom than any totalitarian government you can imagine (unless of course, that authoritarian government forced people to take highly addictive substances as a form of control) then you simply don't even understand the subject matter you are commenting on. To have a pointless biochemical interrupt switch injected into your mind ("get high... get high... get high...") for the rest of your life (your willpower is now absolute, and weakens in times of depression and life setbacks), is, in the world history of mankind, the story of the most destruction of free will ever. More free will destroying, by orders of magnitude, by every government that ever existed added together. Understand that about drugs, or understand nothing.