Posted on 01/29/2007 6:37:06 PM PST by Kitten Festival
MEXICO CITY, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon's military offensive against ruthless drug cartels has calmed a surge in violence and won him support from many who until now saw him as a bookish, even nerdy technocrat.
In the two months since he took office, Calderon has sent thousands of troops into trafficking strongholds where police had feared to go in order to bring down escalating drug violence. He struck a major blow on Jan 19 by extraditing four major traffickers to face trial in U.S. courts.
Calderon got a boost from widely published photographs of Gulf cartel chief Osiel 'Friend-killer' Cardenas, who had run his narcotics empire from a Mexican prison. In the pictures, a handcuffed Cardenas, in gray prison garb, is staring at the ground as masked police bundled him aboard a U.S.-bound plane.
"In the short time he's been president, he's done what no president had dared to do," said Natividad Flores, 59, as he hawked lottery tickets outside a posh mall in Mexico City. "It's a good start."
(Excerpt) Read more at alertnet.org ...
makes me feel much better that I might be able to enjoy my house in Lapaz.
Or we can legalize drugs and the drug cartels will disappear...
It seems that the all-but impossible has happened, and that Mexico has a competent President. We should all be cheering him - for nothing would do more to help stop (and reverse) illegal immigration than the kind of progress that this man represents for Mexico.
Let's start with legalizing crack and crystal meth. The cartel's will dissappear. I wonder what will appear.
The price of "drug morality" has been rampant crime, overcrowded prisons, frustrated cops and expensive war against drugs that has no end...
Talk to any cop that works through the night. People are messed up not because drugs are illegal, but because they are using drugs.
And those people are different from those messed up on alcohol "how"?
So?
Understand that I am not fighting you on this. You are right about this. But why do you care if people want to destroy their lives. It is their problem... not yours. However, I do insist that drugs be treated the same as alcohol. Underage limits, public intoxication, DUI and other offenses.
I just don't believe we should throw Billions of dollars each year at preventing drug abuse anymore. Too many people are weak and they WILL get drugs no matter what.
Why not make it easier for them to seek help? Decriminalizing drugs will mean more people won't turn to crime to pay for the high cost of illegal drugs. Decriminalizing drugs will mean less people are sentenced to prison for minor drug offenses.
I have a question for you now... why is it important to you to pursue the war against drugs?
I guess in the legalized crack scheme it's gonna cost $2 at the Walgreens instead of $5 on the street. The cost isn't the problem with drugs.
I think you are missing my point!
I... Don't... Care... About... Those...Who... Use...Drugs!
If people want to poison their bodies -- they are going to do it anyway. I don't want to spend any more of my hard earned money fighting drugs -- because the war on drugs hasn't stopped the use or flow of drugs coming into United States. It only made the cost of illegal drug business more expensive and lucrative -- hence the violent drug gangs in Mexico. In so many words, the United States taxpayers helped create illegal drug wealth!
Please answer this: Who exactly are we helping in the war against drugs? You? Drug users? Who?
Me. My neighborhood is safer cause there are fewer addicts around.
Ok. I think I understand your position a little better now. And I absolutely understand that you don't want addicts hanging around the neighborhood because they cause crime to feed their habits. No decent people do.
But ask yourself, why do drug addicts cause crime? So they can pay for their next "fix" because it is so expensive. If drugs were 10X cheaper, wouldn't you agree that crime by and large will be reduced?
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