Posted on 03/09/2009 10:06:41 AM PDT by AuntB
I bet you mean “legalize” instead of “decriminalize.” People often use those words interchangeably, but they don't mean the same thing. Massachusetts just decriminalized marijuana. I think if you are caught with an ounce or less up there they'll take it from you and give you something like a $100 fine now, just a ticket and it doesn't go on your record. Decriminalization usually means to remove the threat of jail time and in most cases it also means you won't get a criminal record if you are caught. Several states have decriminalized marijuana. If you are talking about a system where it is legal to grow it and sell it and possess it then you are talking about legalization, even if you anticipate that production and sales would be well regulated. Legalization with large scale commercial production of marijuana and sales through licensed retail shops is what would really hurt Mexican cartels.
You hit the nail on the head, AuntB!
“
If guns are coming into Mexico from the US it’s under the guidance of those in charge in Mexico and they darn well know it!”
We must remember this. The libs in congress will push to damage the 2nd amendment by pushing the idea the problems in Mexico are because of OUR guns. Don’t let them!
Ultimately I would make it a licensed commodity like alcohol. Then the government would be happy because they would make billions in taxes from it. And there would be no pot buyers for the Mexican cartels.
There is still meth and heroin and cocaine, but I would not want to see those legalized, even though that would be the end of the cartels. They are just too harmful.
Yes, that alone would cut off most of their revenues. Marjuana is the big ticket item for the Mexican cartels:
John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana, not heroin or cocaine, is the "bread and butter," "the center of gravity" for Mexican drug cartels that every year smuggle tons of it through the porous U.S.-Mexico border. Of the $13.8 billion that Americans contributed to Mexican drug traffickers in 2004-05, about 62 percent, or $8.6 billion, comes from marijuana consumption.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022208dnintdrugs.3a98bb0.html
Ping!
I just got an email from our retired border agent friends. You and I were discussing guns, Mexico earlier and the thought the libs would use our 2nd amendment against us. Well, it’s already started.
Douglas Cohn & Eleanor Clift: Mexican drugs and U.S. guns
March 09, 2009 6:00 AM
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090309/NEWS04/903090314
Just one line:
“American arms dealers line the U.S. side of the border, supplying the criminal elements with weapons while the Mexican government, unable to fully employ its population, tries only half-heartedly to shut down its most lucrative export, drugs. The result is a closed loop that would be comical if it weren’t so tragic. The guns flow from El Paso, Texas to Juarez, Mexico, and the drugs flow from Juarez to El Paso. The arms dealers and their defenders fall back on Second Amendment rights to justify making weapons plentiful even as the product that is fought over and defended and distributed is banned in the United States.”
____________
Arms dealers line the border!!! Haven’t ya seen ‘em down there passing out guns to the illegal aliens!!
Eleanor, you miserable old ____!
There is still meth and heroin and cocaine, but I would not want to see those legalized, even though that would be the end of the cartels. They are just too harmful.”
I agree. Some people think we should legalize those other drugs as well, but they are too harmful both to the people who use them, which doesn't concern me much, and more importantly to innocent people and society as a whole. They are so addictive, and people addicted to these drugs us cause a lot of problems. Very few actually use them now, so a relatively small number of new users (a few million) could put us in the position where we would soon have several times as many hard drug addicts to deal with. That wouldn't be good at all. With the exception of older folks sixty and older, most American adults have already tried marijuana. We couldn't see the number who try it even double, and I doubt it would come anywhere close to that because there are a lot of good reasons for not smoking pot that will still exist even if it was legal. We probably wouldn't have that big of an increase in the number of pot smokers, and pot smokers really aren't that big of a problem for us to begin with. If there is a big fad and the number of pot smokers jumps considerably, it wouldn't really be that big of a deal because when the fad wanes most people would just quit. It's not that addictive. If you have a heroin use fad or a meth fad with an explosion of new users not so many would quit when the fad waned because that stuff is so addictive and a lot of these people wouldn't be able to quit. I think it would be a good idea to legalize pot because we are causing more harm than good trying to keep up the ban. It would be a big mistake to legalize those other drugs though.
I seem to remember during the Clinton Administration, a shipping container of Chineese full auto Ak47s with a destination of Mexico, being apprehended at a port in the Pacific Northwest. It was stated at the time, it was one of three containers of weapons bound for Mexico, the other two made it through from what I read.
Gee, if we just got rid of our arms dealers, the problem would solve itself.
Wake Up America!
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