3 Mexican brick makers who sought work in Malaysia now face hanging if convicted in drug trial

CULIACAN, Mexico — From age 6, each of the Gonzalez brothers learned to make bricks, trudging like nine little chicks behind their father every day before dawn to work in his dusty hilltop brickyard.

Three years ago, three of them in their 30s and 40s quit the backbreaking work, saying they had a better opportunity abroad.

Now, having escaped the Mexican drug war that leaves dead bodies on the streets of their city of Culiacan almost daily, the brothers face the gallows in Malaysia, standing trial on Wednesday for allegedly working in a factory where police found $15 million in methamphetamine. If convicted, they face Malaysia’s mandatory sentence of death by hanging for drug trafficking.

The case raises questions about a connection between their home state, Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexico’s drug trade, and a country more than 15,000 kilometers (some 10,000 miles) away that is a regional production hub for meth. While authorities say there is no direct evidence to tie the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful, to meth production in Asia, they wouldn’t be surprised by such a link.

“If you look at trends, then you see that these organizations are fanning out,” said a U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico who couldn’t be named for security reasons. “They are popping up everywhere.”

Only a month after leaving Mexico, the brothers — Jose Regino, 33, Luis Alfonso, 43 and Simon Gonzalez, 36 — called home during a family birthday party. Their relatives thought they were calling with congratulations. Instead the brothers told them they were under arrest.

I'm not presuming to have any answer.

Whoa. Shouldn't your first priority as a citizen be to form an opinion as to whether the government is acting within its constitutional limits?

Fedgov uses the Commerce Clause under the Wickard precedent to control education and health care, and to impose a national drug prohibition. Do you really have no opinion on the Commerce Clause vs the Tenth Amendment on these issues?

I have opinions on such things, but my opinion is not an answer since I cannot know empirically whether or not it will work.

Like I said, I can see that the present policy has failed. I do not believe that the libertarian approach is necessarily a good idea because of the collateral damage to lives beyond the individual, and who will bear the burden of those costs.

It isn’t that I don’t harbor the libertarian mindset, in as much as if an individual wants to pickle his brain with Meth, and destroy his body with the myriad of of other substances available on the black market.... You want to do that, then have at it.

But who bears the responsibility for the destroyed lives, of that persons family? The individual? The family members themselves?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the custodian of my nephew(13) and niece(10), who are the collateral damage mentioned above. I also have children of my own (4 1/2 and 2 1/2), who are significantly younger than nephew and niece. I love them, and they are my blood but I am not going to sacrifice my children either, and I find myself sacrificing time with my own children to deal with drug users who would be better off dead. Court dates in Family court, lawyer fees, and the general out of pocket expenses in raising children who are 13 & 10. Their parents are shit, and I don’t want them near my house or my children, or my nephew and niece.

The best outcome for me and those children would be for both of them to catch a shiv while in jail.

So how do I reconcile kill yourself if you like, with the destroyed lives of minor children now in my care.

Nephew and nice didn’t ask for what happened to them and I have spent countless hours in remedial reading and math to get them to grade level in the suburban schools they now attend as opposed to the holding centers they attended in their former city of residence.

I have opinions on such things, but my opinion is not an answer since I cannot know empirically whether or not it will work.

So what is your opinion on the Commerce Clause vs Tenth Amendment with regard to prohibition? It's a very simple question that you are avoiding.

It sounds like you would support a government policy that, in your opinion, violates the Constitution.

Having given the matter some thought I am prepared to answer your question WRT the 10th amendment vs the commerce clause.

The assertion of the commerce clause was such that the states would set up border stations to collect tariffs on goods produced in other states and to prevent the entry of what the state deemed as undesirable persons from other states, and would use those checkpoints to prevent the transportation of illicit substances. The commerce clause was intended to prevent the erection of such checkpoints and allow the free passage of citizens, and goods produced within the united states.

As such, the commerce clause is properly used to outlaw nationally, such substances that would be contrary to the free conduct of commerce and inhibit free travel.

Where one state would say that such substances are legal and allow possession, sale and consumption, would infringe on the right of a neighboring state to restrict these illicit substances and prevent the distribution of these substances within its borders.

Freedom is universal up to the point of the free exercise of your rights infringes on the rights of others. In the case of what are now illicit drugs I believe that the national restriction on possession, and sale of these substances is not a violation of the 10th amendment.

This is not to say that all invocations of the commerce clause are proper, but the national interest is better served by the controlled substances act.

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