next to CONgra$$ and the Fed, that is.
The United Nations Headquarters is seen during the General Assembly in New York,
September 25, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Posted on 09/26/2012 4:56:58 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala all called for a vigorous global debate of anti-narcotics laws at the United Nations on Wednesday, raising new questions about the wisdom of the four-decade-old, U.S.-led "war on drugs."
Although none of the leaders explicitly called for narcotics to be legalized, they suggested at the U.N. General Assembly that they would welcome wholesale changes to policies that have shown scant evidence of limiting drug flows while contributing to massive violence throughout Latin America.
"It is our duty to determine - on an objective scientific basis - if we are doing the best we can or if there are better options to combat this scourge," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said.
...
Guatemala's President Otto Perez Molina echoed Calderon's call and went even further, saying that "the basic premise of our war against drugs has proved to have serious shortcomings."
The speeches, which were a few hours apart, constituted some of the most public challenges to date of anti-drug policies that have been mostly unchanged since the 1970s.
Mexico and Colombia are two of Washington's firmest allies in Latin America and both work closely with U.S. anti-drug efforts. While the subject of legalization was discussed at an Americas-wide summit in Colombia attended by U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year, raising the once-taboo subject at the 193-nation meeting in New York amounts to an escalation of the debate.
Obama has ruled out any major changes to drug laws, but some U.S. diplomats privately concede that the consensus around Latin America is clearly swinging against the status quo, and that some degree of change is imminent.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Bob Marley said it best.. Just legalize it!
The United Nations Headquarters is seen during the General Assembly in New York,
September 25, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed
The real motivation for the South Americans is clear. If it’s legal and they control it, they’ll all become economically relevant! Yay for Paraguay, the next economic superpower!
/johnny
Legalizing possession is just the start. If you do that then you still have the cartels because they are the supply. A legal supply is the only threat to them. Who provides the legal supply, and does anybody really think the government will let market forces set the price. The politicians in California already start drooling every time they talk about being able to tax marijuana.
That’s something nobody ever considers. You take away 70% of profit from these criminal organizations, do you honestly think they’ll give it up and get a legitimate job? No. Drugs are not the only way to make money on the black market, and these guys will compensate for lost profit by accelerating human trafficking, weapons smuggling and such. That’s what worries me. These thugs have already showed what they’re capable of, and they essentially control Mexico today.
This will never happen anyway. Big Tobacco and Liquor won’t allow it to cut in on their slice of the substance market.
Damn. I can’t believe it. They got something right.
By and large weed is their biggest commodity so legalizing a domestic supply will put a big squeeze on them. They will still have hard drugs to smuggle and fight over.
It is very rare that we can have a discussion on this topic without the invective. It is a serious topic with lots of permutations.
The biggest issue with the war on drugs was that it soon became the “federal war on constitutional rights” because in order to enforce certain edicts of it they had to trample all over states rights and costitutional rights of the citizenry.
Yep. Some "more conservative than thou" authoritarians will be here soon to call you a liberal or doper pretty quick. Still, the WOD has been a disaster for liberty and a boon for the criminals.
Hah! The UN wants the US to surrender in the WOD?
Who knew their were libertarians at the UN?
Good grief! A moment of sanity crept into the UN. Must be a blue moon or something.
Why "or"? The two options are not mutually exclusive. Cartels can't by fiat create a demand for coke, meth, and heroin - so cartels weakened by loss of pot profits will fight and further weaken themselves. Sounds like a win to me.
Will they take their soft control over the human smuggling routes to a new level and extort more money from the illegals?
Real crimes with actual victims can't offer the same astronomical profit margins as victimless 'crimes' like drug selling.
Legalizing possession is just the start. If you do that then you still have the cartels because they are the supply. A legal supply is the only threat to them. Who provides the legal supply,
The same free market that provides the legal supply of the drugs alcohol and tobacco.
and does anybody really think the government will let market forces set the price. The politicians in California already start drooling every time they talk about being able to tax marijuana.
Only NYC has been stupid enough to tax into existence a black market in a legal drug (tobacco); the evidence is that despite themselves, political pressures pretty reliably prevent that level of taxation. And it's worth noting that the stupid NYC tax has the stated purpose of diminishing use of the legal drug - not something I think we need to worry about with CA and pot.
Cartels can't by fiat create a demand for those goods. And real crimes with actual victims can't offer the same astronomical profit margins as victimless 'crimes' like drug selling.
Because the Mexican narcoterrorists need a legal cover for their money from kidnapping, extortion, human trafficking, and gun running.
Can’t smoke a tobacco cigarette at a concert or in a bar anymore. Can’t buy liquor at a store between the hours of 9pm and 8am and can’t buy it under 21 etc.
There would still be plenty of laws on the books. And some employers already have a “no tobacco use” policy even off premises/after work.
What should the penalty be for someone who provides dope to teenagers? Or should it be encouraged the same way Planned Abortion encourages teen sex through SIECUS?
Are you laboring under the delusion that narcoterrorists are currently unable to launder their money?
There would still be plenty of laws on the books. And some employers already have a “no tobacco use” policy even off premises/after work.
What's your point?
What should the penalty be for someone who provides dope to teenagers?
Something on the order of magnitude of the penalty for providing the drug alcohol to teenagers - but that would be up to each community just as the alcohol penalty is.
My point is that legalizing pot won’t save one damn life.
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