The most important country in the world to the United States is also having elections this year:
Mexico’s 2012 vote is vulnerable to narco threat
MEXICO CITY — With Mexico’s presidential vote and other key elections less than six months away, both the government and its watchdogs fear that the black hand of organized crime will manipulate the process to install puppet candidates as servants of the drug cartels.
According to Mexican prosecutors, little has been done to keep the narcos and their drug money out of the July 1 election, and U.S. officials worry that tainted campaigns could bring new leaders to city halls and federal offices who might undermine the ongoing war against Mexico’s powerful crime gangs.
Political analysts say that the drug lords could corrupt the presidential race even without having to meddle directly in those campaigns and that their attempts to boost local candidates or suppress votes could contaminate the process at every level. …
“They say: ‘Why would I want to pay off the authorities if I can own them from the start?’ ” he said.
I wish there were an easy solution for this, but there isn’t. I’m in favor of legalizing pot, but it would make only a modest dent in the cartels’ income and influence. And we’re just not going to legalize harder drugs.
I’m optimistic about Mexico in the long run; a new book (which I haven’t read) has a title that seems to sum up the situation: Mexico: A Middle Class Society, Poor No More, Developed Not Yet. But between now and the long run, the country will be passing through a world of hurt. There are probably ways we can help, but our government’s chief responsibility has to be to limit the fallout we experience from Mexico’s convulsions.
Better get that fence built.
National Review really need to do more to advocate for ending the assault on individual freedom that is known as the War on Drugs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLegalizing pot would only make a modest impact?
It would make a major impact. It has been estimated that marijuana represents around 60% of these drug cartel's income.
That would leave the other 40% of course. I am not saying that we should legalize pot and hang a mission accomplished banner. But to say that losing 60% of your income is not a major blow I think is a significant understatement.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow would they lose any of their income? They exist now through illegally threatening, intimidating, and in many instances outright stealing. That would stop with the legalization of marijuana? It would only get worse, since the number of marijuana users would likely grow considerably in this country.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm all for legalization, because it just seems a waste of time to go after users in this country, but it's ridiculous to think the drug cartel is just going away. Garbage collection and union activities are legal in this country, but the Mob still controls them and makes a ton of money off of them.
Of course it would cut into their profits.
Who are pot users going to buy their marijuana from? Illegally off the street from some shady dealer, or legally from Phillip Morris and Joe Camel at the local Seven-Eleven?
It is quite obvious that there would be giant sucking sound in the bank accounts of these drug cartels if marijuana were legalized. They wouldn't be able to compete in the marijuana trade with the huge legal industries that would arise.
They wouldn't lose all of their revenue, because they would shift their activities elsewhere. But they still would lose a huge percentage of their revenue.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDo you really think 7-11 or Camel is going to get into the pot business? And if so, are they willing to kill suppliers and shippers? Because the cartels are willing. Besides, once this becomes legalized, the price likely goes up, not down (What activity ever got cheaper after the government got involved?). I don't think the cartels get out at that point. The cartels aren't dependent on the illegality of the product; they're dependent on the attitude of the government towards stopping them. What's going to change in Mexico if we legalize pot in America?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust send Jimmy Carter down there and everything will be fair and honest.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"I wish there were an easy solution for this, but there isn’t. I’m in favor of legalizing pot, but it would make only a modest dent in the cartels’ income and influence. And we’re just not going to legalize harder drugs."
Legalizing pot would make a major dent in the cartels' income and influence. There is more marijuana coming through our southern border than any other drug. The violence currently destroying the border towns in Mexico prove how devastating drug laws are.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"The violence currently destroying the border towns in Mexico prove how devastating drug laws are."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWrong. It shows what happens when a government capitulates to a gang, instead of governing its territory and protecting its people as it should - on either side of the border.
>I’m in favor of legalizing pot.... we’re just not going to legalize harder drugs.
Yeah, right. Only hardcore extremists would support that.
Breaking news from a couple years ago: we're going to legalize gay civil unions, but not gay marriage. Only hardcore extremists would support that. Also, illegals can stay in the country, but we're not going to give them in-state tuition. Only hardcore extremists would support that. Also....
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt's a latrine, always was a latrine, and has worsening latrine written all over its future- why we deal with it, why we function as its education, healthcare, and welfare system, and why the current administration allows their intervention in our governmental and political processes baffles me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. Racism and stupidity in the comments of an article about Mexico. How surprising.
Mexico is not a 'latrine'. The border states are calamitous because we are unwilling to help combat a war that we are supplying (with both money and guns, thanks to the Obama administration). The rest of the country actually has less crime than most major American cities. Most of the people who live there want to see the violence end, but have no personal ability to do anything about it. The greatest threat to Mexico right now is that a Mexican Obama is running for the office of President for the left-wing party, and since most people are sick of the violence they'll probably vote for him.
What's going on in Mexico is as much our fault as anyone else's, and as long as we keep pretending that's not the case, it will continue to have problems.
And the 'legalize all drugs' stuff is exactly why libertarians will never, ever be taken seriously. Do you have any idea how cheap to produce, addictive, and toxic methamphetamine is? Do you realize that it is taking over the drug cartels, as they move away from the increasingly legal-in-America marijuana market? If you really think just legalizing possession, distribution, and use of all drugs is some path to awesomeness, you're a brainwashed moron. Ron Paul!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow to conquer our fear of freedom. Legalize marijuana first, watch the end of the world not happen, then legalize another drug. Rinse. Repeat. "Soft" drugs, "hard" drugs —arbitrary distinctions. Legalize all of them, regulate them as need arises, and be done with Tony Montana and the War on Drugs' whole ridiculous cast of characters.
Mexicans, listen to Vicente Fox, who has said exactly one important thing in his life: legalize. Stop wasting your lives in a futile war declared by gringos. If they want to incarcerate and kill people because of free and voluntary exchanges which will never stop anyway, that's their problem, not yours.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI find it fascinating, that on a post about the gangs taking over the Mexican state and local governments, almost every post is about how we have to legalize marijuana. It was less than 1/4 of what Mark wrote about, and less than 10% of the entire post.
Do none of you arguing for pot actually care what happens to the people of Mexico as they literally begin to live under a gangster government?
As for me, I actually advocate a properly executed Mexican Expedition to "pacify" the northern regions of Mexico.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust curious....what makes you optimistic about Mexico's future in the long run?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWill legalizing pot "make a dent" in the cartels' income? Of course it will. Cartels make their profits out of hard drugs, which is why all the violence. Pot does not make profits for them as much as it pays their operating expenses, like bribery, transport, payroll, etc etc. They can lose tons of pot to govt interdiction and it really doesn't matter all that much to them because they own the land where it's grown. They just grow some more. Obviously this can't happen with shipments of cocaine, which they have to buy. If pot were legal, the bottom would fall out and they'd be taking operating expenses out of their profits, which I don't think is a viable long-term business strategy. Pot doesn't have to be sold at the 7/11 to be legal. It just has to be legal for home-growing. Then its value would fall to around the value of epazote, a Mexican herb used for cooking beans. One can buy enough epazote for a week of beans for ten cents in the market but most people don't bother because it grows wild in their back yards.
Who says Mexicans will begin to live under a gangster government if pot were legal? They have had gangster governments since the Aztecs.
Mexicans don't care who smokes pot. Mexicans support legalization. In fact, Mexicans never supported criminalization in the first place. The progressive/religious impulse to solve "social problems" by criminalization of pleasure has no place in Mexican culture. Mexicans were libertarian before it was cool. The entire value system—ie, that it is somehow heretical or inherently evil to manipulate one's own mind with "substances", ie, by using witchcraft—that underlies the criminalization of pot is foreign to Mexico. It was imposed by the US on Mexico, as was the drug war, by extortion. Talk about your gangster politics!
How could anyone possibly be "hopeful" about Mexico's future under these circumstances? It's because Mexican's work their tails off day in, day out, and get no support from any government at all. They have done so for hundreds of years under successive gangster governments, which is why there still is a country called "Mexico" and not just another collection of banana republics like Central America. Mexico will survive because Mexicans want it to, in spite of the best efforts of their gangster governments.
If drug cartels will be running the country after the elections, it's very hopeful for Mexicans. Most people can deal with drug gangs, simply by not getting involved in drugs. They can't deal with the network of spies and corrupt police that constitutes their government today because spies and corrupt police are everywhere.
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