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In Mexico, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin are already legal in personal use amounts much like Portugal. The problems Mexico is having are the side effects of d

In Mexico, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin are already legal in personal use amounts much like Portugal. The problems Mexico is having are the side effects of drug shipment cartels that move substances from South and Central America to the USA. Mexico could further legalize transshipment of drugs so that cartels could just hire Mexican shipping companies to deliver the drugs to the USA border. And that might help a little in the interior of the country, but the interior of Mexico already sees low levels of drug crime. The real problem will be crossing the USA border with the drugs. As long as that is a critical concern of the cartels, they will need decoys, armies of labor, help from police, forged bills of lading, bribed officials, and the whole infrastructure of corruption and violence. Since the USA isn't going to be legalizing anything as far as I can see, there will always be violence in Mexico paid for by USA users. I don't see anything the Mexican government can do about it.

anigbrowl 16y ago
Quite so. Quite aside of the various problems inside the USA (sentencing disparities, resources taken away from other crimes, families and careers wrecked, and worse), our current policies create terribly perverse economic incentives - and not just in Mexico. Check this out: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-07/wachovia-s-drug-habit.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-07/wachovia-s-drug-hab... The sad fact is that every time we or the Mexican government removes a top-level dealer, there's a gruesome competition to take his place because the market is worth billions of dollars. Even a vanishingly thin slice of such a huge pie is worth the risk of death to many people. The more of a high-risk occupation we make it with aggressive enforcement, the more marginal and unscrupulous the individuals who will be attracted to it. The sort of people who are willing to decapitate their competitors or massacre civilians are not rational actors who are influenced by the calculus of deterrence; as we've seen in Central and South America, the net effect of escalating the conflict into paramilitary activity is to just bring drug suppliers and illegal arms dealers into closer proximity. If you have the hour to spare, I felt Judge Gray had a very pragmatic and persuasive approach to overcoming the political and legislative inertia, but it's going to be an uphill struggle. While the Obama administration has finally altered national policy a little (eg by supporting legislation to eliminate crack/cocaine sentencing disparities and taking a hands-off approach to state policies on medical marijuana), more fundamental changes will require the voters to demonstrate where the safe electoral ground is.

anigbrowl 16y ago

Quite so. Quite aside of the various problems inside the USA (sentencing disparities, resources taken away from other crimes, families and careers wrecked, and worse), our current policies create terribly perverse economic incentives - and not just in Mexico. Check this out: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-07/wachovia-s-drug-habit.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-07/wachovia-s-drug-hab... The sad fact is that every time we or the Mexican government removes a top-level dealer, there's a gruesome competition to take his place because the market is worth billions of dollars. Even a vanishingly thin slice of such a huge pie is worth the risk of death to many people. The more of a high-risk occupation we make it with aggressive enforcement, the more marginal and unscrupulous the individuals who will be attracted to it. The sort of people who are willing to decapitate their competitors or massacre civilians are not rational actors who are influenced by the calculus of deterrence; as we've seen in Central and South America, the net effect of escalating the conflict into paramilitary activity is to just bring drug suppliers and illegal arms dealers into closer proximity. If you have the hour to spare, I felt Judge Gray had a very pragmatic and persuasive approach to overcoming the political and legislative inertia, but it's going to be an uphill struggle. While the Obama administration has finally altered national policy a little (eg by supporting legislation to eliminate crack/cocaine sentencing disparities and taking a hands-off approach to state policies on medical marijuana), more fundamental changes will require the voters to demonstrate where the safe electoral ground is.