7 ms·

>This looks like a good way to spark real-life violence in what is otherwise a remarkably safe way to exchange drugs. It seems the entire drug war has managed

>This looks like a good way to spark real-life violence in what is otherwise a remarkably safe way to exchange drugs. It seems the entire drug war has managed to spark almost incomprehensible levels of violence. There's some in the US and Canada, to be sure, but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones. There needs to be a change in thinking. Cracking down on dark net drug sales is nothing but the expansion of a failing war.

rolltiide 7y ago
> but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones Yes, from time to time. At this point some Mexican states and areas have it institutionalized so much that there isn't a war anymore. There is only danger when two competing powers are in the same area. Mexico's southern border with Guatemala has an influx of migrants because of Guatemala's now organized drug violence.
- threwawasy1228 7y ago
  This is an incredibly naive thing to say. I was on a beach resort area controlled by the Zetas a year or so back on a vacation. It was incredibly dirt cheap and everything seemed really nice and peaceful, the town was under control of only one group afterall. Then all of a sudden one evening there was a screaming man pulled out of a building into a street and brutally beaten in front of everyone that was out there. After this ended he was dragged off and everything went back to normal. It was an extremely shocking flash of violence. Just because it isn't a 'war' so much anymore doesn't mean that the violence that comes with areas being under control of gangs magically goes away.
  - thaeli 7y ago
    So the difference is that they weren't wearing government uniforms? That "flash of violence" doesn't sound out of line for any moderately authoritarian state.
    - nothrabannosir 7y ago
      The original point was that the American drug policy causes a lot of violence. This public beating was used as an example. Would he have been beaten by a cartel if drugs had been legal(ish) in America? It is reasonable to say: no. Authoritarian states beating their subjects has nothing to do with him being beaten in the streets that night.
      - aianus 7y ago
        > Would he have been beaten by a cartel if drugs had been legal(ish) in America? It is reasonable to say: no. While I'm against the drug war, I wonder what career drug dealers (and everyone who's part of their economy) would do if drugs were legalized and commoditized. Would it not lead to an increase of "worse" crimes with "real" victims like kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery, etc. as criminals try to replace their income and sustain their lifestyles?
        stevenicr 7y ago
        Could be.. and I wonder further.. if the non-violent state was able to increase it's funding for security while the violent dealers had their monthly profits reduced.. over time 'the people' would have the increased funding and the violent ones would have less money for guns, hired killers, and such..
        filoleg 7y ago
        A huge chunk of low-level drug dealers are just struggling college students. I imagine if drugs were legal and taxed, they could be helped by some of that tax money going towards funding education. Also, a lot of people go into illegal drug dealing because it is a high risk/high reward avenue, compared to many traditional prospects, where you can make a lot of money with comparatively little time investment. If I remember correctly, that was one of the stated reasons for why Notorious B.I.G. went into drug-dealing, despite being a good student and initially considering going to college for a more traditional high-education career.
    - beenBoutIT 7y ago
  - kolbe 7y ago
    It's not entirely clear to me why this is any different from many other sovereign justice systems. I think the point stands that people who obey the 'laws' of their 'government' aren't subjected to random acts of violence by non-government entities the way they would be under a two-cartel system. And overall, it's much more peaceful that way.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - rolltiide 7y ago
    Zetas basically are the government in the Yucatan and some gulf states. Better off just acknowledging them as an authoritative single party regime, and staying as far away from drug possession as possible, lets you get confused as a competitor.
- tyingq 7y ago
  There were 145 murders in Juarez for April 2019, more than any other month since 2011.
lostmymind66 7y ago
"but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones" Legalizing drugs will not fix the problem. The cartels run the government now. Do you actually think they will just pick up their things and go home? The violence will continue and they will move onto the next, illegal, lucrative product to sell. The US in the 1930s had the same problem. It was only stopped by stamping out corruption and outright the murdering of criminals. I don't see Mexico having even a small handle on corruption in the next 50 years. The Opioid crisis is going on right now..and this is with legal drugs. Drug companies are being sued for millions and millions of dollars. From one side, I'm told legal adults should be able to do what they want with their bodies. From the other, when bad things happen..like addiction, I'm told it's the fault of the company that made and sold the drugs. This doesn't make any real sense if we are trying to legalize drugs. It will only increase costs as the result of liability insurance and other risks that are now involved. Legalizing MJ in California is turning into a failure. The problem is that companies that sell legal drugs need to pay taxes and go through many more regulations than the guy down the street selling it. The end result is higher costs for legal drugs. Legal drug companies selling MJ are being put out of business because the black market is thriving as a result of lower costs and better availability (which will always happen with black markets). The legal market is only helping the black market because there are many people that are using MJ now that otherwise wouldn't have when it was illegal. When the legalization of MJ was proposed, the proponents (including many people here on HN) said that there would be no black market after it was legalized. This never made sense to me and now I'm being proven correct. The black market is not only there, it's thriving.
- theslurmmustflo 7y ago
  What are you talking about? Your arguments are all over the place. How exactly would legalization hurt Mexico? Look at Portugal to see how we should all move towards dealing with drugs and addiction as a health problem instead of a criminal problem. The violence in the 1930s WAS caused by the prohibition, sure it had lasting effects but ending prohibition was still the right move. Can you cite the rise of black market marijuana in California? The market is doing well and bringing in good tax revenue in every state I've read about. As for the opioid crisis, the issue wasn't that people one day decided they wanted to get hooked on them. The issue was they had pain or were recovering from a surgery and were being prescribed highly addictive medication that was being pushed by pharmaceutical companies without proper warning or care. Marijuana could have been given in these cases and it without the same problems of addiction.
agathocles 7y ago
No! More of the same.. but better!
beenBoutIT 7y ago
The war on drugs costs us $51 billon annually* and the only upside is that corporations selling legal drugs like alcoholic beverages and prescription medications get to keep their artificial monopoly. It's easily the biggest scam ever foisted onto a society and with next to no protest. As Americans we all pay for this and it works against us by limiting our options and telling us what we can and can't do for recreation. That $51 billon could easily go towards Medicare for All and with more intelligent drug options the number of Americans addicted to Alcohol and Opiates would decline. http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet_Drug_War_Budget_Feb2015.pdf http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet...
- jaredhansen 7y ago
  >The war on drugs costs us $51 billon annually and the only upside is that corporations selling legal drugs like alcoholic beverages and prescription medications get to keep their artificial monopoly.* That $51B "cost" is known as "income" to those on whom it is spent (cops, prisons, misc security contractors, weapons manufacturers, on and on). Similarly, the "only upside is ... artificial monopoly" -- well, for the artificial monopolists, that's a pretty big upside! I don't think there's some kind of Grand Conspiracy here (ref. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/14/too-many-people-dare-call-it-conspiracy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/14/too-many-people-dare-c... ), but I also don't think one is needed. A whole heck of a lot of people benefit directly from the drug war, and these people are a powerful constituency. The fact that $51B is spent on that constituency instead of on Medicare for All or whatever is, for much of that constituency, a feature and not a bug.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    The war in drugs got started as a way to go after leftists and minorities: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... There are a lot of mundane things keeping it going, but sometimes a little bit of conspiracy ends up being right.
    - 7y ago
eljimmy 7y ago
No doubt. Any form of government control over tangible goods creates black markets which have their own set of rules which are most likely also nefarious. I think a significant portion of society is aware of this. The problem is that a subset of our society is continuing to push for this antiquated way of life as it is very, very profitable for them. Money makes the world go 'round, after all.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167363.
- dunstad 7y ago
  What for?
  - dang 7y ago
    It was a swerve into a much more generic and well-trodden controversy. Those lead to threads that are more repetitive and less interesting. But because they're such familiar controversies, they also tend to attract a lot of comments, drowning out the original, less obvious discussion. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20gravitational https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

rolltiide 7y ago

> but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones Yes, from time to time. At this point some Mexican states and areas have it institutionalized so much that there isn't a war anymore. There is only danger when two competing powers are in the same area. Mexico's southern border with Guatemala has an influx of migrants because of Guatemala's now organized drug violence.

threwawasy1228 7y ago
This is an incredibly naive thing to say. I was on a beach resort area controlled by the Zetas a year or so back on a vacation. It was incredibly dirt cheap and everything seemed really nice and peaceful, the town was under control of only one group afterall. Then all of a sudden one evening there was a screaming man pulled out of a building into a street and brutally beaten in front of everyone that was out there. After this ended he was dragged off and everything went back to normal. It was an extremely shocking flash of violence. Just because it isn't a 'war' so much anymore doesn't mean that the violence that comes with areas being under control of gangs magically goes away.
- thaeli 7y ago
  So the difference is that they weren't wearing government uniforms? That "flash of violence" doesn't sound out of line for any moderately authoritarian state.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    The original point was that the American drug policy causes a lot of violence. This public beating was used as an example. Would he have been beaten by a cartel if drugs had been legal(ish) in America? It is reasonable to say: no. Authoritarian states beating their subjects has nothing to do with him being beaten in the streets that night.
    - aianus 7y ago
      > Would he have been beaten by a cartel if drugs had been legal(ish) in America? It is reasonable to say: no. While I'm against the drug war, I wonder what career drug dealers (and everyone who's part of their economy) would do if drugs were legalized and commoditized. Would it not lead to an increase of "worse" crimes with "real" victims like kidnapping, human trafficking, robbery, etc. as criminals try to replace their income and sustain their lifestyles?
      - stevenicr 7y ago
        Could be.. and I wonder further.. if the non-violent state was able to increase it's funding for security while the violent dealers had their monthly profits reduced.. over time 'the people' would have the increased funding and the violent ones would have less money for guns, hired killers, and such..
      - filoleg 7y ago
        A huge chunk of low-level drug dealers are just struggling college students. I imagine if drugs were legal and taxed, they could be helped by some of that tax money going towards funding education. Also, a lot of people go into illegal drug dealing because it is a high risk/high reward avenue, compared to many traditional prospects, where you can make a lot of money with comparatively little time investment. If I remember correctly, that was one of the stated reasons for why Notorious B.I.G. went into drug-dealing, despite being a good student and initially considering going to college for a more traditional high-education career.
  - beenBoutIT 7y ago
- kolbe 7y ago
  It's not entirely clear to me why this is any different from many other sovereign justice systems. I think the point stands that people who obey the 'laws' of their 'government' aren't subjected to random acts of violence by non-government entities the way they would be under a two-cartel system. And overall, it's much more peaceful that way.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rolltiide 7y ago
  Zetas basically are the government in the Yucatan and some gulf states. Better off just acknowledging them as an authoritative single party regime, and staying as far away from drug possession as possible, lets you get confused as a competitor.
tyingq 7y ago
There were 145 murders in Juarez for April 2019, more than any other month since 2011.

lostmymind66 7y ago

"but it has turned large swaths of Mexico, particularly, into war zones" Legalizing drugs will not fix the problem. The cartels run the government now. Do you actually think they will just pick up their things and go home? The violence will continue and they will move onto the next, illegal, lucrative product to sell. The US in the 1930s had the same problem. It was only stopped by stamping out corruption and outright the murdering of criminals. I don't see Mexico having even a small handle on corruption in the next 50 years. The Opioid crisis is going on right now..and this is with legal drugs. Drug companies are being sued for millions and millions of dollars. From one side, I'm told legal adults should be able to do what they want with their bodies. From the other, when bad things happen..like addiction, I'm told it's the fault of the company that made and sold the drugs. This doesn't make any real sense if we are trying to legalize drugs. It will only increase costs as the result of liability insurance and other risks that are now involved. Legalizing MJ in California is turning into a failure. The problem is that companies that sell legal drugs need to pay taxes and go through many more regulations than the guy down the street selling it. The end result is higher costs for legal drugs. Legal drug companies selling MJ are being put out of business because the black market is thriving as a result of lower costs and better availability (which will always happen with black markets). The legal market is only helping the black market because there are many people that are using MJ now that otherwise wouldn't have when it was illegal. When the legalization of MJ was proposed, the proponents (including many people here on HN) said that there would be no black market after it was legalized. This never made sense to me and now I'm being proven correct. The black market is not only there, it's thriving.

theslurmmustflo 7y ago
What are you talking about? Your arguments are all over the place. How exactly would legalization hurt Mexico? Look at Portugal to see how we should all move towards dealing with drugs and addiction as a health problem instead of a criminal problem. The violence in the 1930s WAS caused by the prohibition, sure it had lasting effects but ending prohibition was still the right move. Can you cite the rise of black market marijuana in California? The market is doing well and bringing in good tax revenue in every state I've read about. As for the opioid crisis, the issue wasn't that people one day decided they wanted to get hooked on them. The issue was they had pain or were recovering from a surgery and were being prescribed highly addictive medication that was being pushed by pharmaceutical companies without proper warning or care. Marijuana could have been given in these cases and it without the same problems of addiction.

agathocles 7y ago

No! More of the same.. but better!

beenBoutIT 7y ago

The war on drugs costs us $51 billon annually* and the only upside is that corporations selling legal drugs like alcoholic beverages and prescription medications get to keep their artificial monopoly. It's easily the biggest scam ever foisted onto a society and with next to no protest. As Americans we all pay for this and it works against us by limiting our options and telling us what we can and can't do for recreation. That $51 billon could easily go towards Medicare for All and with more intelligent drug options the number of Americans addicted to Alcohol and Opiates would decline. http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet_Drug_War_Budget_Feb2015.pdf http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/DPA_Fact_sheet...

jaredhansen 7y ago
>The war on drugs costs us $51 billon annually and the only upside is that corporations selling legal drugs like alcoholic beverages and prescription medications get to keep their artificial monopoly.* That $51B "cost" is known as "income" to those on whom it is spent (cops, prisons, misc security contractors, weapons manufacturers, on and on). Similarly, the "only upside is ... artificial monopoly" -- well, for the artificial monopolists, that's a pretty big upside! I don't think there's some kind of Grand Conspiracy here (ref. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/14/too-many-people-dare-call-it-conspiracy/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/14/too-many-people-dare-c... ), but I also don't think one is needed. A whole heck of a lot of people benefit directly from the drug war, and these people are a powerful constituency. The fact that $51B is spent on that constituency instead of on Medicare for All or whatever is, for much of that constituency, a feature and not a bug.
- mikeash 7y ago
  The war in drugs got started as a way to go after leftists and minorities: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... There are a lot of mundane things keeping it going, but sometimes a little bit of conspiracy ends up being right.
  - 7y ago

eljimmy 7y ago

No doubt. Any form of government control over tangible goods creates black markets which have their own set of rules which are most likely also nefarious. I think a significant portion of society is aware of this. The problem is that a subset of our society is continuing to push for this antiquated way of life as it is very, very profitable for them. Money makes the world go 'round, after all.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167363.

dunstad 7y ago
What for?
- dang 7y ago
  It was a swerve into a much more generic and well-trodden controversy. Those lead to threads that are more repetitive and less interesting. But because they're such familiar controversies, they also tend to attract a lot of comments, drowning out the original, less obvious discussion. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20gravitational https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...