Friday, June 17, 2011

40 Yrs. of Drug War Failure and 40k Dead in Mexico


Related: The number of casualties from the War on Drugs in Mexico is estimated to be 40,000 since 2006, according to some sources.  At the current rate of 10,000 deaths per year, the number of Mexicans killed in its drug war will soon approach the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. 

7 Comments:

At 6/17/2011 4:07 PM, Blogger Che is dead said...

"Although those who speak publicly for LEAP are people from the law enforcement and criminal justice communities, a large number of our supporting members do not have such experience."

LEAP website

"Incorporated on March 16, 2002, with five members, LEAP now claims to have more than 15,000 members (spread across 87 countries) but does not disclose how many of those are sworn law enforcement officers."

Wikipedia

This is a small, fringe group including some cops and many drug legalization activists. They do not represent or speak for "law enforcement". If they cannot be upfront about this crucial fact, how can you trust them when it comes to their other arguments.

For instance, he claims that our prisons are full of low level drug users whose only crime is "possession". Bullshit:

"An honest debate on marijuana policy also carefully considers the costs of our current approach. Arrest rates for marijuana are relatively high, reaching about 800,000 last year. Though these numbers are technically recorded under the category of "possession," the story that is seldom told is that hardly any of these possession arrests result in jail time (that is why former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani made headlines when he aggressively arrested public marijuana users and detained them for 12 to 24 hours in the 1990s)."

"One of the most astute minds in the field of drug policy, Carnegie Mellon's Jonathan Caulkins, formerly the co-director of Rand's drug policy research center, found that more than 85% of people in prison for all drug-law violations were clearly involved in drug distribution, and that the records of most of the remaining prisoners had at least some suggestion of distribution involvement (many prisoners plea down from more serious charges to possession in exchange for information about the drug trade). Only about half a percent of the total prison population was there for marijuana possession, he found. "

LA Times

The vast majority of law enforcement officers understand the link between drugs and other criminal behavior and they do no support LEAP.

 
At 6/17/2011 7:39 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Who Is Behind the 25,000 Deaths In Mexico?
July 23, 2010

"President Calderón has stated repeatedly that 90 percent of the dead are connected to drug organizations."

My comment: Who knows the exact ratio?

However, the following statement is misleading:

"...the number of Mexicans killed in its drug war will soon approach the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War."

I thought the Americans were the "good guys."

 
At 6/17/2011 7:43 PM, Blogger PeakTrader said...

Paul Krugman would be proud of that misleading statement.

 
At 6/17/2011 9:49 PM, Blogger VangelV said...

I thought the Americans were the "good guys."

Not in Vietnam. There were no good guys in that conflict.

 
At 6/18/2011 1:55 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"There were no good guys in that conflict"...

Yet another 'bennyism' from vangeIV...

 
At 6/18/2011 2:02 PM, Blogger juandos said...

I had some serious qualms about where this conversation was going and the substance of it...

Well I've had a change of heart...

I'm definitely against the idea of legalizing or at the very least decriminalizing reefer...

I'm against anything this parasitic idiot is for...

 
At 6/18/2011 2:40 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Gee, maybe even a parasitic idiot can get it right once in a while"...

Maybe you got a point there Ron H because even a stopped clock is right at least twice a day...

 

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