Are horses the silver bullet that are going to keep drugs out of the United States? USA Today did a puff piece last week about horses being deployed on the border to help us win the "war on drugs." USA Today states, "The horses are the latest salvo in a back-and-forth chess match between drug cartels and smugglers on one side of the border and U.S. law enforcement on the other."
Does anyone seriously believe that horses on the border are going to have any impact on marijuana and cocaine availability or use in the United States? If we can't even keep drugs out of our maximum security prisons, what makes us think we can actually keep drugs from entering the two-thousand-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border?
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the U.S. war on drugs -- which has cost taxpayers more than a trillion dollars, transformed the U.S. into the largest incarcerator in the world, led to hundreds of thousands of overdose fatalities and HIV/AIDS transmissions, and created shocking racial disparities in the justice system. Yet drugs are as available as ever.
The drug war is even more disastrous for Mexico. Close to 50,000 people have been killed since President Calderon launched his "surge" against the drug cartels five years ago. Yet, still, drugs are as available as ever.
No disrespect to the horses efforts, but it's is time for the U.S. and Mexico to find an exit strategy from this unwinnable war.
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http://www.mikecann.net/2011/05/attorney-general-of-united-states-eric.html
It is unsavoury to have to agree with Gil Kerlikowske, the US Drug Czar, but in this case I have to concur with him as he candidly admitted in an interview with The Daily Caller that, and I quote: «…the United States was founded in violence, and we’re a pretty violent country. You can’t change that.»
Unfortunately, the same values that inform US attitude towards arms, right to self-defence, pre-emptive actions, retaliation, use of torture, use of unmanned drones to carry out extra-judicial killings, and so and so forth, are the same values that inform the US War on Drugs.
One thing is for sure, the more violent people are, the more violence they want to inflict and the more violence they inflict, the more normal violence seems to be. So, it is not surprising to see how true this rings when one looks at the spirit and intentionality of US War on Drugs policies in Latin America.
An appeal to all Prohibitionists:
Maybe you're a police officer, a prison guard or a local politician. Possibly you're scared of losing employment, overtime-pay, the many kick-backs and those regular fat bribes. But what good will any of that do you once our society has followed Mexico over the dystopian abyss of dismembered bodies, vats of acid and marauding thugs carrying gold-plated AK-47s with leopard-skinned gunstocks?
Kindly allow us to forgo the next level of your sycophantic prohibition-engendered mayhem.
Prohibition Prevents Regulation : Legalize, Regulate and Tax!
The US had 'prohibition' where the gangsters made a fortune and corrupted the legal and political system in the US, indeed the results are still there.
The criminals system makes, probably, $trillions by drugs being 'illegal',
Would it not be easier to decrimilise most drugs and save the taxpayer all that money, deprive, the criminals of the fortunes they make or is there some'inside line' that attaches the politician to the drug money?