Mexico: The US Department of Treasury disclosed on 18 January that at least USD17.2 billion have been laundered through Mexico in the past two years. Bulk cash transfers are frequent along the US’ southwestern border. And between Mexico and Colombia, between USD18 and 39 billion are laundered annually.

Mexico: According to Jose A. Ortega, the president of Mexico’s Citizen’s Council for Public Security and Penal Justice, over 5,500 people died in Mexico in 2008 due to criminal violence. This figure is 20% higher than the total number of US military deaths in Iraq since the start of the war in May, 2003. Ortega has also reported that there were 1,028 kidnappings in Mexico in 2008, and some 65 of those victims were killed. Additionally, some 205 murders have been registered for 2009. That’s nearly twice the number of murders registered over the same time period in 2008.

Mexico: Mexico’s military push into the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, called Operation
Northeast, has been reinforced with 300 soldiers, sent to the city of Reynosa.

Mexico: Two top officials with Interpol in Mexico, Rodolfo de la Guardia Garcia and Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas have been sent to a federal prison in Nayarit. They were found guilty of collaboration with organized crime by furnishing strategic information in exchange for monthly cash payments.

Kyle,

all of those good people who look away in the US Congress need a good dose of reality

stop this madness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_america#Inequality_and_poverty

God shed his grace on thee

Camilla, this is your land but it’s also my land…lol

don’t think I am unaware of the poverty in the deep South that gave birth to your War on Drugs scam

This was on El Tiempo…

There has been a new response posted to the following discussion on Change.org:
Biden, drug warrior

———————————————-
Former New Mexico Republican Governor, Gary Johnson, for Drug Czar
Our Citizen Governor, Gary Johnson is a GENUINE “maverick” unlike the ersatz one that the Republicans put up for VP in 2008. I remember the day he came out for the legalization of marijuana. I read it in a one paragraph news-bite on an inside page of the Santa Fe New Mexican. The Republican Party came down on him like a “ton of bricks”. The Dems vied to outdo one another righteous, anti-drug/crime posturing. The Governor fell silent, for some weeks.
Then he held a press conference and said that he had studied the issue and concluded that all “drugs” should be legalized, regulated, and taxed. He spend the balance of his second and final term as Governor arguing the case cogently and convincingly. The Drug Policy Alliance held their annual Conference in Albuquerque in 2001, and the Governor gave the Welcome Address. I’ve never been happier to be living in New Mexico.

Gary Johnson has the savy and integrity to end the costly, failed “War on Drugs” and create a system of regulation that will begin to gain control of the untenable situation that Prohibition has created; instead of the enormous cost in public dollars and broken lives, we can generate income for the depleted public purse.

End Prohibition (again). Gary Johnson for “Drug Czar”!

posted by Victoria Scott

1. Reduce U.S. demand for drugs (foreign workers): We could start by increasing emphasis on drug treatment and education as well as enforcing drug laws among both rich and poor…instead of just the poor (enforcing laws against hiring undocumented workers, prosecuting businesses who hire them instead of rounding up undocumented workers and their families in “detention centers”). Politicians, wanting to look “tough”, prefer to appeal to our worst instincts by emphasizing drug interdiction (border fences) and blaming the drug (immigration) problem on “aliens” rather than on our own people’s insatiable appetite for drugs (cheap labor).

2. Improve the living conditions of impoverished coca farmers (jobless peasants who would otherwise immigrate).

3. Decriminalize drugs (guest worker program). George Shultz gets it (so does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce).

Comment by Russ Belville — January 13, 2009 @ 2:31 pm

The El Paso City Council votes tonight on whether to overturn the mayor’s veto on their unanimous recommendation that El Paso ask its federal representatives to just begin the discussion about drug prohibition and whether we need to re-think our strategies in the War On (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs in light of failing economies and Mexican drug cartel violence.

Imagine – the city that started marijuana prohibition 94 years ago might be the first city to help end it!

The Attorney General of Arizona, dismayed by the Mexican drug cartel violence, voices an opinion that we ought to just legalize marijuana, as that would take 70% of the cartel’s profit – but then backs away because there are “still hurdles to clear” regarding legalization.

Glenn Greenwald in Salon was reporting on the Israeli offensive into Gaza. He notes that Democratic voters oppose and Republican voters support the offensive, but on the whole, the people are evenly divided on the issue. Greenwald asked if there is any other issue where the public is evenly divided, yet the politicians on both sides of the aisle are in complete lockstep agreement?

Legalizing marijuana would be that issue. The most recent Zogby polls have shown a 49%-48% plurality in favor of taxing and regulating marijuana like Jagermeister or Bacardi 151, and polls over this decade have consistently shown support for medical uses of marijuana at between 70%-80%. Yet our politicians march in 100% lockstep toward supporting the continuation of harassment, arrest, and incarceration of marijuana users and seizure of their property.

Wake up, Washington! The People by a >70% margin believe the War on Drugs is a failure. Your failure to heed the will of The People tells us you have ulterior motives in maintaining prohibition.

Mike G.
1/12/2009 8:27 PM
The war on drugs only creates more crime and criminalizes non violent people. Addiction should be treated as a disease as not a law enforcement issue. Treating the problem effectively and helping people get through their addictions is a much better way to get them to confront their problems rather than treating them like some low-life form of society that has no hope.

“Change” and “Hope” is what we heard from our President as we elected him and we the people demand that you help give addicts hope to get their lives back on track.

Robbie Alford
1/12/2009 4:30 PM
I’m behind marijuana legalization 100%. I’ll be honest.. I like smoking pot for recreation. HOWEVER, let’s also mention the overcrowded prisons where rapists get paroled in order to make room for any unfortunate guy who sells a pound a weed.. to me that’s a crime.

Spaceshipearth
1/12/2009 3:17 PM
Responsible consumption of marijuana within an appropriate setting is a personal choice, and thus should not be deemed a criminal act. However, regulation of marijuana is important, just as regulation of alcohol is important (age restrictions, restrictions on vehicle operation while intoxicated, etc).

The dangers to society that marijuana use presents come only from the laws against it. Many individuals are jailed as pot-smokers, and are released as criminals as a result of that imprisonment. They are unable to find decent employment because of a criminal record, etc. Our law enforcement agencies have far more important issues to spend their resources on. In addition, we can gain so much economically and environmentally from the use of non-THC industrial hemp that it is ridiculous for us to be so afraid of its propagation.

The illegality of marijuana is a closed-minded, myopic remnant of the way we governed ourselves in the past, with fear and prejudice. Now that we have finally elected an open-minded administration, it is time we move forward in all areas of our society, including irresponsible criminalization of a plant.

Blakester
1/12/2009 2:39 PM
The government should only ask itself one question… “Is it safe?” They should invest in a public study on its effects and make the results of that study accessible to all. My belief is that the results will be overwhelmingly supportive in showing that marijuana is a safe recreational substance.

If it is found that marijuana significantly endangers the lives of its users or the lives of people around them, then the prohibition should rightfully continue.

If, however, it is found to be safe… then there is no legal basis for continuing to make it illegal.

Let the scientific research begin!

Boots
1/12/2009 11:32 AM
Ending Marijuana Prohibition will end the increasing number of marijuana gardens planted by illeagal aliens with mafia style guards throughout the west. This dangerous problem hit home with myself when on a “nature tour ” with small children and their parents on my own property, we accidentatly stumbled upon several acres of marijuana.
After calling in the police, there was found to be burried amunition, that we had actually interupted the dinner of the hidden illegal gardeners, there was approximately four months of garbage, human bio-waste(!) and tissues, thousands of feet of tubing, and the small special force of narcotic agents filled an enormous truck with marijuana with a street value of $15 million dollars. Our lives were threatened and the sense of peace and security on our own land was forever changed. If Marijuana was legal these people who cross the border and use our personal property and national parks for their pot gardens would not be able to sell their goods and would at least on this issue go back to where ever they came from.
We raise purebred horses on this land and we are still cleaning up the mess from these people.

could it really be, oh Camilla?

lol no way

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,480072,00.html

Makes me happy that somebody at least is frank about this stuff

On the other hand my passion comes at a price to by soul, my loved ones and my life

What the heck, I’ll admit it, I love exposing these hypocrites and agitating for if not jailing them for distorting our existence then calling them names

absolutely right

I apologize