"the US government [releases] $197m (£133m) to help Mexico fight the drugs cartels.

Source (BBC News) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7772771.stm)

What a brilliant way to spend so much money! When more families are finding it harder and harder to get by, your government still insists on wasting millions upon millions of dollars in meddling in the affairs of other nations.

But "Ninety percent of all the cocaine consumed in the US is believed to reach the country via Mexico." supporters will probably say, with absolutely no regard to any logic. It's not Mexico's or Colombia's or anyone else's fault that you have an ever spiralling drug problem; it's the failure of US policy and way of life. The US's (and Europe's) demand for drugs is the reason for why there's so much bloodshed in South America, it should be them invading us for causing so many damned problems in their country: not the other way round.

yeah, welcome to the waste of money that is the war on drugs.

Imagine if these substances were somewhat legal, the government could be making money on them instead of spending billions.

There are problems with making them legal, but I think that there would be less deaths overall if pure substances were being produced and purity was known and regulated...Really the U.S. needs a better education system on drugs, the one now is so full of bullshit its ridiculous.

People need to be aware of what they are putting into their bodies and how this will effect them overall. I've met too many idiots that are willing to pop any pill given to them, no matter what kind it may be.

/rant

How would making them legal and taxing them dry up the black market? People would want to sell for less than the legal price, without any taxation, and the government would have to enforce THAT shit.

I've wondered this for a while...

How would making them legal and taxing them dry up the black market? People would want to sell for less than the legal price, without any taxation, and the government would have to enforce THAT shit.

I've wondered this for a while...Make sure tax still comes to significantly less then black market prices, and offer quality assurances, I assume. I mean, the tax thing has worked reasonably well for cigarettes and booze...

How would making them legal and taxing them dry up the black market? People would want to sell for less than the legal price, without any taxation, and the government would have to enforce THAT shit.

I've wondered this for a while...

Think how much it costs drug barons to get drugs over the border. They have to produce far more than what is sold, they have to bribe officials, buy weapons, fund armies, pay people to smuggle, then pay the distributors.

Any business without such a legal minefield to cross could easily supply for much cheaper. I mean, most drugs are produced for ridiculously cheap amounts.

Besides, if you were a drug taker, where would you rather buy substances from: a regulated vendor or a black market dealer? If you question the rationality of the consumers, then just look at how many people buy alcohol on the blacket market. Of course, people do, but it's a rather low amount.

I want to see the world go into a huge huge depression, so far that we are forced to live once more as tribes and such.
Having to survive yourself, it would be great, and food, and ...well i dunno about anyone else, but i think about this a lot.

Damn. What a waste of money.

I think the government just needs to decriminalize drugs.

I used to be all for legalization, but the thought of greedy corporations being able to peddle cocaine made me think twice.

There is no way you can stop drugs being available. They just threw away all that money, just like the money they waste on Iraq, not to mention human lives.

Fucking retards in power.

Think how much it costs drug barons to get drugs over the border. They have to produce far more than what is sold, they have to bribe officials, buy weapons, fund armies, pay people to smuggle, then pay the distributors.

Any business without such a legal minefield to cross could easily supply for much cheaper. I mean, most drugs are produced for ridiculously cheap amounts.



Think about what you're saying here. Officials, the ones that run the police as well as elected officials are bribed. The have to buy guns and ammo from arms dealers, the USA. They fund armies that make those countries easier to exploit for various reasons. And the people who distribute and smuggle, make good money, and have to pay off officials to do business, and banks to launder money.

Why would they want to make drugs legal and cheap, when so many high up people profit so heavily on them? A bonus is that it destroys communities, and when people aren't united, corrupt authorities thrive. That 192 million was to crack down on cartels that aren't playing by the rules, that try and dodge paying off officials.

Drugs are big business, but only if it's kept illegal and lucrative.

this isn't as big a waste as you would think. we all have our own opinion on the 'war on drugs' but i think it is very safe to say that mexico is completely fucked up right now. some areas are basically war zones, with the military engaging well armed enemies.

yes, this is 'mexico's problem', but it isn't exactly wise to have a country descend into civil war when you share a border, no matter what the cause. when a country that shares a border gets completely ruined, bad things happen. more illegals will try cross, borders and security will be even more lax, things other than drugs get pushed through. militants find a breeding ground and go unchecked. it can be debated if mexico are really doing much to stop these things happening now, but they could be doing alot less.

i think that 200 million (almost nothing considering to what they have been spending bailing out unsuccessful companies) is money well spent if it means a neighbour has the ability to secure itself and avert a potential disaster.

Think about what you're saying here. Officials, the ones that run the police as well as elected officials are bribed. The have to buy guns and ammo from arms dealers, the USA. They fund armies that make those countries easier to exploit for various reasons. And the people who distribute and smuggle, make good money, and have to pay off officials to do business, and banks to launder money.

Why would they want to make drugs legal and cheap, when so many high up people profit so heavily on them? A bonus is that it destroys communities, and when people aren't united, corrupt authorities thrive. That 192 million was to crack down on cartels that aren't playing by the rules, that try and dodge paying off officials.

Drugs are big business, but only if it's kept illegal and lucrative.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that corruption, supporting the arms trade, exploiting nations and destroying communities are all good things?

If drugs being illegal means the forming of big business, then that's reason alone for why they should be legal.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that corruption, supporting the arms trade, exploiting nations and destroying communities are all good things?
Only for those who profit from them.
If drugs being illegal means the forming of big business, then that's reason alone for why they should be legal.
No because even more big businesses profit from their illegality. If they were made legal it would mean less business for these companies, and less money in their coffers, and therefore less to give the politicians for campaigning.

Only for those who profit from them.

No because even more big businesses profit from their illegality. If they were made legal it would mean less business for these companies, and less money in their coffers, and therefore less to give the politicians for campaigning.

Less business for arms companies, lawyers, armies, etc is a good thing. Means more money in the pockets of the general public, which would be spent on stuff (hopefully) which have far less negative externalities.

Less business for arms companies, lawyers, armies, etc is a good thing. Means more money in the pockets of the general public, which would be spent on stuff (hopefully) which have far less negative externalities.

Arms factory workers, lawyers, and soldiers, are part of the general public, aren't they? If you legalized drugs, you'd put them all out of work. Essentially, the drug war is a make work project. It allows for people to take part in the economy, which means more pockets with money in them, in the general public. What are the negatives of the drug trade? Actually, the drug trade reduces violence. Poverty always results in violence. Most of the violence that occurs from the drug trade, occurs in the poverty stricken areas of the world. The government is using drugs as a means to crack down on violence. Drugs are a fact of life for the world. Can't get rid of them no matter what, so why not exploit this fact to expand the economy, create jobs, and put the violent portion of the poor in prison. Once in prison, they're given jobs that aren't profitable enough to live on outside of prison. These people did nothing on the street, but now they become part of the economy too, in prison. Drugs keep the poor killing each other, and creates a situation for them to become part of the economy, hence strengthening the nations economic power to attain wealth from other nations. Only stupid people are affected by this. A smart person growing up in an impoverished area can change their social status, to avoid this fate, thanks to capitalism.

So lets see. Drug prohibition does many positives. It creates jobs, expanding the economy. Isolates violence to the poor communities, which is much more manageable. It also allows for the violent poor to be used to expand the economy further, increasing the prosperity for the law abiding non-violent majority. Everyone loves the benefits of the systems in place, but hates to here how it all works.

I also forgot to add that, the drug trade creates higher drug prices. As a result, this requires a larger use of currency, hence, valuing the dollar even more. Both the running of the drug trade, and the enforcing of it, stimulates the economy more than if it were legal. The Churches love to push anti-drug shit on their congregation, because it keeps the demand for enforcement high. This then in turn keeps drug prices high. When prices are high, the higher demand for the US dollar and increased economic prosperity, results in more money being taken in by the Church. This gives them more power around the world to acquire more wealth. It's all about wealth and power. So quit bitching about the system, and learn how it works. Once you do, you'll have more power and wealth for yourself. If you are a drug user yourself, be thankful, cause the drug war increases the supply of drugs too.

Arms factory workers, lawyers, and soldiers, are part of the general public, aren't they? If you legalized drugs, you'd put them all out of work. Essentially, the drug war is a make work project. It allows for people to take part in the economy, which means more pockets with money in them, in the general public.

It doesn't matter whether they lose work. As long as there are people, then services need to be provided, and as long as there are services being provided, there'll be work for the people. If these people weren't employed in the trades you mentioned then they could just as easily create new economies. These new economies wouldn't have as many negative externalities for society.

If you legalised drugs, it'd open up a whole wide range of new services. For example, marijuana cafes may open and would need staff, production facilities would need staff, there'd probably be an increase in people creating music and art and thus music venues, instrument shops and other art related places would need staffing.


What are the negatives of the drug trade? Actually, the drug trade reduces violence. Poverty always results in violence. Most of the violence that occurs from the drug trade, occurs in the poverty stricken areas of the world. The government is using drugs as a means to crack down on violence.

What the fuck are you even on about? Drugs being illegal has torn cities apart as gangs battle it out for market share. The government is not using drugs to crack down on violence, if they wanted less violence, they'd legalise drugs and take the power away from the gangs.




Drugs are a fact of life for the world. Can't get rid of them no matter what, so why not exploit this fact to expand the economy, create jobs, and put the violent portion of the poor in prison. Once in prison, they're given jobs that aren't profitable enough to live on outside of prison. These people did nothing on the street, but now they become part of the economy too, in prison.

Drugs aren't going to go away, so instead of fighting their usage, governments should legalise them and educate people to be responsible: end of. The money which gets poured into fighting the drug war could easily be used for education, and in the process thousands of jobs in teaching and counselling would be available.

Drugs keep the poor killing each other, and creates a situation for them to become part of the economy, hence strengthening the nations economic power to attain wealth from other nations. Only stupid people are affected by this. A smart person growing up in an impoverished area can change their social status, to avoid this fate, thanks to capitalism.

So lets see. Drug prohibition does many positives. It creates jobs, expanding the economy. Isolates violence to the poor communities, which is much more manageable. It also allows for the violent poor to be used to expand the economy further, increasing the prosperity for the law abiding non-violent majority. Everyone loves the benefits of the systems in place, but hates to here how it all works.

Poor killing eachother = bad, I don't even need to explain why.

Isolating communities = bad, again, why explain?

Criminals in prison don't benefit economy - they leech off it.

It doesn't matter whether they lose work. As long as there are people, then services need to be provided, and as long as there are services being provided, there'll be work for the people. If these people weren't employed in the trades you mentioned then they could just as easily create new economies. These new economies wouldn't have as many negative externalities for society.

If you legalised drugs, it'd open up a whole wide range of new services. For example, marijuana cafes may open and would need staff, production facilities would need staff, there'd probably be an increase in people creating music and art and thus music venues, instrument shops and other art related places would need staffing.




What the fuck are you even on about? Drugs being illegal has torn cities apart as gangs battle it out for market share. The government is not using drugs to crack down on violence, if they wanted less violence, they'd legalise drugs and take the power away from the gangs.






Drugs aren't going to go away, so instead of fighting their usage, governments should legalise them and educate people to be responsible: end of. The money which gets poured into fighting the drug war could easily be used for education, and in the process thousands of jobs in teaching and counselling would be available.



Poor killing eachother = bad, I don't even need to explain why.

Isolating communities = bad, again, why explain?

Criminals in prison don't benefit economy - they leech off it.

I don't think you understand economics too well, so I'll let you in on something. Money =/= wealth. Money is paper, and is worth paper. It's only a means to ease the transfer of real wealth, like food, land, vehicles, commodities, etc... Money's buying power is determined by the demand for said money, in ratio to the amount of money available. Making money, which is what the government does by creating treasury notes, which is then turned into federal reserve notes, or US currency which we call it. However, if the money is being used to expand the economy by creating a the drug enforcement economy, the money itself creates more demand for the money being implemented into the system.

The illegal drug trade creates a huge economic expansion, much larger than a legal ones. It gives your nation more buying power, including you.

As for your other add ons.

Read a history book, the poor always finds a reason to kill each other. Take away drugs, and they'll find a new reason. The drug trade at least keeps the problem isolated, and without it, theft and murder would spread to the overall community, instead of being centralized within the poorest community. Poverty breeds violence, and this is a way to control and contain it. It actually benefits society economically to have the poor dealing drugs, than it would to give them welfare

Gangs are also not a creation of the drug war. Gangs have been around a long time. Watch the movie, " Gangs of New York". Back then, they were organized groups, carving up districts where they robbed/extorted the middle and upper class, and often killed them. They were incredibly violent, and no drug trade was around at the time. The drug trade transformed gangs from robbing and extorting the rich, to selling drugs to them. The robberies/extortion went down, and drug sales went up. However, the new system keeps the violence between gangs, and very few innocent people are caught up in it, comparatively with the old system of Gangs focusing on robbery and extortion. Then we got smart and started handing out welfare cheques to the poor, to buy drugs. This keeps them from stealing to buy drugs, and keeps them in poor communities away from the working class families. All of this reduced crime, and increased demand for the US dollar, in turn increasing the quality of life for the majority who stays out of the criminal sector. Crime is much more controlled these days than it was 100 years ago. Poverty, and crime that results from it won't go away, so we should control it. Even if we legalized, crime would still be prevalent, as poverty is impossible to get rid of in a capitalist society with a monetary based economy.

I didn't say it isolates a community, but it isolates the problems created by poverty to the poverty stricken community. Anyone can transcend poverty with a little discipline and work ethic. My dad grew up in poverty, and now he's a small business owner, and is upper middle class. Anyone who thinks you're stuck wherever you're born, is an idiot. If you're too stupid to transcend poverty, you'd end up there even if you were born middle class anyways.

Are you sure criminals in prison don't benefit the economy? Most modern US prisons are owned by corporations. They fund the prisons through inmate work projects, producing license plates, road signs, or whatever the prison has a contract for. These products would be too expensive to be produced by the regular US workforce, but the prisons turn a profit from incarceration. This creates a mini-economy, and adds to the overall economy. It's actually called a prison economy. It's not about locking up the poor, but locking up those who can't transcend poverty and opt for a life of crime.

Really, the poor in our countries wouldn't live that bad on welfare if they didn't fall victim to substance abuse. On welfare, you could afford basic living, food, water, electricity, etc... Sure, you wouldn't have anything extra, but those things you have to work for. It's even possible to be happy living below the poverty line, as long as you avoid substances and other addictions like gambling. If your life sucks in a westernized country, it's because of your poor choices, not because you're poor. And I'm not some spoiled rich kid either. I've lived at the poverty level for over three years after high school. After bills, I had less than $150 to my name. I had to buy a months worth of food for two people with this money, and I was still happy. I never suffered cause I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, and I don't gamble. I managed my life, and that management elevated me to lower middle class. Within two years I'll be middle middle class. Within a decade I'll be upper middle class. Within 30 years, most will call me wealthy. There are ass loads fo programs to help people in poverty to increase their quality of life, and find a decent job. It's all about motivation, and having your shit together.

I don't think you understand economics too well, so I'll let you in on something. Money =/= wealth. Money is paper, and is worth paper. It's only a means to ease the transfer of real wealth, like food, land, vehicles, commodities, etc... Money's buying power is determined by the demand for said money, in ratio to the amount of money available. Making money, which is what the government does by creating treasury notes, which is then turned into federal reserve notes, or US currency which we call it. However, if the money is being used to expand the economy by creating a the drug enforcement economy, the money itself creates more demand for the money being implemented into the system.

I studied economics long enough to learn that it is manipulative bullshit which is only concerned with exploitation: not answer the original economic question of 'how to deal with limited resources when there are unlimited wants' or something.

Let me point out to you this manipulation and exploitation with your example above. The US government creates money and uses it to 'expand the economy': maybe prolonging the war on drugs. The government gets to spend this money at it's original value, however, everybody else gets hit from the inflation which has resulted from the government's misuse of resource: it's theft. When the governments print money to fund such endeavours, they are making the population on the whole MUCH poorer.

Again, like you said, money =/= wealth. Money is basically arbritrary, and it's more convienient to look at the economy in the terms of REAL resources available: whether they be human or natural. When the government funds a war, they are wasting MASSES of these real resources for no real purpose. You may argue it strengthens the economy, but there's no logical way to suggest this: money is arbitrary and has no real value, all the US government is doing is shifting wealth around whilst wasting away resources. It's pathetic, and it's only real purpose is to keep those at the top in power.

The real and only way to strengthen the economy is to increase efficiency. Again, you can't argue against this. And I can guarentee that wasting masses of resources whilst fighting a war isn't going to make things more efficient either.

If the government really wanted to strengthen the economy in this context, for a starters they'd legalise hemp. It'd also theoretically be more logical for drugs to be legal because it'd result in more and more people turning away from this mass-consumer culture: which is the biggest threat to the global economy.

The illegal drug trade creates a huge economic expansion, much larger than a legal ones. It gives your nation more buying power, including you.

It's all bullshit: wake up. Nothing's being expanded, you're just merely exploiting and pillaging, which may be good for YOU in the short run, but it's disasterous for society, and eventually yourself in the long run.


As for your other add ons.

Read a history book, the poor always finds a reason to kill each other. Take away drugs, and they'll find a new reason. The drug trade at least keeps the problem isolated, and without it, theft and murder would spread to the overall community, instead of being centralized within the poorest community. Poverty breeds violence, and this is a way to control and contain it. It actually benefits society economically to have the poor dealing drugs, than it would to give them welfare

This is absolutely fucking idiotic. Drugs being illegal is keeping more people poor than there should be. If they were legalised, one huge social barrier would be removed from the poorest regions and they'd actually have a better chance of becoming successful in life.

How about you give me an example of what would replace drugs as the reason to 'kill' eachother?


Haven't got time for the rest, reply later.

The system benefits me, mainly because it is inefficient. I'm not the wealthy elite, but I'm unharmed by it, cause I play the system. You don't have to be rich either. I don't pay taxes, cause I've set up a clever and legal scheme to not pay them. My wages always increase to cover inflation too. I can build wealth 30% faster than everyone around me. Anyone can do it, which makes it fair. Don't blame me cause people don't use the system to their advantage. Blame stupidity, and laziness towards learning how the economy works.
Your claim is no different than saying someone has an unfair advantage at blackjack because they can count cards.