Pictured is part of a recent 90 pound cocaine bust. Said to be the largest in Baltimore. Street value of $3 to $5 million.Did you know that Americans use more cocaine and another narcotics like ecstasy and heroin, than all other nations combined? Seriously. We also do the same for wine and other alcohol. Don't believe me? Go do the research yourself, I have. Field research! There is a reason the drug market is so powerful. All over the globe, they're eagerly producing stuff in hopes of shipping and selling it to the largest drug market in the world. Oh yes, wine is a drug too, it's just a legal one. When was the last time a wine dealer was shot dead? Get it? Have you fought in the drug war? I have. On the front lines! I once narrowly avoided ambush in Mexico (true story for another time).
LEGALIZATION IS A CONVERSATION THAT MUST BE HAD
Three years ago, the Mexican Congress passed a plan to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of cocaine and other drugs, but Vicente Fox, then the president, killed the bill after American officials raised an alarm. Mr. Calderón made a similar proposal last fall, albeit lowering the amounts still further, and this time American officials did not utter a peep.
Americans, including border state governors and military analysts in Washington, have begun to question whether the spillover violence presents a threat to their own national security, and, to the outrage of many Mexicans, whether the country itself will crumble under the strain of the war.
But violence has gone up, not down. Although Mexicans have largely backed Mr. Calderón’s efforts, the figure they seem most fixated on these days is the more than 6,200 drug-related killings in 2008, up more than 100 percent from 2007, and the more than 1,100 so far in 2009.
Mexicans, aghast at the rising body count, the mutilated corpses on their streets and the swagger of the drug chieftains, wonder if they are paying too high a price in pursuing organized crime groups that have operated for generations on their soil. “Sometimes, I think this is a war you can’t really win,” a Mexican soldier whispered to a reporter, out of earshot of his commander, during a recent drug patrol in Reynosa. “You do what you can, but there’s so many more of them than us.”
See the whole story at the brand new International Herald Tribune
Americans, including border state governors and military analysts in Washington, have begun to question whether the spillover violence presents a threat to their own national security, and, to the outrage of many Mexicans, whether the country itself will crumble under the strain of the war.
But violence has gone up, not down. Although Mexicans have largely backed Mr. Calderón’s efforts, the figure they seem most fixated on these days is the more than 6,200 drug-related killings in 2008, up more than 100 percent from 2007, and the more than 1,100 so far in 2009.
Mexicans, aghast at the rising body count, the mutilated corpses on their streets and the swagger of the drug chieftains, wonder if they are paying too high a price in pursuing organized crime groups that have operated for generations on their soil. “Sometimes, I think this is a war you can’t really win,” a Mexican soldier whispered to a reporter, out of earshot of his commander, during a recent drug patrol in Reynosa. “You do what you can, but there’s so many more of them than us.”
See the whole story at the brand new International Herald Tribune
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