Pubdate: Tue, 08 May 2012
Source: Pocono Record, The (Stroudsburg, PA)
Copyright: 2012 Pocono Mountains Media Group
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/PEKmDRjJ
Website: http://www.poconorecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4529

A FEARSOME, LOSING BATTLE: DRUGS

May 08, 2012 According to the most recent homicide figures published
by the Mexican government, 47,515 people were killed in
narcotics-related violence in Mexico between December 1, 2006 and
September 30, 2011, with 12,903 narcotics-related homicides in the
first nine months of 2011 alone.

 From a U.S. Department of State travel advisory

There can be few more graphic illustrations of the failure of the "war
on drugs" than the 14 headless bodies found May 4 in a vehicle on a
main street of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, the heads elsewhere. That grisly
discovery came shortly after someone strung up nine other bodies from
a bridge in the same border town.

Illegal drugs are worth a lot of money. The trade is so lucrative that
people will not only kill to protect their turf, they'll do so
brutally, creatively, shockingly. Drug-related killings in Mexico have
become so widespread that Americans are warned about traveling there.
All this because Mexican and international drug cartels make so much
money providing U.S. customers with illegal drugs.

Sudden and fierce violence occurred during the U.S.'s Prohibition
period, too. The hard-core drinkers kept boozing and weekend revelers
wanted alcohol to fuel their parties. The profit motive drove gangs,
whose guns reaped a grim harvest.

Gangs and random, often drug-related violence continues to plague the
United States as the temptation of "easy" money attracts adherents to
the drug trade all the way from low-level couriers up to the fearsome
barons who direct operations. Gunfire often erupts, and firepower is a
hidden factor in every transaction, at every level.

Of course legalizing drugs is no panacea to a complicated problem.
Recreational drug use can bring tragedy, just as alcohol abuse can.
Drug addiction is ugly, too - personally destructive and highly
expensive. Still, would it be worse for society to address the needs
of addicts than it is to pay for the ongoing and often corrupt battle
against drug runners, criminals who seem to be winning?

This is an issue that bears thorough discussion. How big a massacre
will it take to convince people that what we are doing now is not working? 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D