Ending the War on Drugs would dry-up funding for the cartels and, thus, curb the gun-related carnage plaguing Mexico and all of Latin America (not to mention American gang bangers). Or is that a pipe dream (to to speak)? “Uruguay has opted for the ‘regulated and controlled legalization’ of marijuana in the South American country as a crime-fighting measure and pledged to lobby against the current global drug-war strategy in international forums,” laht.com reports. “The minister referred to the ‘dramatic situation’ triggered by drug trafficking in ‘other Latin American countries such as Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Brazil, and now it’s starting in Ecuador. We don’t want the same thing to happen to us in Uruguay,’ defense minister [Fernandez Huidobr] said. The administration of President Jose Mujica . . . will ‘fight (in) all the international forums’ for the legalization of marijuana.” I wonder how the U.S. rep will react.
When weed is legal only illegals will have weed
Problem with Paraguay’s law is the government will grow and distribute the pot with a limit on how many joints each person can buy per month. In other words all the makings (pun intended) for a continued illegal black-market. A more free enterprise solution with perhaps government regulation and taxing might do more to stop the gangs involvement in drugs. Also only applies to Paraguayan citizens, not export market.
Anything the Federal Govt declares war on thrives. Drugs, alcohol, cost of education, medical costs, etc. Legalization and education is the best path to lower use and abuse of currently controlled substances. I see no problem with Charlie Sheen, having money, time and will to do so, from snorting whatever he would like, off of whoever he would like. Legalize and the prices and crime associated with illegal activity will drop.
Right, cause those cartels will juat line right up to pay business taxes, deal with import regulations, getting the FDA approval on their product, etc.
They won’t have a choice. They only have power because currently there’s no one else to go to if you want drugs (at least on that scale). If it’s legalized, they’ll have so much competition that they’ll have to play nice since they’ll have governments going after them for criminal activity while their competition legally takes their market share.
the US gubbermint will react with the same bone-headed answers that they have for the past 30 years with the same old tired “war on drugs” line that haz made most of the top elites rich from the profits.
Those profits come from drug-sale-kick-backs from their cartel masters as well as all the gubbermint contracts they help sell or lobby to “fight the good fight” against the mean ole druggies.
TPTB in the USA federal gubbermint are the worst enablers on the planet when it comes to “illegal drugs” because they have always played both sides against the middle to maximize their profit margines.
You know, seeing how every time they declare a “war” on something, we see it grow (war on medicaid costs caused them to go up, war on drugs caused drug dealers to gain more power, war on education costs increased the cost of education, etc), I really would like the government to declare a “war on jobs” and a “war on wages” – then we can see a rapid increase in pay and a rapid decrease in unemployment!
They have declared war on wages & jobs. The Federal minimum wage was $4.25/Hr when I got my first hourly job now it is $7.25/Hr & has caused inflation. When I got my first job you could still get a Burger King Whopper for $1.00. Now you can’t even get a Whopper Jr for $1.00. Notice the lack of jobs that is the result of the war on jobs. It comes from several fronts raising the minimum wage, & making other changes so that companies send jobs overseas to save money.
Its just not the elites who have been getting rich, plenty of police officers, judges and attorneys make their living off the drug war.
As always anything the g-ment throws money at , you get more for your money, seems as all these wars on problems are not covered in the constitution, and as Ron Paul says all we get for UN constitutional wars are blow back, more war, sounds just like the book 1984 by George Orwell, We need we get the US out of the UN and the UN , ONE WORLD out of America. We need to take America back. And make America First… Why will we not learn from history ??????????
Just a reminder but the US was the reason the UN was founded.
And the reason we won’t learn from history is because there are always people like you, enablers, a Marine, who are more than willing to follow orders, and act as the right hand of the politicians.
It’s the right time, but the wrong place. Uruguay is just a pit stop on the Hemp Highway. The terminus is right here, and the US is the country that needs to change its laws.
It’s not going to happen, though, since too many pigs are feeding at the illegal drug trough.
+1 sir. I’m super excited about this, but there’s two problems: 1) The government is running the show. I would prefer something similar to a liquor store. If you have a head shop for all your accessories, I say let them sell the product as well. 2) It’s Uruguay. What tiny percentage of the stuff comes from Uruguay? However, it is encouraging that someone outside of the Netherlands has finally figured out how to defeat the cartels. Not with guns, but by robbing them blind (in a good way).
… I’ve always felt that governments should legalize a private/personal market place for Marijuana rather than a commercial or strictly controlled government market. Well,. not even a market place, really. My thought is to take as much money out of the equation as possible. A g’vt tax stamp for each plant grown in a 2 or 3 year period. You are your market place. As long as the tax is reasonable,.. and remains so. Also, I’d like to dream that at least half of that tax would go to programs for alcohol, hard drug, prescription drug, and gambling addiction.
Organized crime (and the murders there-of) dropped like 95+% after prohibition was lifted because there was no more black market for their primary product, alcohol. The same will happen with any other previously outlawed material.
Eliotte, how much black market booze is there in the United States? Virtually none despite the taxes and regulations. Few are interested in dubious quality “moonshine.”
This. When US soldiers start questioning the constitutionality of the orders they are given, the old motto “Ours is not to question why, ours is to do or die” will continue to be SOP.
This. Until US soldiers start questioning the constitutionality of the orders they are given, the old motto “Ours is not to question why, ours is to do or die” will continue to be SOP