This kind of story leaves me feeling a bit despondent to be honest. Since 2006 around 47500 people have been killed in Mexico in connection with the drug trade. It's difficult for me to fathom that number.
What are your thoughts on this? What can be done? Anybody from Mexico on these forums?
Until / if ever the US legalizes drugs this will keep happening.
Presidential candidate 1: I want to legalize drugs to end the illegal drug trade.
Presidential candidate 2: He's pro drugs.
Winner = Presidential Candidate 2.
As long as politicians care only about power and winning, tough decisions will never be made. Between this news and my recent viewing of Inside Job I have little hope for our long term future. It's troubling.
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QUOTE (OnePiece @ Tuesday, May 15 2012, 09:45)
Until / if ever the US legalizes drugs this will keep happening.
Will have precisely no effect. The cartels are business entities, they'll just switch to a new business model. Human trafficking, shipping narcotics elsewhere, financial crime, weapons dealing, extortion and protection, shipping and dumping hazardous waste, car theft and ringing, large-scale robbery, medical pharmaceuticals, the sex trade...in fact they gave already branched out into most of these.
No criminal organisation worth their salt bases their entire business model on one market.
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QUOTE (sivispacem @ Tuesday, May 15 2012, 19:11)
QUOTE (OnePiece @ Tuesday, May 15 2012, 09:45)
Until / if ever the US legalizes drugs this will keep happening.
Will have precisely no effect. The cartels are business entities, they'll just switch to a new business model. Human trafficking, shipping narcotics elsewhere, financial crime, weapons dealing, extortion and protection, shipping and dumping hazardous waste, car theft and ringing, large-scale robbery, medical pharmaceuticals, the sex trade...in fact they gave already branched out into most of these.
No criminal organisation worth their salt bases their entire business model on one market.
True but far and away they make their most money from drugs. what happened to the mafia empires in Chicago once prohibition ended?
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QUOTE (OnePiece @ Tuesday, May 15 2012, 10:13)
True but far and away they make their most money from drugs. what happened to the mafia empires in Chicago once prohibition ended?
They shrank and diversified. It was the decades of internal strife and conflict with the police which destroyed the last real vestiges of them. A better comparison would be with someone like FARC who have diversified from the drug trade to fuel terrorism into kidnapping, extortion and human trafficking. And like with the cartels, a military response has been difficult because of the level of corruption and collusion between the organisation and law enforcement.
The cartels are business entities, they'll just switch to a new business model. Human trafficking, shipping narcotics elsewhere, financial crime, weapons dealing, extortion and protection, shipping and dumping hazardous waste, car theft and ringing, large-scale robbery, medical pharmaceuticals, the sex trade...in fact they gave already branched out into most of these.
This post has been edited by Seddo on Thursday, May 17 2012, 17:30
Legalizing drugs would have a tremendous effect on the cartels, prohibition created the entire gangster subculture in the first place. People act like if you legalize these things all of a sudden everyone's going to go bat sh*t crazy and go out and do them. If meth is legal tomorrow the majority of people still wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. The legalization of marijuana could provide a completely new industry for the economy, it could be our largest export. If this mess continues in Mexico I predict American military intervention, the Mexican military and police obviously can't handle the situation and it's already starting to bleed over across the border. Does anyone else feel like its under reported though? I'm also surprise there hasn't been a movie made about it, it's been going on for half a decade.
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QUOTE (EscoLehGo @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 18:07)
Legalizing drugs would have a tremendous effect on the cartels, prohibition created the entire gangster subculture in the first place. People act like if you legalize these things all of a sudden everyone's going to go bat sh*t crazy and go out and do them. If meth is legal tomorrow the majority of people still wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. The legalization of marijuana could provide a completely new industry for the economy, it could be our largest export. If this mess continues in Mexico I predict American military intervention, the Mexican military and police obviously can't handle the situation and it's already starting to bleed over across the border. Does anyone else feel like its under reported though? I'm also surprise there hasn't been a movie made about it, it's been going on for half a decade.
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As long as it's happening on the south side of the border, the US government couldn't give a sh*t. We're more concerned with one poor immigrant crossing the border, than a 1000 deaths on the other side.
This post has been edited by darthYENIK on Thursday, May 17 2012, 17:53
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QUOTE (EscoLehGo @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 18:20)
Yea but that doesn't change the fact that the violence would decrease dramatically, they'd still be around but not nearly in the same capacity.
I disagree. If anything, it would get worse as the cartels fought over diminishing traded. There's absolutely no evidence that decriminalisation would have any positive impact. Criminal organisations don't just decrease in capacity because their market shrinks- they fight for what market share still exists or to gain the upper hand in other forms of criminal activity. It's no different to internal strife of any other kind; they act like rebel groups do- accelerating programmes of violence to counteract a drop in support in other areas.
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QUOTE (EscoLehGo @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 17:07)
[...] Does anyone else feel like its under reported though? I'm also surprise there hasn't been a movie made about it, it's been going on for half a decade.
I don't know about that: Mexican Mafia (2008) NR Mexican Bloodbath (2005) NR Mexican Blow (2002) R Border: The Month of October (2008) NR
The Other Side of Immigration (2009) NR Border Incident (1949) NR Border Wars (2010) TV-PG Bordertown (2006) R Border Cop (1979) NR
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QUOTE (Sivispacem)
I disagree. If anything, it would get worse as the cartels fought over diminishing traded.
But drugs is a massive source of revenue for these cartels, that's why there is such intense competition and fighting. If you take away their main source of revenue and cut it by literally billions then you also take away a lot of their power, as well as the main reason for such intense fighting and violence. The violence would still be there to an extent, but at a much diminshed level.
I disagree. If anything, it would get worse as the cartels fought over diminishing traded.
But drugs is a massive source of revenue for these cartels, that's why there is such intense competition and fighting. If you take away their main source of revenue and cut it by literally billions then you also take away a lot of their power, as well as the main reason for such intense fighting and violence. The violence would still be there to an extent, but at a much diminshed level.
That's my theory as well, these people aren't killing each other over political ideologies or religion, it's ALL about money. Once you decrease that revenue the violence is bound to also decrease. Participation in these organizations would drop as well, right now being a soldier for the cartel is very lucrative, once the pay stop the soldiers go.
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Well, dealing drugs are their main source of profit. I imagine if they lost that, they would put more focus on other things... like kidnapping, extortion, ect.
Like GTA_stu said though, they would most likely lose power and influence if they didn't have drugs to sell.
Oh, and here you go...
This post has been edited by GTA-King on Thursday, May 17 2012, 19:10
I disagree. If anything, it would get worse as the cartels fought over diminishing traded.
If you take away their main source of revenue and cut it by literally billions then you also take away a lot of their power, as well as the main reason for such intense fighting and violence.
sivispacem hit the nail on the head here. Drugs are not the only way to obtain revenue for the cartel. They're top shot in the market; and as any company wanting to receive a large amount of income would do is to sell what most (if not, a lot) people want and in this case it's drugs.
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QUOTE (EscoLehGo @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 19:38)
QUOTE (GTA_stu @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 18:35)
QUOTE (Sivispacem)
I disagree. If anything, it would get worse as the cartels fought over diminishing traded.
But drugs is a massive source of revenue for these cartels, that's why there is such intense competition and fighting. If you take away their main source of revenue and cut it by literally billions then you also take away a lot of their power, as well as the main reason for such intense fighting and violence. The violence would still be there to an extent, but at a much diminshed level.
That's my theory as well, these people aren't killing each other over political ideologies or religion, it's ALL about money. Once you decrease that revenue the violence is bound to also decrease. Participation in these organizations would drop as well, right now being a soldier for the cartel is very lucrative, once the pay stop the soldiers go.
They've amassed vast financial reserves. As I've said before, they are run as businesses, not as typical criminal organisations. They've got more than enough clout to keep themselves tiding over for months and probably years whilst they re-purpose themselves towards, say, express kidnapping and extortion. It worked for FARC for a good two years after the Columbian military destroyed their distribution capability through targeted military action- they still perform kidnappings for ransom with a good degree of success. It worked for other Narcoguerrilla groups in Southern America too, like Shining Path. The only real distinctions between groups like FARC/Shining Path and the Cartels are political identity and the fact the Cartels already run lucrative side projects so don't need to spend anywhere near as much time, money or manpower re-purposing for other forms of organised crime.
QUOTE (PrivateFirstClass @ Thursday, May 17 2012, 20:15)
CIA should stop sending drugs and weapons
I was really hoping you'd given up posting in the GC section and gone back to being another V numpty, but never mind.
Surely, the law enforcement are completely incapable of dealing with the issue (regardless of resources) because of the extent of power these criminal groupings have.
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