Thread: The Battle For Arizona: Will a Border Crackdown Work? - TiME

Time's emphasis on issues usually is liberal.

Monday, Jun. 14, 2010
The Battle For Arizona
By Nathan Thornburgh / Douglas

The trackers mustered at Tex Canyon Road, 20 miles north of the Mexican border, on the afternoon of March 27. There were border-patrol agents, six search-and-rescue units from the Cochise County sheriff's department and dogs trained to track escaped inmates from nearby Douglas State Prison. Several ranchers were also there, many of them descendants of the Germans and Irish who came to the San Bernardino Valley a hundred years or more ago. Back then, the ranchers settled here in part to feed the U.S. troops stationed at the border. One military mission in those days: prevent the chaos of the Mexican Revolution from spilling into the Territory of Arizona. Now another period of powerful unrest in Mexico had brought a different kind of war to the valley, and the ranchers were mindful that the violence might have claimed one of their own, a man named Rob Krentz.

When Krentz's daughter Kyle heard that her father was missing, her first thought was, How do you lose a guy that big? Krentz, 58, was a bear of a man--when he played football in high school, his nickname was Captain Crunch--but throughout southeastern Arizona, those who knew Krentz say his heart was the biggest thing about him.

The trackers couldn't find Krentz before nightfall, so they waited for a border-patrol helicopter, which spotted his ATV 10 miles from his house just before midnight. It was hidden in the trough of a swale, its running lights still on. The helicopter's thermal imager showed the heat signature of his slain dog, according to a relative of Krentz's. Beside the dog was Krentz himself, his body too cold, dead too long to register a thermal reading. (See TIME's photo-essay "Murder By the Border.")

News of Krentz's murder spread quickly through the valley and then to the rest of the country. In an era supposedly defined by outrage at Big Government, the questions of what to do about the border and the estimated 12 million undocumented workers who are living in the U.S. during a recession have inverted the usual political equations. Conservatives are clamoring for federal troops and for police to be granted broad new powers that many officers didn't even ask for. President Obama irritated many in his party by planning to send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border (although, as under President George W. Bush, the troops would neither be armed nor authorized to detain suspected illegals). Arizona, long trampled by the millions passing through to the north, has become a laboratory for competing impulses, pitting security against civil liberties with an abandon that surprises much of the rest of the country. And even though SB1070, Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigrants, was introduced long before Krentz's killing, he has become the face of the issue. There was once talk of naming SB1070--which requires local and state police to ask for immigration papers from anyone suspected of being in the country illegally — the Rob Krentz law. When a Pinal County sheriff's deputy was wounded by suspected drug smugglers on April 27, Krentz's murder was invoked: This is now a trend. We need action. (See pictures of immigration detention in Arizona.)

It's easy to forget, then, that before Krentz's murder was a political talking point, it was a personal tragedy. Standing in front of the Krentzes' ranch home on a weekday in April, his widow Sue offered bottles of Coors Light and cranked up the car radio to listen to the song they played at his wake: "Standing Deer's Lament" by Brenn Hill. If you want to know Rob, she told me, then listen to the words of that song: "If he believed in hatred, we would not be friends ... Mi compadre, buenas noches. Good night, my old friend." She started to weep and then stopped herself. "Rob wouldn't want me to be a wimp," she said, "even though I feel like setting my hair on fire."

She said she hopes her husband's death will get people to support two things: the Ronald McDonald House ("They only charge $15 a night if you have nowhere else to go. It's wonderful") and the Arizona Cattle Growers' Association's 18-point border-security plan, which calls for more troops, better equipment and tougher laws to punish those caught crossing illegally. SB1070 isn't the first law Krentz and the cattle growers would have chosen to support, but their general consensus is that it's better than nothing.

It is still unclear, however, who killed Krentz. The trackers followed a set of footprints south, toward the border, but on May 3, the Arizona Daily Star reported that "high-ranking government officials" said the killing was "not random" and authorities were focusing on a suspect who, whatever his nationality, was in the U.S., not Mexico. A top state law-enforcement official likewise told me, "Don't assume the killer went into Mexico."

See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.

See pictures of the fence between the United States and Mexico.

Regardless of who killed Krentz, two things seem quite clear. First, if we are at war with the flood of drug smugglers and human traffic coming across the borderlands, then we are not winning that war. And that's Washington's fault, not Arizona's. Second, SB1070 will do little to solve the problem at the border. Indeed, it may only make the problem worse.

On the Borderline

An April 22 meeting between the border patrol and residents of Rodeo, N.M., a small ranching town at the northern end of the San Bernardino Valley, was unusually testy. A local rancher pulled me aside by a folding table with cookies and juice on it to say his house had been broken into 18 times; he didn't want to give his name because of fear of reprisal from the Mexican cartels. Krentz's sister Susan and brother-in-law Louie Pope were in attendance. Pope later stood up and told the crowd, "This is our last stand. If we lose this time, then God help us." (See pictures of Mexico's drug tunnels.)

The most common complaint of the evening was that the border patrol doesn't actually patrol the border. They let migrants and smugglers advance as far north as Rodeo, which is 60 miles north of Mexico, before apprehending them. "If you were running a ranch like this, chasing the cattle but not minding the broken fence, you'd never get anywhere," said a rancher.

Terry Kranz, the agent in charge of the Lordsburg, N.M., border-patrol sector, told the crowd that he lacks the manpower to do anything but concentrate on certain "choke points" in the interior. "It would take 1,040 agents to post people all along the 81 miles of Lordsburg sector's border. We have 250," he said.

The border's increased militarization (the border patrol has doubled since 2001, to 20,000 agents; there are now more than 600 miles of border fence and wall) has actually hurt the San Bernardino Valley. That border problem said to be solved in San Diego and El Paso? It moved here, to remote ranchlands where even the plant names — catclaw, saltbush, snakeweed — sound forbidding. So even as overall arrests in the Tucson sector were down 24% last year because of beefed-up enforcement and fewer people heading there for jobs in a recession, Kranz told the ranchers that their valley was a hot spot, "a seam that has been ignored for too long." Locals say it's not just cut fences and broken waterlines, although Krentz once testified that such vandalism had cost him some $8 million over a five-year period. It's also car theft, home invasion and now, perhaps, murder. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)

The biggest problem for the ranchers and border patrol isn't the valleys. It's the mountains. The Chiricahua and Peloncillo ranges, a series of rounded volcanic peaks, some nearly 10,000 ft. high, have hosted outlaws and rebels since the days of Geronimo and Cochise. These days, in border-patrol-speak, the U.S. does not have "operational control" of the ranges. That control belongs to the smugglers and drug cartels, whose scouts camp out on the peaks, sometimes for weeks at a time, and observe the movement of the border patrol in the valleys below. Until the border patrol receives some combat-grade helicopters that can drop agents into the mountains, Kranz told the Rodeo group, the cartels "own the mountaintops. They know where we're going before we do."

Cracking Down on the Cartels

Just a few hours before governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law — a move that put Arizona in headlines around the world and unleashed criticism from figures from President Obama ("misguided") to Shakira ("inhuman") — Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic Congresswoman for southern Arizona, announced a potentially important bill that got absolutely no attention at all. Part of the problem may be the bill's title: the Stored-Value Device Registration and Reporting Act of 2010 is its short name. Co-sponsored by Republican Representative Brian Bilbray of California, it would regulate stored-value devices, which include certain types of smart cards and even cell phones that can receive and hold electronic funds. The devices are a favored money-laundering tool of the drug cartels, and cracking down on them could impede smugglers' ability to buy weapons and create havoc in Arizona.

Terry Goddard, Arizona's attorney general and the leading Democrat running for governor, told me that Gifford's bill is the type of law "that produces a result, that pushes back against crime on the Mexican border." SB1070, he said, "doesn't do that at all." By requiring state and local police to consider Arizona's estimated 460,000 undocumented residents as active suspects, said Goddard, SB1070 distracts police from focusing on real criminals and pushes workers further into the shadows, and therefore "actually makes the cartels stronger."

Goddard, a trim man whose father was governor of Arizona in the 1960s, has engaged in a long and somewhat wonky war against the cartels since he became attorney general in 2003. Before setting his sights on stored-value devices, he went after Western Union to stop the type of one-time payments made to human traffickers. Before that, he targeted the used-car dealerships that supplied vehicles for border runs. "We need to do this the same way we went after the Mafia," he said.

The Arizona legislature, with the persistent agitation of state senator Russell Pearce, whose police-officer son was shot and wounded by an illegal immigrant, has been ratcheting up legal pressure on undocumented residents for years. Pearce pressed for and won the Protect Arizona Now ballot initiative in 2004, which required proof of citizenship or legal residence from anyone registering to vote or applying to receive public benefits. In 2006 and 2008, the house passed variants of SB1070, bills that tasked local and state officials with responding to the immigration crisis, but then governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed both. Brewer, who was appointed governor after Napolitano was made head of the Department of Homeland Security, decided to sign SB1070 only after careful thought and prayer. (See pictures of crime in Middle America.)

It must have helped that the measure was broadly popular. While other border governors, including Texas Republican Rick Perry, have raised concerns about SB1070, Arizona politics seems to encourage a race to the right on immigration. That's partly due to the ineffectiveness of the Hispanic voting bloc in the state. Latinos make up nearly 30% of the population but only 12% of voters. The two most heavily Hispanic districts in the state, said Goddard, have among the lowest voter turnout of any districts in the country. Daniel Ortega, a Phoenix lawyer who heads the board of directors of the National Council of La Raza, said the Latino community does "have to take some personal responsibility for this." But, he added, "this is a creation of Republican politics."

At a $16-a-plate lasagna fundraiser held by the Arizona Federation of Republican Women at the Briarwood Country Club outside Phoenix, GOP candidates for this November's gubernatorial election lined up to explain how they would crack down. Brian Munger said his problem with Brewer was that she took too long to sign SB1070. "She should have signed it weeks ago," he said. "Frankly, she lacks leadership." In the days after she signed the bill, however, Brewer saw her poll numbers rise among Republican voters.

The true star of the lunch was former Congressman and current radio talk-show host J.D. Hayworth, who is presenting a staunch conservative challenge to Senator John McCain's re-election bid. A former sportscaster with a lustrous tan and sternly knitted brow, he has come within striking distance of McCain largely on the strength of his harder-than-thou approach to immigration: get rid of all illegals, and don't even bring in guest workers until the border is 100% secured. "This is not a political problem to be managed," he told me. "It's a huge invasion that has to be stopped." Hayworth implied that the loose border could lead to another 9/11-style attack. As for the nonterrorist illegals, they are leaching off social services, he says, but if you start arresting a few, the rest will simply self-deport. (See pictures of Culiacán, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.)

The latest polling shows McCain with a 12-point lead over Hayworth, but McCain is clearly unnerved by the attacks coming from his right. The Senator, who had once backed comprehensive immigration reform with Ted Kennedy (a name Hayworth is fond of bringing up on the stump), came out late in support of SB1070. McCain also proposed a tough border-security plan in April — 3,000 more National Guard troops on the border, 700 miles of border fence — that Hayworth mocked as the "J. D. Hayworth Impersonation Act."

The state's law-enforcement community is split on SB1070. The Arizona Police Association is for it; the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police is not. That division was on display at the annual Border Security Expo in downtown Phoenix, where private contractors hawked items like nightscopes ("Dominate the darkness") and armored ATVs with names like Threatstalker and Prowler. Despite the machismo in the exhibition hall, the opening speaker, former ambassador to Mexico Jim Jones, essentially called for amnesty. David Aguilar, the No. 2 official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, didn't take sides on SB1070, but he did argue that many border communities have remained safe despite the violence in Mexico. He called for a "holistic" approach to the border that would include a lot of help for our southern neighbor. Later at the expo, Sahuarita police chief John Harris, head of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, said that beyond "manpower and budget issues," he worried about how cops around the state would keep the trust of the Hispanic community.

See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.

See pictures of a high seas boarder patrol.

That damage may already have been done. "Do I need to dye my hair blond?" asked Erica Villa, a receptionist at the Grace United Methodist Church in the border town of Douglas, with a touch of bitterness. "I'm an American citizen. My ancestors were Cochise Indians. I have as much right to be here as anyone."

The future of SB1070 is very much in doubt. The city councils of Tucson, Flagstaff and San Luis have already decided to sue the state to stop it. Critics say the law violates the 14th Amendment's injunction against states' setting immigration policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court could be asked to decide if that's the case. If the law — due to take effect at the end of July — survives, police departments will almost certainly be sued by conservatives for impeding the arrest of illegals (the law allows for that) and by civil rights groups for racial profiling. The courts will ultimately have to decide the correct balance. (See TIME's photo-essay "The Siege of Ciudad Juérez.")

Regardless of SB1070's legal destiny, the fact remains that 71% of Arizona voters support the law, and according to a Rasmussen poll, 54% of American voters would support something similar in their state. In 2009, 1,500 bills related to immigration were introduced in state legislatures around the country. And even though the number of border crossers has fallen, voter anger seems to be rising.

Sorting Dishwasher from Doper

Washington is, of course, to blame. Not because the feds haven't put enough resources on the border: a completely militarized, impenetrable 2,000-mile border with our largest trading partner is a fantasy, and the steps taken in that direction have already cost billions and produced only incremental results. No, the problem is that too many politicians seem unwilling or unable to distinguish between hardened criminals and undocumented workers. The McCain of a few years ago had the right approach: emphasize the interior. Get those workers who are here and have been contributing out of the shadows so they don't have to pay smugglers, some of whom are connected to the drug cartels, to cross the border every time they want to visit their mom in Mexico. Once those 12 million or so are legal, then seriously enforce worker verification so that additional laborers are not tempted to cross the desert for jobs. Then you can turn to the border, where you'll find only criminals and narcos coming across; they won't be lost in the flood of commuting day laborers. The border patrol is armed and itching to take them on.

Back in the San Bernardino Valley, third-generation rancher Bill Miller showed off a new addition to his ranch — a mobile surveillance system he encouraged the border patrol to put on his property. Hitched to the back of an extended-cab pickup truck was a telescoping radar-and-camera system that retails for somewhere near $500,000. Inside the truck, which had blacked-out windows, was a border-patrol agent scanning the valley on dual monitors. The agent chatted gamely as he showed off the gear. It can combine or toggle between thermal imaging and video and zoom in on half the valley, almost to the Krentz ranch, with precision. He was excited about the evening: with a waxing moon and cloudless sky, he said, "it'll be jumping."

He then explained the fine art of discerning, on his two monitors, the dishwashers from the dopers — that is, how to figure out which are the laborers headed to some job in Chicago and which are the armed coyotes leading the dishwashers or, worse, narcotraffickers. It's all in the gait, he said. The dopers and coyotes walk straight and sure, while the dishwashers are wobbly and uncertain.

Why, I asked, did he need to know which kind they were?

"Because," he said, "you go after the real bad guys first."

That sounds sensible.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 72,00.html

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Just a few hours before governor Jan Brewer signed SB1070 into law — a move that put Arizona in headlines around the world and unleashed criticism from figures from President Obama ("misguided") to Shakira ("inhuman") — Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic Congresswoman for southern Arizona, announced a potentially important bill that got absolutely no attention at all. Part of the problem may be the bill's title: the Stored-Value Device Registration and Reporting Act of 2010 is its short name. Co-sponsored by Republican Representative Brian Bilbray of California, it would regulate stored-value devices, which include certain types of smart cards and even cell phones that can receive and hold electronic funds. The devices are a favored money-laundering tool of the drug cartels, and cracking down on them could impede smugglers' ability to buy weapons and create havoc in Arizona.

Sigh! No, the reason the bill didn't get any attention is because in the fight to stop illegal immigration, we do not need the US government poking its nose into citizens rights to use a smart card or a cell phone to store electronic funds and use them to make purchases. More and more Americans are sick of their banks, so technology and market demand is creating alternatives, which we want to encourage not discourage.

And if anyone thinks invading further the privacy of Americans is the way to beat drug cartels who have ruling the roost around here since we criminalized the recreational drug trade then they must think again. Besides, the biggest money-launderer in the US is Citibank, not foreign drug cartels.

If we legalize/regulate/tax under the FairTax the recreational drug trade and require as matter of civil law that it be owned and operated top to bottom A to Z by licensed US citizens, you won't have to pass any other law to deal with foreign or domestic drug cartels. They are put out of business overnight, their money dried up like a prune, and their asses in a soup line somewhere in some third world crap hole where they belong. With no new money supply coming in, their little sociopathic drug armies will kill them off and good riddance to all and to all a "good night".

A growing number of Americans want to see an end to the failed and futile War on Drugs that does nothing but arrest US citizens, ruin their lives, cost US a bunch of money for nothing, while the foreign drug cartels rule 230 US citizens and suck out over $300 billion a year in illegal drug money through a black market underworld economy and provides the inducement to our corrupt politicians to keep the borders wide open and illegal aliens pouring in to steal US jobs by day and run and distribute illegal drugs by night, lining the pockets of its proponents from illegal activities 24/7/365.

But more than that want to see an end to illegal immigration without stomping on the rights, immunities and privileges of US citizens and peeping into their smart cards and cell phones under the false banner of "stopping money laundering or gun and drug smuggliing". if someone wanted to stop money laundering and gun and drug smuggling, they would have already wanted to legalize and regulate the illegal drug trade that breeds both.

Americans want their jobs back, they want their incomes reflated, they want their elections free and clear of illegal alien voters and proponent voters of illegal immigration. Americans want their neighborhoods and stores and schools and hospitals and streets and sidewalks free and empty of illegal aliens and all the ilk that goes with it.

All we need to do to stop this travesty and correct the damage going forward is secure the borders, enforce the law, stop public support of illegal aliens and stop giving automatic birthright citizenship to offspring of illegal aliens. And when they show up at an emergency room, then they're required to pay for the services they received like any other customer.

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

Back in the San Bernardino Valley, third-generation rancher Bill Miller showed off a new addition to his ranch — a mobile surveillance system he encouraged the border patrol to put on his property. Hitched to the back of an extended-cab pickup truck was a telescoping radar-and-camera system that retails for somewhere near $500,000. Inside the truck, which had blacked-out windows, was a border-patrol agent scanning the valley on dual monitors. The agent chatted gamely as he showed off the gear. It can combine or toggle between thermal imaging and video and zoom in on half the valley, almost to the Krentz ranch, with precision. He was excited about the evening: with a waxing moon and cloudless sky, he said, "it'll be jumping."

This sounds more sensible than the SBInet, which has wasted $ billions. I had thought portable observation towers with telescopes and night vision could work also. The smuggling trails seem to change and adapt to the latest barrier emplacement. So the enforcement patrols need a degree of mobility.

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

They would still be regulated by quality and quantity. But I'm okay with starting out with just legalizing weed. That would cut into about 60% of the foreign drug cartel business, then they'd still continue to control the cocaine, meth, crack and heroin trades, the most dangerous ones, the ones who need most to be US controlled. But I'm good with a graduated legalization.

Here's a link for more information about ending the War on Drugs, Law Enforocement Against Prohibition (LEAP) about it:

www.leap.cc

And an excellent video that gives some illuminating facts about our War on Drugs,it's about 10 minutes long and worth every minute:

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=28

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

You don't think weed makes people do stupd things ?

I just finished a driving course and learned Pot Smokers driving response is 5 to 6 times slower than sober people and some people become delusional on Pot so they do not see things correctly.

Personally I don't want anymore impaired drivers on the road then we already have.

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

You don't think weed makes people do stupd things ?

I just finished a driving course and learned Pot Smokers driving response is 5 to 6 times slower than sober people and some people become delusional on Pot so they do not see things correctly.

Personally I don't want anymore impaired drivers on the road then we already have.

How many accidents a year are caused by pot smokers? Did they give you the statistics of people charged while driving under the influence of marijuana? I've never heard of one, but then I've lived a sheltered life.



And it would still be illegal to drive a vehicle drug or alcohol impaired, so legalizing pot and even other drugs isn't going to change the safety of our roadways one iota. Did they also point out that pot smokers forget to put their foot on the accelerator? Yeah, they're the slow ones pulling off for another package of brownies.

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

You don't think weed makes people do stupd things ?

I just finished a driving course and learned Pot Smokers driving response is 5 to 6 times slower than sober people and some people become delusional on Pot so they do not see things correctly.

Personally I don't want anymore impaired drivers on the road then we already have.

How many accidents a year are caused by pot smokers? Did they give you the statistics of people charged while driving under the influence of marijuana? I've never heard of one, but then I've lived a sheltered life.



And it would still be illegal to drive a vehicle drug or alcohol impaired, so legalizing pot and even other drugs isn't going to change the safety of our roadways one iota. Did they also point out that pot smokers forget to put their foot on the accelerator? Yeah, they're the slow ones pulling off for another package of brownies.

As a matter of fact they did mention Pot drivers do drive slow but did not mention them pulling over to eat brownies.

Do you really think impaired pot smokers are not going to drive ? Another risk to weed smokers is: one joint equals 1 Pack of cigarettes in tar which coats the lungs.

Yes many people are arrested for driving under the infleunce of Pot.Here in FL. when they do roads stops and if they think you are drug impaired they make you give a urine sample.This practice is also used at check point stops,they have porta pottys set up to test urine.

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by USPatriot

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

You don't think weed makes people do stupd things ?

I just finished a driving course and learned Pot Smokers driving response is 5 to 6 times slower than sober people and some people become delusional on Pot so they do not see things correctly.

Personally I don't want anymore impaired drivers on the road then we already have.

How many accidents a year are caused by pot smokers? Did they give you the statistics of people charged while driving under the influence of marijuana? I've never heard of one, but then I've lived a sheltered life.



And it would still be illegal to drive a vehicle drug or alcohol impaired, so legalizing pot and even other drugs isn't going to change the safety of our roadways one iota. Did they also point out that pot smokers forget to put their foot on the accelerator? Yeah, they're the slow ones pulling off for another package of brownies.

As a matter of fact they did mention Pot drivers do drive slow but did not mention them pulling over to eat brownies.

Do you really think impaired pot smokers are not going to drive ? Another risk to weed smokers is: one joint equals 1 Pack of cigarettes in tar which coats the lungs.

Yes many people are arrested for driving under the infleunce of Pot.Here in FL. when they do roads stops and if they think you are drug impaired they make you give a urine sample.This practice is also used at check point stops,they have porta pottys set up to test urine.

Do the Latinos know about these porta pottys? If they don't like having to show a driver's license to police when they're in Arizona, then why don't they mind having to drop their drawers and pee for the police when they're in Florida?

I don't smoke pot or use drugs, but I will never visit a state that wants me or anyone else to drop my drawers and pee for police to be on their roadways. I'll either vacation in Arizona or stay home and watch Fox News.

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by marquis

i don't think all drugs should be made legal ... weed OK .. but everything else , no way ... drugs can make people do really stupid things , and sometimes those things get innocent people killed ....

we shouldn't have to change our laws for the crimnals ..

They would still be regulated by quality and quantity. But I'm okay with starting out with just legalizing weed. That would cut into about 60% of the foreign drug cartel business, then they'd still continue to control the cocaine, meth, crack and heroin trades, the most dangerous ones, the ones who need most to be US controlled. But I'm good with a graduated legalization.

Here's a link for more information about ending the War on Drugs, Law Enforocement Against Prohibition (LEAP) about it:

www.leap.cc

And an excellent video that gives some illuminating facts about our War on Drugs,it's about 10 minutes long and worth every minute:

http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Content&pid=28

Judy, I agree 100 percent on legalizing MMJ.

I also agree that it should not be imported EVER.