Thread: Latin American leaders assail U.S. drug ‘market’

"At a regional summit this month in Mexico, attended by the leaders of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries, officials declared that “the authorities in consumer countries should explore all possible alternatives to eliminate exorbitant profits of criminals, including regulatory or market options.”

Here is a suggestion, SECURE THE BORDER! Build the fence and put enough troops and law enforcement personell guarding it to do the job. Problem solved. No drugs would get through into the US and no guns would leave.

Here is a suggestion, SECURE THE BORDER! Build the fence and put enough troops and law enforcement personell guarding it to do the job. Problem solved. No drugs would get through into the US and no guns would leave.

I agree with the sentiment, but I do not believe it will solve the problem. As long as there is a market, there will be a product and a seller. Cutting off the supply will have a short term impact, but the drug prices will rise correspondingly, and imaginative and innovative criminals will find a way to get their product to market to exploit the increased value. This includes higher bribes to public officials. Heck, the cartels will probably start their own PAC.

Drug smuggling is a symptom, not a cause. . The cause is drug usage. Kill the usage and you kill the market. Kill the market, and the profitability disappears, and so will most of the problem.

As noted in the article, many South American nations are fed up with the lack of will on the part of the US to discourage and minimize/eliminate drug usage. They should be. Our "war on drugs" has been as ineffective as the "war on poverty" and "no child left behind". Catchy phrases, useless programs. Tons of money wasted, though.

If we are serious about fixing the drug problems in this country, then we have to be serious about eliminating usage. The military brought drug usage under control in the seventies and eighties using random drug testing, to which all officers and enlisted personnel were subject. I would suggest the same could work in a civilian environment. For example, all public service workers (including elected officials), all public school students, all defense contractor personnel (and their sub-contractors), and all public college/university personnel (including faculty and students) could be made subject to random testing.

Emphasis here is on those directly receiving taxpayer money in one form or another, which means we the taxpayers can impose conditions. Don't wish to comply, then you do not get the money or, you don't get admitted/employed/retained.

Would this work? Don't know, but it would be more effective than showing lame ads saying drugs are bad, and then showing Cheech and Chong movie marathons.