Drug cartels have plagued South American countries for 50
years. We have failed to reduce supply in foreign countries and demand in the
US using half-measures. The treatment and enforcement costs are high and the
border wall could tip the balance on this problem.
The problem for these countries is the extent to which the
drug cartels control everyone with bribes and violence. We need to squeeze the
cash from the cartels.
It may be that the drug cartels in South America will need
to be eradicated by the US military. We should not send cash to these
countries. It just goes to training their military and these guys join the drug
cartels after their training is complete.
Drugs are embedded into the economies of these countries
and many small, poor farmers grow coca, process it and sell it to the drug
cartels for cash. We have the same problem with the opium yielding poppy crop
in Afghanistan used to produce heroine.
The
coca plant is grown as a cash crop in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, even in areas where its cultivation is unlawful. There
are some reports that the plant is being cultivated in the south of Mexico as a cash crop and an alternative
to smuggling its recreational
product cocaine. It also plays a
role in many traditional Andean cultures as well as the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (see Traditional uses).
Coca
is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The alkaloid content of
coca leaves is relatively low, between 0.25% and 0.77%. The native people
use it for a stimulant, like coffee, or an energy source or both. Coca-Cola used coca leaf
extract in its products from 1885 and until about 1903. Extraction of
cocaine from coca requires several solvents and a chemical process known as an
acid / base extraction, which can fairly easily extract the alkaloids from the
plant.
The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese
immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws in the early 1900s were directed at
black men in the South. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the
Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican
Americans. Today, Latino and especially black communities are still subject to
wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices.
In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful rebellion,
social upheaval, and political dissent, the government halted scientific
research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy.
In June 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs.” He
dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies,
and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants.
There
are two arguments being made. The first argument is that we should legalize
drugs and end the war on drugs, much as we did when we repealed “Prohibition”
of alcohol in 1933. Avoiding alcoholism became a family responsibility and was
no longer a “law enforcement problem”. There are problems with this because we
would need to forget about having insurance pay for rehab and eliminate welfare
to make addicts completely responsible for their actions to suffer the
consequences of those actions. Addicts would be banished by their families and
become homeless. They would be on their own until they made the decision to get
“clean”. Cities would need to increase enforcement of vagrancy laws to chase
the homeless hoards off the streets and out of city parks. We could see a
return to “hobo camps” next to railroad tracks and in government parks. It
would fall back to the Salvation Army and the homeless shelters to keep these
addicts.
The
second argument is that we should continue to criminalize drugs and discourage
drug addiction by reducing the supply of drugs and imposing penalties for drug
use. Drug testing should be required to receive any government benefits and
subsidies and will continue to be an option for employers. Addicts who are
convicted for drug possession should be sent to rehab prisons and put to work
to support these prisons.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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