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Hit the drug cartels by legalizing pot

Let’s just legalize marijuana.

Let’s do it for the sake of Mexico, where 35,000 people have died in drug cartel violence since 2006.

Let’s do it for the sake of the United States, where rising Mexican drug violence is being used as an excuse to delay comprehensive immigration reform in the name of “securing the border” first. How do you “secure” a border against a product that Americans want so badly they think nothing of breaking the law to get it? A product so popular it earns the cartels tens of billions a year?

Let’s do it for the sake of really hitting the cartels where it hurts – in the wallet.

Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda told Dan Rather:

“Legalization of drugs doesn't seem to me to be a terribly radical proposal,” he said, pointing out that more than a dozen states already allow the use of medical marijuana, and that California voters came close to legalizing the drug for recreational use.

"So why in the world would American presidents declare war on drugs in Chicago or Los Angeles or New York or Birmingham or anywhere else? They don't want to. What's incomprehensible to me is why [Mexico] should do it if Americans don't want to.”

Making pot legal, Castañeda says, would kneecap the cartels, which make their profit from the very illegality of the drug they are selling. Drug users are willing to pay a premium for what they can't easily get; Making pot legal would drop prices and put traffickers out of business. Not only that, says Castañeda, but an above-board marijuana trade would employ thousands of workers, and allow the Mexican government to collect much-needed tax revenues.

www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/mexican-standoff_b_842552.html

“…hurt criminal organizations that have grown richer, more powerful and better armed during the so-called war on drugs that was first declared by President Richard Nixon.

Today's Mexican cartels “are as ruthless and brutal as any terrorist organization,” says Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is opposed to legalizing marijuana.

Their brutality is destabilizing Mexico. Several years after Mexican President Felipe Calderon bravely decided to take on the cartels, Mexico ranks with Pakistan as “weak and failing states” in a recent report by the United States Joint Forces Command. Why? Because Mexico's “government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels,” the report says.

Things have gotten worse in Mexico since that report came out. And pot is no less popular in the United States.

The continuing war on drugs continues to destabilize a nation with which we share a long land border – a border we have been unable to secure despite years of attempts and billions of tax dollars being expended.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox also favors legalization. He told Time magazine in January:

“Prohibition didn't work in the Garden of Eden. Adam ate the apple,” says Fox, 68, looking relaxed in a polo shirt — in contrast to his stressful last days in office. “We have to take all the production chain out of the hands of criminals and into the hands of producers — so there are farmers that produce marijuana and manufacturers that process it and distributors that distribute it and shops that sell it ... I don't want to say that legalizing means that drugs are good. They are not good but bad for your health, and you shouldn't take them. But ultimately, this responsibility is with citizens.”

www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2040882,00.html

Democrats ought to understand that taxing legal marijuana sales could bring in big bucks to cash-strapped governments in the United States -- from federal to local levels.

And creating a new, legal industry in Mexico might ease illegal immigration. It makes more sense than continuing to build fences to keep out workers who would be glad to stay home if there were profitable work to do in Mexico.

What’s more, “securing the border” has made smuggling people across the border so profitable that the drug cartels now have their ugly hand in that criminal enterprise, too.

The danger posed by the cartels is escalating. How long can U.S. law enforcement and judicial officers resist the corrosive effect of cartel bribes?

So let’s try something different.

Let’s legalize marijuana and "kneecap" the cartels.