Hiccup...
As pointed out, it would likely move the cartels into other lines of business.Empty_Stringer said:
I've got a random question regarding the Cartels. It seems that a pretty big piece of this puzzle is the way the cartels have corrupted the Mexican government. If we legalized some of the drugs they are selling would that do anything to curtail their power?
Im not a drug user, nor am i particularly fond of folks using that stuff; it just seems that we need a radical solutiin and that might be part of it.
Quote:
If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. The scariest part: this might not have happened with El Chapo in charge.
From a 2015 article in Texas Monthly. The border areas are some of the safest in Texas in terms of violent crime. Shoplifting, credit card fraud, scams, and car theft I think are bad in the border areas.Quote:
Border cities get a bad rap as violent, but the Rio Grande Valley is extremely safe. Of the 24 Texas metro areas ranked by the FBI, Brownsville comes in dead last, with 240 incidents of violent crime per 100,000 people. Nearby McAllen comes in at #18, with 286 per 100,000.
Things are closer to the middle of the pack in El Paso and Laredo, which place at #13 and #10, respectively. The murder rate in each city is low, at 1.4 and 1.5 (Brownsville also comes in at 1.4, which is the second-lowest behind Abilene at 0.6). The numbers in El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen are all slanted heavily toward aggravated assault. In Brownsville, meanwhile, though the overall numbers for everything are very low, robbery crimes make up a surprisingly high number of cases, at 58.1 per 100,000, good for almost 25% of the violent crime in the city.
aggiepublius said:As pointed out, it would likely move the cartels into other lines of business.Empty_Stringer said:
I've got a random question regarding the Cartels. It seems that a pretty big piece of this puzzle is the way the cartels have corrupted the Mexican government. If we legalized some of the drugs they are selling would that do anything to curtail their power?
Im not a drug user, nor am i particularly fond of folks using that stuff; it just seems that we need a radical solutiin and that might be part of it.
This is what has already happened with the legalization of marijuana already forcing them into new ventures, mainly heroin and synthetic opioids.
Highly recommend reading this piece by Don Winslow on the subject.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a46918/heroin-mexico-el-chapo-cartels-don-winslow/Quote:
If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. The scariest part: this might not have happened with El Chapo in charge.
FlyingMudball said:
As mentioned earlier, another good read with some surprising ties: Bones: Brothers, Cartels, Horses, and the Borderland Dream by Joe Tone. Yes, the cartels have unbelievable reach into our society, both north and south of the border!
WhoopN06 said:
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/30/texas-rio-grande-valley-ranchers-border-immigration/
Articles like this are why there is not a broad consensus to fix our border issues.