Drug War 2.0

I would hate to make it seem that the “war on drugs” is the only issue that I can address in my writing, but I feel that my last post was somewhat lacking in context and depth of information, so I’m going to do one last blog on this subject.

I feel that the “war on drugs” is a particularly important issue, one that doesn’t get the type of coverage that it deserves. I personally am connected to this conflict in a number of ways. Most immediately by the fact that I have a number of people who I am close to who have become casualties of this war. Over the course of my life, my friends and family members have been arrested, jailed and even killed as a result of their (often rather innocent) involvement in drug related issues. Another less emotional connection that I have to the drug war is the fact that it is literally happening in my back yard. Salinas, a city rather close to where I live and go to school, is on the verge of becoming the gang violence capital of the world, and much of this violence is an indirect result of the drug war.

Before I start spouting my own opinions on drug legalization, the abolishing of mandatory minimum sentences and the all-encompassing evil that is Richard Nixon, I thought that it would be good to give some background.

The War on Drugs was started in 1969, by Richard Nixon. Many view the moment when he gave the infamous “Public Enemy Number One” speech as the distinct start of the Drug War.

Here’s a clip from the documentary, “The Last White Hope”. While it is irrefutably biased, I think that it does succeed in giving voice to a variety of pro-legalization views, from those of the veteran stoner Tommy Chong to independent “bad boy” Ron Paul.

Before Nixon gave said speech, the drug culture of the 1960′s was extremely optimistic. While the hippies were overindulging to the point that it could have been harmful to others, many thought that the illegal status of most drugs was going to fade away. In 1968, Stanley Owsley, the main manufacturer of high-quality LSD in the U.S. and a major hippie cultural fixture, is quoted as saying that “in six months you’ll be able to go into a gas station and buy Acapulco Gold, filtered, non-filtered and menthol, just like with cigarettes.”

In short, many thought that marijuana and some other “soft” drugs would be put on the same level as alcohol, as they arguably should be. But soon, after Nixon’s war cry, even the infamous Haight-Ashbury was riddled with narcs, and drug-busts soon became commonplace. With this, the lighter-that-air drug culture of the 60′s became criminal and dangerous, and the once strong legalization movement became fractured and lost its wind.

And for a while, the war started to work. After a certain number of seizures, arrests and life-sentences, the use of marijuana among the youth of our country started to decline. Some declared that they had achieved victory in the war on drugs, but in truth, the front had just shifted.

As 1970′s came to a close, cocaine became the drug of choice for high society and rock stars alike. With this, the demand skyrockted, and one man stood to profit from this. His name was Pablo Escobar. As the head of the Medellin Cartel, in the 1980′s Escobar smuggled thousands of tons of Colombian and Peruvian cocaine into the U.S., mostly through connection points in the Caribbean. His landing point in the States was Miami, and this lucrative influx narcotics eventually led to a bloody power struggle among the various crime families of Miami (and Scarface), whom the media nicknamed the Cocaine Cowboys.

After several years of fighting between police and rival cartels, the situation in Miami began to cool down, and it seemed as if the authorities had somewhat curbed the importation of cocaine to a certain degree. The truth was, that with all of the seizures and casualties among employees, not many cocaine manufacturers wanted to do business in Miami. So they found a new route, Mexico.

Mexico has long been, and remains, the main producer of a large amount of heroin and marijuana that comes into the United States, so finding a criminal network to traffic cocaine into the U.S. wasn’t a problem for any South American cartels. The influx of cocaine money, as usual, led to a power struggle between major cartels. Soon, South American cartels were moving so many narcotics through Mexico that many cartel demanded that they be paid in product rather than cash. As as result, many Mexican cartels were able to demand 30-50% of the shipment given to them from suppliers.

This led many cartels to ramp up the competition, since they needed a monopoly on the trade to get the best price for their powder assets. The wars between cartels that we see today really began in 1989, with the arrest of Miguel Angel Felix, the former head of the notorious Guadalajara cartel. After a temporary struggle for supremacy by various cartel leaders, the power dynamic among the cartels evened out, and there was a brief respite from the violence in the mid to late 1990′s.

The violence steadily began to worsen in 2000, when the Bush administration renewed the “tough on drugs” platform of the Reagen era. Many DEA raids were conducted in Mexico, higher ups in cartels were arrested, and shipments of drugs valuing millions of dollars were seized. Another contributing factor to this new wave of violence is the shift in methamphetamine production. Since the 1950′s, most methamphetamine in the united states was produced domestically, using industrial ephedrine of pseudo ephedrine from allergy medication. But recently, many of the ingredients used in the manufacture of street amphetamines have been more closely monitored and controlled, making it easier for crminal organizations to import Mexican-made methamphetamine.

Despite the efforts by former Mexican President Vincente Fox and the current president Felipe Calderon to fight cartels by deploying military units to border towns, the violence continued.

Many view the 2005 Neuvo-Laredo drug wars as the tipping point in the Mexican Drug War. Since then, law enforcement agencies have seen cartels that have been better equiped and better trained than many of the police who are charged with fighting them. Cartels have acquired and used rocket launchers, grenades, military-quality machine guns and even, on occasion, tanks.

The situation is very dim. It is blatantly clear that the tactics taken by law enforcement, arrest then arrest some more, are not working. There is no evidence that this form of prohibition can be efectively enforced. Mexican and American lawmakers have exhausted literally every option, from gang prevention programs to deploying special forces units to fight existing cartels, but absolutely none have worked.

It is my honest opinion that there is only one way to end this violence. By taking away the revenue that feeds these thugs. If we were to legalize and regulate the drugs that our government tries so hard to eradicate in this war on certain drugs, then all of the violent criminals who are making Mexico and our country a living hell would see their very livelyhood destroyed.