While a heavily fictionalised account, we should not forget Winslow's Power of the Dog and the truth that the DEA and CIA under direction from Reagan/Bush illegally colluded with Mexican and Colombian drug cartels in order to arm anti-leftist insurgents and the Colombian army in pursuit of (illegal) US strategic aims, feeding the monster that consumed Colombia, Mexico and US cities. All of this, as usual, wrapped like a mummy in disinformation, with routine denials that the US had anything to do with the death squads, the annihilation of Colombian villages, assassinations, interference with elections in Colombia and Mexico and much else. Especially deeply buried is the (presumably ongoing) collusion between the CIA and organised crime, with its storied history going back at least as far as the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Kennedy assassinations. Much better for public consumption is the myth of inner city degenerates demanding drugs supplied by nasty (mostly foreign) criminals.
4
$58 billion a year! What a shameful, obscene, waste. What kind of treatment and counseling programs could we have in this country for that amount of money? The mind reels.
The war on drugs is, and has always been, a load of reactionary American puritanical garbage. It's nonsense. And the fact that some people's lives are destroyed by drugs does not justify continuing this obviously failed policy. There will always be addicts and always be tragic stories associated with drugs. But just think of what $58 billion of treatment and mental health services would do for the addicted! I don't understand how any rational person could continue to support prohibition.
7
Yes, we do need shops openly selling heroin. Secure quantities of heroin and many other drugs at sustainable prices and dependable quality/concentration are essential to enabling persons dependent upon them to lead normal, productive and long lives.
And it can - or could. In the War on Drugs, it's the FIRST word that kills, not the second.
4
One hesitates to completely legalize drugs such as methamphetamine which are known unequivocally to be addictive and capable of causing permanent, irreversible brain damage among regular, long-term heavy consumers. On the other hand, it is morally repugnant to destroy the lives of the addicted through criminal sanctions. Perhaps a middle ground would be to legalize the less harmful and not ordinarily addictive recreational drugs such as marijuana, while decriminalizing the possession but not the sale of the most harmful and addictive substances such as methamphetamine and heroin.
1
Casualties from the "war" on drugs include those refugees fleeing drug gang violence in Central America. As has been well documented, the gang members we extradite from our inner cities link up with their ilk back in the homeland. And so long as we Americans exert that powerful economic pull with our demand for illegal drugs, those gangs will reap large profits by supplying the cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. We have "externalized" our problem onto others. We should legalize drugs and confront our problem head on.
So why have we continued to spend $58 billion per year for decades, even though the markers of failure--soaring deaths, massive corruption, and unconscionable violence--litter the landscape from Brazil to the Canadian border. Who benefits? The NRA, with its massive gun sales to the bad guys? For profit prisons? Corrupt banks, casinos, etc., which launder the filthy lucre? Corrupt judges and law enforcement who benefit from bribery or succumb to intimidation? (a small minority here, we hope, but a majority in many nations along the pipeline)
Treating addiction as a medical, rather than criminal, problem and funding treatment could help significantly.
But for the nations of Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean a major economic overhaul is required. NAFTA and the WTO have decimated their agricultural, and light manufacturing sectors, creating a job shortage that drug gangs have been happy to exploit.
6
If it costs $58 billion a year, then by definition someone, lots of someones, makes $58 billion a year. Therein lies the problem. There is so much money on all sides of this useless war, arms dealers, prison operators, police agencies, militaries, not to mention all the levels of the drug organizations, that it will hard to end. Yet, it is absolutely necessary for those dying of overdoses and dying in the crossfire, for neighborhoods on both sides of the border, in cities and the countryside ravaged and terrorized by decades of this.
6
Why do so many feel the need to use drugs in the first place? Despair. They know their life is going nowhere. Dysfunctional families and poor education leading to no future...
1
Does anyone really think that the billions being spent on law enforcement and chasing narcos is really changing anything? Until the demand is lessened, there will always be a supply available for the US gringos willing to pay. Lower demand and the supply and profits will deiminish. I say this is a great time for govt to stomp all over illegal private enterprise by providing the drugs to addicts in a controlled safe-as-possible way in conjunction with effective programs to help them quit their addiction.
Many times, the private sector yelps about govt competition. In other situations, govt support is provided (milk, soybeans, peanuts, etc.) for farmers and producers. This is an instance when govt should provide the supply and run the narcos out of business. This approach needs serious consideration since the current method is getting us absolutely nowhere. No doubt El Chapo will either run his biz from prison or others will take his place. No doubt, their engineers already have solutions to deal with Trumpie's wall.
10
The author fails to mention that many of the heroin OD deaths are due to people being made addicted to opioids through prescription drugs. The cartels, of course, took advantage of that constant supply of users.
7
As long as there is money to be made in trafficking illegal drugs, it will remain a scourge on America.
Prior to the legalization of recreational marijuana here in Washington State, the price on the street was more than twice what the price is today of a legal product. It is also much safer for the user as the product must be tested for pesticides and other chemicals which might be harmful. The state and local governments are happy to get the increased tax revenue, and the user is satisfied getting a legal, safe, and affordable recreational drug.
We no longer have law enforcement busting down doors and users being jailed. In the case of marijuana use, legalization is the answer.
12
@allen roberts
I agree. Canada has also recognized that our time and resources can be better spent. This is not really a lot different than the legalization of alcohol - “the lesser of two evils”. But I would like to see the taxes raised from the sale of marijuana used for treatment and prevention of addition, unlike with alcohol.
7
Smokescreen - latest chapter of the Chapo saga, prev. with Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo.
1
And what about the poppy production in Afghan?
2
Other than sending the military across the Rio Grande to crush the cartels, (most real presidents would have dealt with this mess long ago), what other avenues are there to pursue? Maybe a Marshall Plan for central America? The corruption in that part of the world would argue against such an effort, however, it might be worthwhile on a small scale. Costa Rica might be a good place to start. How about using THE WALL money to build a prison in a neutral place like Puerto Rico to house the serious drug predators like Guzman. They could use the jobs. And the cost would be lower than housing them for life in America.
1
When will we realize that the problem with the drug trade isn’t always the drugs. We currently have a gun policy that makes it perfecty legal for a person to load up the trunk of their car with guns and drive it across the border to sell those guns to the cartels for massive profits. If we seriously want to stop the drug trade and the violence that goes with it we need to start addressing how the cartels arm themselves and start thinking how we can reduce their arsenals.
5
The only possible solution to the drug problem is to legalize all drugs as Portugal has done and treat drug addiction as a medical or psychological issue instead of as a criminal matter. American prisons house one quarter of all the world’s prisoners and this is because of a mindless approach to drug trafficking.
15
There are a few points to make here: one is the idea of a 'gateway drug. If there is one then it would be Sugar, which everyone knows sends kids hyper, and is sold targeted to kids for that reason. They get higher than a kite, legally.
Cigarettes come later, and then trying things like pot, they find it is not much more effect than what Doctors give them, so they see the Obvious Lies in the Just Say No programs. And the kids laugh and say"No" when handed a joint, take the joint and laugh.
That gets them into trouble later when they get into alcohol and hard drugs like cocaine, meth and heroin. They are decidedly stronger, and on OD on alcohol will kill you just as dead as an OD on any of the others.
But kids will only have the experience of sugar, cigs and pot, all of which are hard to OD from, sugar and cigs make ya sick to yer stomach, pot gives ya the munchies and a nap.
But when Cigs and Alcohol are legal, pot and the others easy to get, kids get a very different message from the one that 'Authorities' tell them so they tend to distrust those Authorities on most anything they declare on unless it is obvious. Starting with HONEST Education would be the no-brainer starting point.
Beyond that, most drugs need to be legalized and strictly regulated and made cheap and very clean and and EXACT dosage given. Bust people for things like violence or theft if that is how they act on the drug, but no drug affects everyone the same way, so bust for the actions, not substances.
3
"What you resist determines what you get." Had Nixon not given in to his power compulsions and refrained from catering to his Moral Majority constituencies that won him victory in 1968 (along with a bunch of nefarious activities), he may have followed the advice of his scientist committee that advised marijuana legalization. That would have preempted the smuggling imperatives of the narcos that greatly blossomed later (and perhaps provided less opportunity for rogue US government types to enable if not directly engage in drug smuggling as part of their "national security/anti-Communist" (read corporate neo-imperialism) devil's bargain with the narcos to assist in quelling national liberation movements all over the world). Guzman's defense attorneys should raise the specter of US complicity just as they tried to about Mexican government complicity. The dollar wins out: "Plata o plomo?"
2
"The victims deserve more."
Indeed they do, but that's "if wishes were horses beggars would ride." HOW can something more be accomplished?
Legitimizing pot only makes sense if it is true (and I think it is) that it is not the "gateway" drug that leads large numbers of users to heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine ... etc.
Nations (Holland, the UK) have experimented with limited legal sales of opiates to known addicts. This seems to have done no discernible harm, but not greatly reduced continuing illegal usage in the population. No western nation has tried wide-open legalization of "recreational opiates."
1
Humans have been getting high one way or another since the beginning of time. Wanting it not to be true doesn't make it so. Legalize, regulate, stop incarceration of addicts, and open treatment centers instead. You can't save them all but the ones that want and are ready to get help could actually get it. Black markets are more violent than accepting the obvious and implementing policies that reflect reality. Would like prostition to be legalized as well. Knock out the black markets and the no longer a problem.
5
In 1996, William F. Buckley Jr. had come to the conclusion spinning around in his head for the preceding 20 years: the war on drugs was a failure and legalization would put an end to the countless billions spent to kill a supply that was - and is - in such demand in the United States.
Buckley devoted about 15 pages on this one topic to an issue of National Review. The War on Drugs, he wrote, "....is wasting our resources, and is...encouraging civil, judicial and penal procedures associated with police states." He'd first aired his views nearly 20 years earlier on a segment on his show, "Firing Line." He was fought by members of his own party and those who had stakes in this "War"; cops, FBI mucky-mucks and DEA officials brought their "how dare you"s out in spades.
Imagine the revenue that could've gone for housing, infrastructure, education...and treatment. We wouldn't have the largest incarceration rate in the world.
People who take drugs like heroin, fentanyl and cocaine are no less - or more - responsible for themselves than are alcoholics and people addicted to nicotine. Yet, one can get a drink at the local pub or a pack of cigarettes at the corner store.
The War on Drugs - like that on alcohol decades before - was a failure right out of the gate; it's not too late to right this particular wrong.
11
The War on Drugs was never about drugs. It's about race, politics, and money, designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans, mostly black and brown. Those advocating to end it should not shy away from the criticism that they are politically motivated, because the War on Drugs is politically motivated.
I don't have data, but I suspect that someone with data could make a strong case that the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, and the no-tolerance culture has actually contributed to the opioid and meth epidemics. I recently heard that people are over 200 times more likely to die of an overdose during the two weeks after they leave a rehab facility where the only regimen is abstinence. That's an argument for keeping your loved ones out of treatment if you want them to survive!
Our country has developed a cruel and inhumane system for rationing health-care that has incentivized providers to medicate patients with opioids as a cheap substitute for real care. Then it criminalizes the patients when they become addicted and can no longer obtain their medication safely and affordably.
I hope the jury will refuse to convict Chapo for any drug-trafficking charges. Let them convict him and hold him to account for real crimes like murder, if the Feds have evidence, but not for servicing a market that Congress and the States created with their idiotic no-tolerance policy on drugs. That's just wrong!
5
"..inadvertently highlight the government’s failure to stop the flow of narcotics and the related bloodshed..."
Seriously ?
Is it possible that Our Author is the only one on the planet that doesn't pay any attention to the daily drug-related violence in Mexico, along our border with Mexico, and in our major cities ?
The unsatisfying effectiveness of the drug war is due to a single element: the abject cowardice of our political class.
Their lack of will is the reason this goes on.
In 1916 and 1917, when the US government was populated by peope with backbones, the 11th Cavalry was sent across the border into Mexico to exact punishment on Mexican raiders who massacred US citizens.
The drug business is no different and requires a similar solution.
The solution is straight-forward and two-fold.
1) With or without the permission of the Mexican government, engage in unrestricted military operations against the Mexican cartels, wherever they or their assets reside.
2) Send Mexico a check for $1 billion, and move the border fence south by 150 miles. Declare all persons within citizens of the newly formed state of Spanish Texas, and put an impermeable barrier along the new southern border.
@Objectivist
The biggest problem with this proposal is that 1 billion dollars is chump change compared to what officials throughout the Mexican government are getting from the cartels.
1
Legalize the drugs. a) Then the addiction problem can be treated as a medical problem instead of a criminal one. b) All future disputes can be handled in a civil court of law instead of on the streets with guns and other military weaponry. c) Eventually the flow of refugees from this 'war' will subside and perhaps the people living in the countries where cartels currently rule, will get back a semblance of a decent life. d) Eventually the cartels will disappear. (That could take decades but they will disappear).
5
Prohibition hasn't ever worked. It started with alcohol, and proceeded through marijuana, cocaine, crack, meth, and now opiates. There is always a devil of the moment, and it's always going to destroy the country. Only it hasn't. The country is still here, with more jails, more police, and more users than ever.
The cure might be worse than the disease. Some of those drugs are downright bad for you, but they aren't going away. Perhaps we could mitigate the damage by unwinding the war on drugs and craft an armistice instead.
We've done so for alcohol, and we're working on marijuana. It's harder to make the case for meth and cocaine, but we might be able to come up with something. And many fewer people would die from opiates if they could get controlled doses of the real thing and not be driven to fentanyl or heroine.
However there is another addiction to consider. The economy is addicted to the prison industrial complex, and its arch rival, the drug business. Like a couple of junkies, they will fight to get their next fix and maintain the high. Their addiction has consequences, and El Chapo and his ilk are one of them.
4
It's just the trafficking of drugs that's major problem, but the trafficking of arms -- legal and illegal. The U.S. is continually fueling this drug war by two lethal, insatiable addictions of its own: drugs and guns.
2
He’s a business man. He following supply/demand. Until we reduce the demand ElChappo will always be in business
"A first step is simply to acknowledge that the current drug policy is failing." Can we say with any confidence that the corrupting effects of drug money on policing and politics are confined to the lands south of the border? Gary Webb's story is not the only worrying matter: that was a story of the crack cocaine trade in LA, and of the alleged role of the Contras and the CIA in it.
1
Michigan will face the increase in crime and auto insurance associated with marijuana legalization. Colorado has paved the way.
Drugs in the US are distributed by illegal day laborers who need them to offset the pain associated with the physical labor.
El Chapo has brought so much suffering to thousands of people. He needs to be held accountable. I hope he names all the corrupt government officials who accepted his campaign contributions.
1
The focus is on El Chapo and his ilk, and the carnage in Mexico (and other places) due to the drug war, but they are effects, not the cause.
Ask yourself who is benefiting from the fifty eight billion dollars per year which is spent on drug interdiction? Is it the citizens? Is it police, judiciary, corrections officers, prison equipment makers, politicians?
Not to mention secondary crime as required to get the money to support a habit - robberies, burglaries, prostitution...
What could be done to help the community if this money were freed up for such things as infrastructure repair, schools, and other necessities?
There is no doubt that drugs cause problems and there is a cost to having them in a society. But ask yourself if the social cost of having a drug war is higher than the cost of allowing the drugs coupled with a treatment regime for those who want it.
Follow the money.
12
There is no long apprenticeship for drug dealing. You can even start a career as early as 10 or 11 years old. So the position of Kingpin when vacated, is filled in the blink of an eye. The relatively stable price of the product on the street over the years is the true measure of the effectiveness of the so called "War" on drugs. The historical interdiction rate, which annually hovers in single digit percentages, also demonstrates that our drug policy is a big waste of resources and lives. Casual recreational use of drugs in the USA is the main driver for the existing demand. Until governments understand that a Harm Reduction and Decriminalization approach deserves consideration in addressing our drug problems, they're just spinning their wheels.
7
"El Chapo" is a mass murdering monster and should be treated accordingly. That said, I think that his trial will be a back handed blessing. It will, no doubt show some degree of the misery, death and destruction inflicted on North and South America by the war on drugs. What is it about us that we for have to have a war on so many things? I'm sure Mr. Guzmans' trial will also illuminate jaw dropping corruption of civilian, military and law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border. I sincerely hope that serious journalists document every bit of evidence given by defense and prosecution alike. We should be able to draw some extraordinarily valuable lessons about what is not working in our current approach and adjust accordingly. I'm not holding my breath for any serious changes though, there is far too much money at stake for the law enforcement and incarceration industries; not to mention the fact we woud have to take repsonsbiliify for our citizens creating the demand that drives so much human misery. Every "casual" recreational drug user in America (I used to be one) is, to some degree responsible. At the end of the trial, our Department of Health/Human Services should put together a public service video documenting the resulting collapse of Central American society and the chaos on our southern border; along with scenes of overflowing morgues throughout the US. The video should be the half time show of the Super Bowl, maybe, just maybe it will wake us.
6
"Methadone programs can also help some addicts and stop them from funding mass murder south of the Rio Grande." It's more than methadone - medically assisted treatment for addiction includes several generations of medicines that have transformed the nature of rehab.
3
It bears repeating that the war on drugs is just a variation of the failure of Prohibition. The main difference is that we have figured out how to export most of the violence and corruption.
27
Finally official opinion writers are coming to the same conclusions I've been outlining here in the comments for years.
This is absolutely a trial for the War on Drugs, and it is a trial because we know that this case won't solve anything. The only problem the DEA is solving in Mexico is the unemployment problem, at least for young men willing to fill the executive-level job vacancies that we open up every time we take down another cartel CEO and his management team.
Are we going to run yet another iteration of this same algorithm and hope somehow for different results?
This war needs to be convicted of distracting us with deceptive victories amidst ongoing and everlasting substantive failure.
Plan A is over. We need a Plan B!
22
This is not a trial of the War on Drugs (whatever that means), it’s just a public demonstration that the American government is doing something about drug trafficking, which they are.
As far as I’m aware, the “Jalisco New Generation” cartel is already up and running. It’s just business.
1
@ubique It's not "just business" when over 100,000 people have been murdered. The something we keep doing isn't stopping any of that.
1
It’s not US demand or a failed drug policy that has fueled this drug epidemic. It’s a corrupt Mexican government that allows drug cartels to operate with impunity and flood this country with drugs. Poppy is grown openly as a cash crop in Central America, even though its sole purpose is to poison our population.
The graph does not lie: if demand, and not supply was the overriding dynamic, then heroin would much more expensive and not be cheaper than beer in the Ohio Valley. We must continue to try to stop this oversupply of opiates and meth from Mexico.
4
It is precisely the tremendous amount of money available through drug trafficking that fuels corruption of police forces in Mexico. Our continuing, futile interdiction efforts and legal prohibition that enables traffickers to earn so much money. If there were no demand in the USA, then traffickers would have no incentive to smuggle heroin and methTwo reason why the price of heroin is so low: interdiction efforts produce meager results and Big Pharma. The reason the heroin price is low is that traffickers need to compete with our own Big Pharma which has become the chief opioid trafficking organization in the USA. Last year, Big Pharma produced enough opioids to provide 36 pills to each and every American. This vast over production has resulted in creating more and more addicts in America and should be seen as a criminal act. Recently, Big Pharma has developed a new opioid that is 500 times more potent than heroin. This is absolutely unnecessary. It way past time to stop blaming Mexico for our own homegrown problem. Do you actually expect Mexican peasants leading a hand-to-mouth existence in many cases to stop cultivating the opium poppy and to give up the money they are paid by the traffickers because Americans are addicting themselves? Expecting Mexico, a relatively poor country, to end drug related corruption is a bridge too far. Since it has not happened during the past 40 years, it is foolish to continuing to demand it. There has to be another way.
3
@Conservative Democrat Really? You mean poor US consumers just have no choice, those wicked Central Americans grow all the poppies and then defenseless US consumers just HAVE to consume the heroin and opiates.
1
Too bad we didn't have a wall.
That surely would have prevented all of this .
1
@red state The traffickers will simply build a taller ladder or dig a tunnel underneath it. Drug trafficking is unfettered capitalism at its finest.
2
If there wouldn’t be buyers in te USA, there wouldn’t be sellers
And....it is the Usa who provide the arms...unfortunately
1
@red state Tunnels already exist.
This applies to everything: when you make something illegal that people are going to do anyway, you create criminals and violence.
Legalize and regulate. Most of the overdoses are coming from bad cuts from shady people maximizing profit. Lower and regulate the dose and sell from secure locations, just like weed.
Instead of costing us money it could be making us money while virtually eliminating the violence and greatly reducing the overdoses. Tax it and use the money on treatment... if people want it.
People are either prone to risk taking behavior or they aren't. The concept of "gateway drug" is ridiculous. Legalizing isn't going to create 'new users' that would never have done it otherwise...
And if you want to argue health care costs... why is this risk taking behavior any different than people who drive motorcycles or skydive or xsports-whatever...?
But most of all, the government should protect me from you, not me from myself.
29
A Modest Proposal. Rides again.
If all drugs were legal and provided by the government there would be essentially no illegal drug economy to cause so much havoc. Drug users could agree to have their bodies donated some kind of recycling. Science, lobster bait, something constructive. Soylent Green.
4
@niucame Or we could use the enforcement money to fund treatment on demand and restore useful lives to people who were previously swallowed up by despair. That would be even more constructive.
9
@Patricia
Definitely. There's bound to be a lot of people who can survive and become constructive and
should for our and their benefit.
Pretty much the same message as Jonathan Swift's original " A Modest Proposal".
2
The fight against the illegal drug trade costs US taxpayers $58 billion per year?!? The 2018 budget for the US National Institutes of Health, which provides most of the funding for biomedical research in the US, is only $31 billion. Maybe if the US adopted the Saudi Arabian, or current Philippines president's, attitude toward illegal drugs, we could reduce the annual cost of the war on drugs drastically and quickly. Why waste more time and US taxpayer dollars trying this guy?
I've recently had the opportunity to visit Mexico City and if you're an affluent traveler, (really, how many who aren't or aren't from at least upper middle-class backgrounds do?) Mexico is a wonderful place to visit. Why are prices so cheap relative to the US? Because there is a 52-54% poverty rate there and everyone must want what they see others have that they don't. Unfortunately, the Presidential Palace was closed for the week to the public, as century+ old water pipes were being replaced. I looked online for a book of pictures of the interior of the palace with many paintings/murals done by Diego Rivera. Nothing I was willing to purchase sight-unseen, so I decided to start first at a local independent used bookstore in the bohemian neighborhood near the local university-affiliated hospital. AMAZING--I actually found one of those tourist guide books that I saw online in English from 1940's or '60's. I also purchased a recent book (2017) by an author by the name Valentine about the CIA. Some things in this book may have to be taken with a grain of salt, as retired former disgruntled CIA career employees have written books and gone on tour. However, much in this book makes a lot of sense to me, especially since one hears about people associated with current or former arms traffickers seemingly having a stay-or-get-out-of-jail-free card that would land most anyone else in prison. Very few govt officials anywhere go to jail, but offer up a fall guy(El Chapo).
4
The failure of the 'drug war' is that there is a drug war. It is the illegality of drugs which produces the high profits, which produces the violence. Worse than being addicted to a drug is having to deal with the dangers inherent in procuring it, violence by dealers, customers & police. The illegalizing of mind altering substances results from an arrogant puritanical mind set that allows people to think that they should decide what someone else should or should not put into their own bodies. In trying to prevent people from self- medicating, out governments make inevitable the rise, the success of ruthless individuals like El Chapo
23
We spend $58 billion each year trying to deny people the freedom to experience chemically-induced pleasure. God only knows how many more billions are spent by those seeking those pleasures, and how many billions we lose in tax revenues from the sales of drugs if they could be sold legally.
On top of the economic costs of our insane drug policies, there are the human costs in deaths, prison sentences, and broken families when studies show that even heroin and cocaine addicts can be productive and responsible members of society and support their families if not compelled to engage in the dangers of purchasing and consuming illegal drugs.
One day, if and when this nation ever overcomes its Puritan based aversions, guilt and paternalistic opposition to the pleasures accorded by things like sex and psychoactive chemical and natural substances, we will look back on all the lives and families destroyed and money wasted by our idiotic and unwinnable war on drugs. To those who shudder at the thought of their loved ones becoming or being addicted to legal drugs like heroin, I ask would they rather their loved ones have that option and with it the opportunity to live productively and/or to get treatment and become drug-free, OR have them die or go to prison? Sadly, I daresay too many self-righteous, God-fearing but inhumane Americans cruelly prefer their loved ones die or go to jail than get high.
22
@Jamie Nichols -- Don't forget the billions lost and wasted in crimes done by users who can't pay the high prices of drugs in any other way. At lower level these are often violent crimes, or the constant property crimes of burglary. At higher levels these drain companies and ruin many other lives.
4
You write of Mexican corruption but not of how the drugs so easily get to their American destinations once inside the country. What about American law enforcement corruption enabling delivery? The press is absent with these significant elements of the story.
8
@Darryl There is corruption on both sides of the border - but let's not forget which country has let El Chapo escape from prison twice. And let us not forget that in his Mexican "prison" cell he still had cell phone access and frequent visits from prostitutes and ate substantially better than the rest of the prison populace.
We also shouldn't forget why even the Mexican army can't crush the cartels. Many of cartel's sicarios are not only former members of the army but former elite forces members. So yes, the US has its share of corrupt officers and DEA agents but in Mexico corruption is the norm not the exception and it pervades every arm of government that's supposed to be fighting the cartels.
The government should sell drug. Instead of funding cartel weapons, the money woulf go to funding drug rehabilitation and prevention programs.
4
Yes, the War on Drugs has been costly and still the drugs flow. Are we at the point where maybe some of Rodrigo Duterte's tactics would help? I'll bet a lot of concerned citizens would sign on to that.
The feds at first didn't believe the two that fingered him. It took lots of time and money to nail him. Wonder if he was replaced the day after his capture. The bottom line is that going after these kingpins will do nothing to eliminate this problem.
5
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-heroin-opioid-philadelphia.html
Massive waste of time, money, people.
If the US addressed poverty, education and jobs, a large percentage of kids would not turn to drugs.
8
"Mr. Guzman's case is actually putting the war on drugs on trial"...
A lot of people livelihood depends on the continuation and failure of "The War on Drugs", Big Pharma, Politicians. Gov. Agencies, etc etc, all the way down to the street corner.
Now Playing: Dealer's Blues - Doug Sahm
5
It also puts Gitmo on trial. If we can detain, try and incarcerate this evil man all on American soil, what possible rationale remains?
3
Mexico has started the legal process to decriminalize the use of drugs, hopefully this will reduce the level of corruption and violence that has detonated in the country. the war on drugs is total folly and ignorance of human nature.
8
No war on, nor legalizing of, drugs will do any good at all without a great big humongous L-O-N-G OVERDUE crackdown on the number one cause of drug use---which is also the number one cause of drinking, smoking, and teenage sex---Peer Pressure!
The dude is an evil man. Yet Nixon, Reagan and Sessions and anyone else who propagated the idea that they were doing good by having this war are equally so.
6
OMG. I am a board-certified psychiatrist. Drug use is not a disease and does not need treatment. Legalize all drugs for adults, and thus stop drug-related violence. Or, if you want to make dangerous drugs illegal, start with alcohol! Those who voted for Tantrump are not the only undiscerning ones. Look how long it took for the NY Times (the "grey lady") to advocate for the legalization of marijuana! Drop the moralizing and medicalizing, and think for yourself?
10
It's much easier to make a behavior illegal than it is to change the behavior as a norm. But only by changing the norm will we be able to stop the behavior and treat it when it does crop up. We can begin by highlighting the various industries that normalize drug use, such as fashion, entertainment, and finance. Good journalism can underscore the linkage between consumption in these areas and the price paid by mostly poor people in other countries. Drug use ends by being self-harming, but it always begins by harming others.
4
The only viable long term solution is to legalize all drugs, and back this change of policy with a supporting drug addiction rehabilitation program. Prohibition has never worked in the history of human kind.
16
It is naive to think things will change regardless of Guzman's trial verdict. As many point out, there is money in the heroin business and the war on drugs is profitable - just like all wars.
5
I am laughing how El Chapo's lawyers are putting the government's case on trial. Makes me think of the saying "how can you tell when lawyers are lying? Their lips are moving!
Any attempt by these goobers to paint El Chapo was innocent is laughable. El Chapo belongs in super max. My guess is that he is paying these clowns millions in cash. A warning to them, Chapo expects a non guilty verdict, anything less will make him and his buddies very unhappy. Suggestion to his lawyers if they lose, perhaps move to Greenland, never return.
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@General Noregia
His defense lawyers are paid by American citizens. They are putting up the best defense they can for a man the government has a huge case against, which we hope they would do for any one of us.
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@Joe "which we hope they would do for any one of us." That's far from certain. You know that fewer than 5% of all federal cases ever goes to trial, don't you?
El Chappo will walk!
1
The federal continuing criminal enterprise drug conspiracy trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman clearly exemplifies the crippled and frustrating efforts of the War on Drugs initiated by President Nixon in 1970. 50 years later after expenditures of untold billions devoted to federal drug trafficking prosecutions – disproportionately targeting racial and ethnic minorities – the nation no closer to eradicating the drug menace compared to 1970. Committed to proselytizing Americans prone to use drugs from marijuana, cocaine, heroin, to MDMA the DEA misses the mark when confronted with unprecedented massive drug addiction inflicted by pharmaceutical providers. Therein lie the real culprits federal prosecutors should apply the sheer weight and tremendous resources to aggressively prosecute corporate representatives responsible for this deadly epidemic. Instead the silence from federal law enforcement is tantamount to a large mass of crickets. The patent absence of commitment to pursue white collar executives of Big Pharma is evident. But when federal prosecutors actively prosecute El Chapo but refuse to apply similar zeal to prosecute financial institutions such as a HSBC Bank for facilitating the money laundering of Sinaloa Drug Cartel proceeds exposes the living hypocrisy. Easier to enter into deferred prosecution agreements reveals the fallacy of prosecuting El Chapo. The bank representatives and the attorneys share equal blame that warrant prosecution. Difference? Race matters.
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@Dean Browning Webb, Attorney at Law
I hope you don’t suffer an excruciating acute injury, need short term opioids, and find you can’t get them.
An out-of-State pharmacy acted like I was a sketchy drug addict when I tried to get my rx refilled while traveling.
I used my rx as prescribed during a couple of months of PT. Now I am back to acetaminophen as needed, although it’s not completely effective.
And I am terrified that the anti-opioid crusade will be horrible for people with chronic pain because law enforcement is scaring physicians and pharmacists.
Let’s just stop all wars on drugs and treat people, whether addicts or pain patients.
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@Dean Browning Webb, Attorney at Law: Race and wealth. The two together are an almost inviolable shield.
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@Dean Browning Webb, Attorney at Law -- Bravo, Your Excellency....Couldn't've said it better myself....Ipsi Dixit!
58 billion dollars a year on a never ending drug war. I have an idea legalize marijuana and cocaine, save the 58 billion now spent and take the tax money collected and fund universal health care. I am not for any type of drug use, and would fill the air waves with anti drug messages, and also create a thousand avenues for children to get involved in positive influences like sports and other activities.
Let’s try it, what do we have to lose, it’s insane to fight a losing war on into eternity.
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Most addicts want to stop using. This is also the a goal of society. If that were the basis for policy decisions, perhaps more progress would be made towards ending the anguish of the addict and the terrible consequences of their addiction.
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"We may never want shops openly selling heroin."
And why not? My guess is, marijuana smuggling. with attendant violence, has ended since states started legalizing pot. Making heroin and cocaine and meth and the like illegal hasn't stopped folks from using heroin and cocaine and meth and the like, it's just put lots of people in prison and lots of blood in our streets. Hard drugs have gotten cheaper and purer and more abundant over the years--the harder we fight the war and the more money we spend, the worse it gets. And all sorts of horrible synthetic drugs, such as spice, have sprung up as folks seek legal highs and ways to skirt drug testing.
The government has no business telling adults what they should or should not put in their bodies. Legalize drugs--all drugs--now, and we will, on balance, be much better off.
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@August West
I completely agree with you. This needs to be the basis for the drug war discussion. For a few billion dollars, we could buy all of the drugs produced in the countries suffering from the violence and provide a mechanism for improving the lives of people in the affected countries. The rest of the money could be spent on healthcare for those with substance abuse issues.
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@August West
Agree entirely.
Spoken like a true libertarian.
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I have been a criminal defense lawyer for 36 years and daily see the victims of our insane "war on drugs". As others have said, there is no law enforcement approach that can stem the demand. Yes, we have imprisoned all sorts of drug "kingpins" and destroyed tons of illegal substances. But drug dealers are like shark's teeth. Remove a row, and there is another row ready to pop up and take their place.
If we took a fraction of the money that we waste on prosecution and incarceration and devoted them to treatment, education, and job training, that would make a real dent in the problem, by lowering demand. A public health approach would accomplish much more than the law enforcement approach ever has or ever will.
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@cds333, thank you for saying (better) what I wanted to write.
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@cds333 -- Not just lowering DEMAND but also lowering the PRICE inflated by Interdiction Penalties. With, say, cocaine at $20/gram, the cartels die....alongwith the corrupt DEA, FBI, border police.....
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@cds333
The war on (some) drugs is so ineffective, destructive and wasteful that maybe someday more people will openly question its true motives and beneficiaries.
3
In addition we need to tell the people in Latin America, specially the less educated segment of them, about the grave consequences that drugs bring to the human beings that consume cocaine or other drugs.
In Colombia the cocaine lords spent billions in expensive construction projects, they imported consumer goods for money laundering purposes, they paid large amounts of money to politicians, among many other bad achievements. In addition they used the money to buy soccer teams that won championships with dirty money. FIFA has not done anything about that. Shame on them.
If you go to some areas in Medellín, you will find that for some persons Pablo Escobar is a hero and a source of money. By selling memorabilia and making movie pictures, or telenovelas, they are glorifying a criminal that caused dead and pain to millions of people.
In just a few days we will remember the 29th anniversary of the explosion that killed more than 100 innocent human beings in an Avianca airplane. Yes, 29 years after that horrible crime Colombia is still the largest producer of coca.
Shame on us.
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The US is the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs. It makes up just 5% of the global population, yet according to most estimates accounts for over 25% of global demand for illicit drugs.
The drug war fix is painfully clear. We Americans need to stop abusing narcotics.
Going after the purveyors long ago proved itself to be an inadequate strategy. It's simply impossible to choke off the flow of narcotics.
The author should note that most of U.S. fentanyl comes from China, though the drug war is cast as problem almost uniquely of Mexican origin.
Until we cease to be voracious consumers, the supply will not falter.
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@Ricardo Chavira -- You say, "It's impossible to choke off the flow of narcotics." You must add "at that price!" Remember that it's US interdiction/corruption that grants cocaine a 15-fold value. Sans 'drug war,' profits dwindle to near-zero....cartels move on to other pursuits...or atrophy and die off.
@Stephen Galat
Of course, what you assert is true.
However, I don't believe the scenario you describe will become reality. Who would successfully advocate an end to the drug war as we know it?
Even were illicit drugs to be legalized, a street market would still thrive. Just look at what's happened with prescription opioids.
Mean while Afghanistan had another record opium harvest. So much for the war on drugs. One of the dumbest things that the drug war did was wreck the Colombian cartels. Mexico having the smuggling route picked up the coke trade and destabilized a large part of the country. Legalize all of them and tax them use the money for rehab and education.
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As a former DEA agent of 30 years, I tell you that there will always be another kingpin. Due to the immense profits made possible by continuing and futile war on drugs, there will ALWAYS be another waiting in the wings for his chance at fame and fortune.
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Drug treatment programs don't work any better than the drug war has. They have 20 percent success rates collectively; i.e., drug users often attend multiple times and still only achieve 20 percent abstention. Most abusers stagger through their lives until they die of an overdose or chronic poor health caused by their addiction.
With over 60000 US deaths a year, we need to take the drug trade as seriously as we take terrorism because it is killing a lot more people than terrorism does. We are not fighting it effectively and the emphasis on decriminalization only encourages it.
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@Rycote Chapel, you're unintentionally agreeing that drug treatment programs are successful. It's normal for an addict to have several goes at withdrawal before a permanent success. Better to look at the percentage of addicts who enter treatment and eventually get clean, vs. the percentage who eventually get clean without treatment.
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@Rycote Chapel
The reason many Drug Treatment programs don't work in the United States is that they occur within the environment of the Criminal Justice system. It is extremely difficult for a person treated as a criminal to maintain a viable existence after their penalty/incarceration WITHOUT a drug problem. If Portugal can figure out how to solve the problem of Drug Addiction as a health problem outside the criminal punishment system; why can't the United States?
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@Rycote Chapel. Actually most drug "abusers", if they even become addicts, eventually recover, often on their own. Saying most drug users are staggering towards death is exactly the kind of ridiculous stereotypes the drug war has created. One of the reasons that drug treatment has such a low success rate is that the majority of treatment programs are based on ineffective 12 step methodology. Not to mention the revolving door keeps the insurance dollars flowing. The only reason people are dying is because of prohibition. Taking it more "seriously" is exactly what got us to this point. Addicts overdose on unregulated drugs of varying potencies, and fear of years in prison keeps people from calling 911. Because of prohibition, illegal drugs are worth many multiples more then their true value, creating a serious profit motive that fuels a violent black market. The minute you legalize all drugs, the violence stops. So yes, we do need to take this more seriously and stop the thousands upon thousands of unnecessary ruined lives by immediately legalizing all drugs and using the money saved on revamping the treatment system, enforcing drugged driving laws, and keeping drugs out of the hands of minors. It is easier for a kid to get illegal drugs then for him to get booze, or at least it was when I was in school. There is no other solution.
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Americans insatiable appetite for illegal drugs coupled with a gun fetish plus greed and hubris represents the genesis of the drug problem. That has ruined the lives of men, women and children from Mexico through Central and South America and the Caribbean.
As long as drugs were seen as a problem among the poor, the black, the brown, the mentally ill and the uneducated it was treated as a criminal justice issue. Once the drug addicts, drug makers and dealers were white drug addiction became a health care and medical issue worthy of rehabilitation and compassion and treatment.
Chapo Guzman was a businessman who corrupted law enforcement to take out his competitors. Without demand and profits in drugs Guzman would have to seek other business opportunities.
Instead of a criminal justice system being the solution to drugs, it should be treated as a potential substance abuse threat akin to alcohol and tobacco. Drugs should be legalized taxed and regulated and educated.
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There is a new conspiracy thriller on the market entitled “Camp David Conspiracy” that takes place in 1991 and details a Justice Department operation to thwart the cartels and win the war on drugs. It posits an incredibly effective approach, its outcome and perhaps how we are seeing the same thing happening today.
1
As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply, and the deaths will continue.
6
There are many many activities which are injurious to our citizenry but which we allow as legal. The most obvious is smoking tobacco which for most people is very addictive and causes hundreds of thousands of death per year. Making alcohol illegal was a colossal failure (which does not mean that there is not still a problem with alcoholism and alcohol abuse).
Recreational drugs, similarly, should be legal for adults. It doesn't mean that they are good for us; it means that we need to discourage their use in the same way that we discourage the abuse of tobacco and alcohol. Prohibition has been a colossal failure that has cost us a fortune and caused enormous misery. And this misery has fallen disproportionately among the most disadvantaged among us.
We should never again make it possible for someone like Mr. Guzman to become unspeakably wealthy and powerful. Make all of these drugs legal; tax them; regulate them; and educate people to their dangers. We will have problems, but it is hard to imagine they will be worse than the "war on drugs". And we will be free to make our own choices.
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Don’t just make the soft drugs legal (like marijuana), make them ALL legal. Yes, it may mean we will need to have drug counselors and methadone clinics in every city and town, but if these drugs are legal, they can be, as you say, taxed and regulated. We can even have import duties levied. The tax revenues can help fund the counseling and the clinics. Treating drugs the same way we treat cigarettes, alcohol, liquor and wine would eliminate the existance of drug cartels, smugglers and street dealers/gangs, along with all the crime, death and misery that accompany them. The illegal drug trade by itself harms and kills thousands more people each year than the drugs themselves do. It’s time to put an end to the madness. SUPPORT LEGAL DRUGS
6
Could the “caravan” and high numbers of asylum seekers from Central America be at all connected with America’s insatiable appetite for drugs and the failure of the War of Drugs which actually only encourages illegal trafficking and artificially makes drugs much more financially valuable than they actually should be? Decriminalization and well executed legalization are such obvious smart moves that would aid in improving so many lives...
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Drugs and addiction and crime are a problem for society and we're not going to ever make them go away. No war -- no matter how big. No amount of spending -- no matter how much. No legalization or amnesty -- no matter how broad. No education, training, rehab -- no matter how far reaching. We have the problems and will always have the problems and it's not going away.
The best we can do and what we should do is focus on making policies and incentives and opportunities that dis-incentivize drug use, de-couple drug use from crime, and help those that we can help. Make policies and fund programs that have the best benefit vs cost to society.
War is probably not the most cost effective choice.
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"We may never want shops openly selling heroin"
But every municipality in the country already has shops, at great profit to themselves and the producers, "openly" selling heroin - as prescription opioids - prescribed for the smallest of aches and pains. The rapacious pharmaceutical corporations and their mega pharmacy / American Medical Association certified professional pushers have created the current heroin epidemic out of nothing - end the wanton legal production , prescription and profiteering off of opioids and end the crisis - i.e. non profit limited production of opioids for end of life, and other strictly regulated options.
15
I beg to differ that powerful opioids are prescribed for the smallest of aches and pains and at the drop of a hat.
Having a few things done to me that require coping with rather severe pain I did the non-prescription stuff over the counter during the day, but when night came and I was miserable, I did take a tylenol with codiene a couple times during the night. But I had 24 and a stern warning that no more would be available, and to make them last.
The efforts to make most physicians seem like drug pushers has gone too far. Yes, there were or are some where bus loads of people show up for a 1/2 minute appointment to get a huge prescription of basically dope.
But my physician, bless her, has been scientific, caring and honest about all things, from regular care to pain control. Maybe more people out to get a doctor to call their own rather than cast aspersions.
14
@reid, your valid experience doesn't contradict that opioids are (sometimes, maybe often) prescribed for minor aches and pains and even for nothing more than a request from the patient (I'm not defending those doctors).
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@reid The massive opioid crisis did not emerge from "some" doctors but from many thousands of doctors ER personnel dentists , etc prescribing opioids for any presumed measure of discomfort even before a patient testified of it - a myopic judgment based on a personal experience with one doctor does not in any manner even challenge the fact of a broad nationwide medical professional malfeasance and immediate culpability in the devastating opioid crisis
1
The War on Drugs, like the War on Terrorism, seem to be based on the concept of cutting off the head of the snake, while what is really being done is toppling the tip of the pyramid. The underlying cause of the scourge of drug trafficking is the misguided attempt to choke off supply of a commodity many people want. We complain that corruption in Mexico allows the drugs to flow, but that corruption is financed by us. A rational drug policy would involve legalization, taxation to fund treatment, and an end to private prisons.
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@James doohan
Exactly. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If only legislators, and not just mayors (many of whom have voiced similar concerns) would take the necessary action.
The drug cartels buy guns and thus support our N.R.A., a major fundraiser for the G.O.P. It's a vicious circle.
1
A few thoughts:
$58 Billion (at least) annually spent on War on Drugs.That's a number big enough to drum up some conflict of interest.
Prisons are a Big business. Its not just the cartels that stand to suffer. Big Pharma has a lot to lose as well if you legalize the competition.
Addiction and recidivism go hand-in-hand. As a society we should be proactive, not reactive. Educate, do not incarcerate.
A dealer can make more in a single day than working weeks in a minimum page job. What do Americans expect? Take a hard look at the American Dream and you may see part of the drug problem.
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@Andrew: None of your points address the fact that Guzman is a mass murderer, and one of, if not *the*, greatest drug dealers in history. He deserves the death penalty dozens of times over. The American Dream has nothing to do with this man's heinous crimes.
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@James, it's obvious that Andrew is not addressing the Guzman case; he's addressing the main point of this op-ed.
14
@James I see your point and I am certainly not a Guzman apologist, but he didn’t rise to “greatness” in a vacuum.
7
We can't admit that the current policy is failing. The war on drugs is an industry that is too profitable to shut down or limit. Too many politicians use the war as a means of stoking fear and race hatred. Drugs are a valuable political commodity . Maybe not as good as the caravan at the moment but certainly the most enduring means of defaming all Latinos.
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@Andrew Zuckerman
All war is profitable - and always will be. Both sides gain and no one seems to care about the casualties.
1
Why is there so much money in illegal drugs? Because people want them. And that is never going to change.
But our law-enforcement approach to drugs has created so many interested parties on both sides of the law that it has taken on a life of its own as these stakeholders seek to protect their turf. And because prohibition has never worked for anything, new thinking is desperately needed otherwise someone will be writing this same article in 25 years.
But vast sums of money combined with unending opportunities for political grandstanding...I'm not hopeful for change.
37