If all illicit drugs magically disappeared today, alcohol sales would spike. There is no social problem to deal with. People like drugs: be they meth, marihuana, alcohol, coffee, tobacco, etc. No amount of social reform is going to "fix" the problem. People abuse chocolate-chip cookies. Let them. This is their right. Prohibition has never worked and never will.
2
Legalize everything, control quality, distribution, profit. Eventually, governments will stabilize and citizens won’t need to flee Central America. The problem of immigration is directly linked to prohibition of drugs.
5
A deliberate policy of eliminating all illicit drug users, preferably by infiltrating cartels and poisoning illicit drugs, would lead to dramatic drops in illicit drug usage rates in America.
You can stop the drug trade only by eliminating demand, that is, the users.
2
We have a drug problem because we have a demand for drugs. We create a market for drugs.
We had this kind of demand/market before the opioid contribution to use and then consequent addiction.
Where there is a demand there will be supply. Demand comes first. And there's where the blame or "explanation" of the drug problem lies.
3
Drug Cartels make billions just off of America alone. The answers to why America becomes an addictive society is a study and a solution in itself.
Our system that allows for pharmaceuticals to produce opioids along with our physicians prescribing them doesn't help combat our social issue. Our pharmaceutical companies make billions too --adding insult to injury.
Blaming Mexico without recognizing our own corporate failures won't do anything but support the politics of it all.
The blame game obviously isn't the solution.
50
@Margie W
Opioids are the most effective pain relief medications in history, and they have been ever since the sap of the opium poppy was discovered to have pain-relieving properties. They were not invented as the result of of some sinister plot by the pharmaceutical companies.
Purdue's documented strategy of using high-pressure tactics by commission salespeople who minimized the hazards of their product in order to reap profits from their prescription is disgusting. But that doesn't call for a conclusion that prescription opioids need to be banned completely, or even that oxycodone should be banned completely.
Oxycodone was commonly prescribed (most commonly as Percodan and Percocet) as 5mg tablets for decades before Purdue decided to develop Oxycontin- compounded in high dosages like 40mg and 80mg, as a "time-release" pill whose properties could be defeated simply by chewing or crushing and snorting- as a way of adapting to the looming patent expiration of their time-release morphine compound, MS-Contin. It was the change in dosage per pill that brought on the opioid epidemic.
And now that years of a reckless and unaccountable prescription regime have ramped up the addict population in this country, there's a crackdown on even the most legitimately warranted prescriptions written by physicians who aren't out to make a penny from their prescriptions. Thus driving addicts to the street...is the illicit heroin market an improvement? Street fentanyl? Carfentanil?
4
Another solution not mentioned in the article is for the US to stop the flow of easily purchased firearms which, even when bought in large amounts and taken to the border do not violate any US laws. It is a well known fact the majority of guns used by the Cartels come from the US. Even making these guns harder to get will increase overall operating costs for the cartels and hinder their ability to transport drugs and deal in other criminal activity.
85
The real problems "...need integral long-term solutions, not simplistic ultimatums and threats."
Our country and its leaders offer "simplistic ultimatums and threats" because we cannot accept the fact that addiction is a disease and not a moral failing. As a result we prefer to spend millions enforcing prohibition instead of investing in treatment for the disease of addition. We therefore choose long term incarceration over long term rehabilitation and treatment even though the cost of incarceration is excessive and the social impact on families and communities is horrific. We should learn from our own history that we cannot fight addiction by increasing law enforcement any more than we could fight alcoholism by outlawing liquor sales.
59
@WFGersen
It is really true, addiciton is a disease, not a moral failing ... we should repeat and repeat that everywhere
1
@WFGersen
this country also hasn't gotten far enough to admit that- as with alcohol- most users of forbidden drugs are NOT addicts.
A careful reading of SAMHSA and ONDCP annual statistical surveys will show that 80% of those reporting illicit drug use within the preceding year confine that use to cannabis- pot, marijuana. As with binge drinking, the heaviest consumers of pot are males in their teens and twenties. More of them stop daily/heavy use by age 30 than is the case with alcohol use. The majority stop using pot completely after ago 30.
In the case of more addictive and dangerous drugs, 10-20% of the users consume 80% of the quantity. Roughly equivalent with the statistics for alcohol use by adults. Moreover, the vast majority of heavy users of hard drugs- meth, cocaine, opioids, benzos- are at the same time in the category of heavy alcohol users.
The signal difference is that addicts who confine their drug use to alcohol aren't driven into an illicit marketplace to buy increasingly poisonous substances. Nor are they criminalized and deemed pariahs to be driven into a corner and poked at with sticks until they change their ways, which is more or less the typical circumstance for someone addicted to illicit substances.
4
The drug gangs, police and militaries in latin america buy weapons and whatever they need from powerful US businesses. Do you think these businesses want the drug war to end? Do you think they vote for GOP or the Dems? The drug war has been a failure since prohibition for a good reason. Money! The only solution is to legalize, regulate and treat it as the health problem it is. Take the money away from the cartels and weapons manufacturers!
13
Exactly, will solve immigration problem as well.
We should make Gitmo available for housing cartel criminals from both countries. Mexico, for its part, should rescind its ban on capital punishment. As long as convicts in Mexico know they will only receive a prison sentence they will plot their escapes. They will corrupt their system to achieve their freedom. As it is only a tiny percent of murders are resolved. Hardly anyone is brought to justice.
1
It has always been a shared problem. The thing is, incompetent governments failing their own country have to find a scapegoat. Mexico and minorities have so far provided it for Trump and he will not stop, as long as his constituents keep buying his lies.
1
By this logic, the Opium War was all a big misunderstanding. It's just supply and demand, after all. China should have just invited foreign merchants to sell opium to meet the insatiable demand for drugs among the Chinese.
70000 deaths year and we cant do anything about, it's not Mexico's fault, more rehab? No get serious. Millions of US leftist get apoplectic when a rich guy shots a trophy lion or Duarte in The Philippines kill 3000 drug pushers. If faulty airbags in cars kill a few dozen while saving thousands strong action is taken. A $trillion worth of airplanes grounded because 300 died. 70000 deaths, $10 billion is peanuts for a wall..steel and electronic surveillance if it just slowed the increase in deaths. Acceptance and tolerance of corruption has wreaked havoc in Latin America. Everything possible must be done to stop it at the border/all ports of entry.. closing the border for as long as takes, inspecting everything,harsh prisons for pushers and willing to accept a few $trillion in economic cost is a worth it.
China, 1937: 90% + of all babies born in Yunnan, SW China were born addicted to opium.
China, 1927-49: Chiang Kaishek was the number one opium godfather in the world. He was also president and dictator of Nationalist China, backed by every major international bank in the world, including Barclays and Chase Manhattan.
China, 1927-49: China supplied 92%+ of the world's opium and heroin. The two biggest opium, heroin and morphine factories were in Tianjin and Shanghai, both controlled by Chiang Kaishek.
China, 1927-49: "BURN THE OPIUM AND KEEP THE GOLD." Rallying cry of Mao's deep cover special agents. Opium and heroin dealers were shot on sight.
China, 1949-56: Mao sends out his deep covers to kill all remaining opium and heroin dealers. Chiang Kaishek, with help of the CIA and French Intelligence, rebuilds his opium empire in French Indochina and Burma; Taiwan is built on opium and heroin.
1956: China produces 1% of the world's opium and heroin and continues to kill drug dealers left, right and center.
Mao sent out "The Mercy Teams" during the Chinese Revolution and well into the late 1950s, to treat addicts; addicts were never ostracized.
2016-2019: I had the honor to live in China, write and interview Red Army veterans of the Revolution and retired deep cover special agents, on the North China Coast. What I saw: No drive by murders, no gang violence, no ODs, and safe streets. Kids go to school and come back home alive.
Killing drug dealers works.
1
In Mexico, two percent of murders are solved. In the US, sixty percent are solved. Obviously, corruption in Mexico is a bigger problem than in the US. In Mexico, "looking the other way", is the norm. Not so in the US, except in sanctuary cities.
1
Supply and demand - Applies to drugs; Applies to illegal immigrants.
1
So big bad tough president Donald J Trump gives Mexico a YEAR to shape up, or what...ship out?
Oh now that will surely work.
Chest beating and bellowing empty threats always solves problems.
What a pathetic mess this president has created.
4
Truth, post-Obama, no longer exists.
With all the lies spewing out the front of this President’s mouth, I expect that the foreign country counterpunch id to double down harder and lie right back to his face.
The Trump Art of the Lie has morphed in so many ways.
Rough handshake meant to be mean spirited, not warm and sincere? Try the BIGGER Gripping Squeeze like the one Macron returned to Trump.
American university acceptance requirements too opaque? Double down and lie your intellectually lazy teenager into university.
At it’s core, the US is a mean country contolled by fear. Slavery was blatant. No health care who cares. Where you live controls the education you get. Lip service support for families raising children. Guns for everyone so stand your ground.
Trump’s global political counterparts are going through their own ordeal with this bully and the only way to deal with a bully is to counterpunch him harder at his own little game.
Books pour out of this administration on the domestic front and we gobble them up. What we haven’t yet seen happened behind closed doors and Trump denies us the notes.
The memoirs of world leaders who were in the room with this man are the books I eagerly anticipate.
2
It's basic law of supply and demand. There would be no drugs coming from Mexico, if Americans did not demand them. Look in the mirror. This country is an addict country. Mexico is a poor country feeding it's children on the foul habits of Americans.
This is true. It's not Trump's fault and it's not Mexico's fault.
It's our fault.
I have a sister who smokes pot every day of the week along with recreational cocaine and other narcotics. She declares these to be 'victimless crimes.'
Then I get out the old whiteboard and do the math for her...with 20% of the population of the U.S. snorting coke and meth and anything else they can suck up their nose...for $100/week...x 50,000,000 people....what corporation does she think is supplying her 'product'?
She hasn't a clue. She's an anti-gun nut..and I ask her which of the 5 gangs operating in her town are willing to give up their territory for selling her drugs and leave the guns at the police station, and she doesn't have a clue..just like 50 million other snorting Americans who keep the Cartels in business.
Now they can make more money trafficking people. They don't have to grow product or produce packaging and conceal shipments. They can rent a few busses and charge $2,000 a head to move them to the border..and another $2000 to cross with a coyote.
We're destroying ourselves..our neighborhoods..and our nation.....and we don't even see it.
1
Small-minded bigots are the problem. Fascists are the problem. trump is the problem. People that think like trump are the problem.
3
our druig problem is US - You and me. If we could stop traffic from mexico completely, it will come from other places such as China If there are buyers, there are sellers. We can't evrn stop our Opioid problem which is all Domestic; because we have American companies that make Opiois drugs, doctors that prescribe the, pharmacies that sell them all for money. There are so many deaths per year fro "Legal opioids" than from Mexican route, if we don't countcrminal gangsters killing each other or by police.
Grillo's column reveals that "progressives" really don't have a solution while they condemn the history of the "War on Drugs." They can't even acknowledge the enormous problems on our border with Mexico because the Democrats don't want to risk offending their base of Latino voters.
What is the liberal-left's solution? Legalization, or getting rid of the "Prohibition" while foolishly comparing it to the prohibition of alcohol from the 1920s to 1933? So, we legalize cocaine and sell it like recreational marijuana? And heroin? Meth? Other opiates? How would that work -- our society condoning drug abuse and so inviting young people to use it because "it's legal"? Wouldn't there still be a black market for those drugs, as there is for marijuana in states where it's legal?
No, the left has no realistic solution to the illegal drug issue. As for Mexico, that nation is practically ruled by the drug cartels and the billions they make -- the cartels corrupt the Mexican military, federal police, prison system, police, judges and politicians at all levels, they assassinate journalists, political opponents, farmers and other innocent civilians.
For now, interdiction is the only, if not perfect, way to fight drug trafficking from Mexico -- by far the biggest illicit drug suppler to the U.S. To me, Mexico is the most to blame.
People need to look up how Portugal dealt with its drug problem. It’s not as simple as building a wall! Drugs will still enter the U.S. regardless!
Most comments neglect to address the American drug pusher: Big Pharma! Trump talked a lot but has NOT done a thing to curb the abuse of opioids by Americans!
And....NO demand, NO supply! We, parents, and society in general must teach our children that drugs kill. BUT the number one drug in America is...alcohol and millions are addicted. Alcohol IS the entry drug! Alcohol is when our children first taste what a numbing high feels like, and then they go on to other more destructive drugs.
Legalize all drugs, like Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries have done.
And provide healthcare for all Americans, so that those who want to go to rehab can do so for free! Where do we get the money? By ending the endless wars!!!
1
No, Trump can't blame Mexico for our drug problem. But likewise, Mexico can't blame the U.S. for its violence problem.
1
I agree with the opinion writer, but I have to add, that the de-criminalization of cannabis, though not a drug-show stopper, seems to have had an impact on some illegal drug actiivity locally in California.
Mexican illegal drug dealers, movers, sellers, and cultivators know that if any of their contraband were to be made legal or legally accessible (a controlled substance if taken, the user would be under the control of some government supervisor), that their entire business would be gone.
Here in California, its Mexicans, and descendants of Mexicans who consume contraband such as cocaine.
Build it [the market for drugs] and they will com. It doesn't matter whether it's big pharma pushing opioids like oxycodone or China shipping fentanyl (Where's Sierra Charlie going to put THAT fence?) via 'normal' international carriers.
The selfsame evangelical christians that created organized crime in the 1920s [the market for alcohol], have now created - and are sustaining - drug cartels around the world.
The drugs themselves are not the problem. Functioning users often lead very productive lives (e.g., https://www.dualdiagnosis.org/alcohol-addiction/historical-figures-and-addiction/). They're cheap. The opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) can be grown at home. The biggest danger? “The high concentration of morphine contained in unwashed poppy seeds and extracted through home-brew methods may pose a danger of overdose or death.” (https://www.nhc.com/california-poppy). Yep, it is so concentrated, you've got to learn to 'cut' the stuff you grow at home.
So ask yourselves this: is it the drugs or the self-righteous & hypocritical barriers that force the debasing & demeaning 'life style' all-to-frequently associated with drug use?
2
Step one of any lasting solution is legalization. Any approach that continues to push this trade underground will continue to enrich the thugs and killers that run the cartels.
Portugal legalized ALL drugs. Drug use came down and the country has saved money at the same time it's treating its addicts for what they are: sick people. Perhaps marijuana legalization will lead the way for a better solution for our nation's drug problems...
The solution is obvious: if you have no money, you cannot afford to buy drugs.
The administration is working on it.
2
And I’ll bet this piece was written within a mile or two of a meth lab or a doctors office that hands out opioids like candy. The problems are within our borders.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
-Groucho Marx
Trump doesn't talk about where the problem begins: with each and every American who takes narcotic drugs. Stop taking them, or don't start, and you have solved the "trafficking" problem. No demand; no supply. Need more education & treatment centers.
1
They can't keep drugs out of maximum security prisons. How can anyone believe we are going to keep drugs from crossing our borders? Drug dealers and users are very creative people.
If people stopped doing drugs there would be no illegal drug problem - I can dream can’t I?
As long as there is demand for any product or service (i.e. profit to be made), people will sell that product or service, whether it's drugs, Hallmark cards, mercenaries, or the Super Bowl. That's really what it boils down to.
Why does Mexico, with very strict gun laws, have so many (often drug related) shootings? Same thing. There is the demand, so people sell guns (often from this side of the border) and others buy them.
It's not just tools of the trade, such as weapons, but all sorts of snake oil that is subject to the reality of "supply and demand", a dynamic that is likely as old as human trading itself, whether it's an elixir of youth, a pathway to God, a sex enhancer, a charismatic savior, a substance to make you feel good, or whatever. If you want it, for a price someone will sell it.
In any case, the title of this article, "Trump Can't Blame Mexico For Our Drug Problem" is patently absurd. Not only can he, but he has and has done so often. I know words and meaning are not highly valued at the moment, but Grillo's piece would have more credibility if the title read "Trump Shouldn't Blame Mexico For Our Drug Problem." Not that that more accurate title would likely change minds in an age of public acceptance of oxymorons such as "fake news" and "alternative facts."
1
Nancy Reagan was right when she said, "Just say no." She was mocked for offering a simplisitic solution.
Well, yes, it is quite simple.
It's also the only surfire solution.
Let's face facts.
Drugs have circulated in the United States for many decades. No amount of policing in cities or at the border has any chance of making drugs disappear.
Everyone has to make the decision not to take drugs, or not.
Growing up in the 1960s, I knew guys about my age who were shooting heroin.
My dad who was from El Paso had childhood pals who had become heroin addicts. I saw them in a narcotic haze, slipping in and out of sleep. It did not look like fun or remotely appealing. They looked like they were suffering from a disease.
Those men and boys became for me walking anti-heroin advertisements.
As for other drugs, I just applied some common sense and steered clear of cocaine, angel dust, barbiturates and LSD.
I drank alcohol and smoked marijuana, judging them to be okay if consumed in moderation.
Seemingly, a lot of young people lack common sense or sense of self-preservation.
Why take a substance guaranteed to ruin your life or kill you?
Yes, there are people suffering from pain, but folks dealt with pain years ago without resorting to opioids.
1
trumps typical way to deal with any problem is to throw a lot of hype at it. this administration is a complete and total failure when it comes to ideas to improve life in America for anyone but the upper 1percent.
1
Human beings have been altering their consciousness since we first appeared. It is a part of our nature and it isn’t going away. The only thing we can do is educate people about the dangers of all drugs, and then it’s each persons individual choice about what they put in their body. Even God couldn’t prevent Adam and Eve from eating that apple.
There are many dimensions to the drug problem in this country. Yes, there's too much demand for drugs, which is caused by a multitude of different societal factors, including overprescription of opiates by doctors and the destruction of the institutions that have historically given meaning to people's lives, namely, religion and family.
There's also too much supply of drugs, and a lot of that supply comes through our southern border - from Mexico to be precise. In the past several years street opiate prices have gone down and purity levels have gone significantly up. To those members of society who are marginally interested in using these drugs that is a trend that makes it more likely that they ultimately will, and this is a trend that does not have to be so (i.e., it is not a fact of life that drug purity levels go up at all times...sometimes they in fact go down). I think we ought to take responsibility for our own problems, but to suggest that we can't insist that Mexico do more to stop the flood of poison from Mexico into the US is ridiculous.
Trump is absolutely right to insist that Mexico do more or suffer consequences for letting this happen. Our fellow citizens are dying at an alarming rate, and I'd say it's about time we threw the kitchen sink at this thing.
I've often thought it would be poetic to take drugs our authorities have seized, individually package them, and then airdrop them over the cities of countries that have facilitated trafficking them into the US. If we were to have done so, I'm sure the author would blame the US for the rise in addiction that would likely occur in those countries. Why? Because drugs aren't like other products. They can quickly take over the user's choice about whether or not to use them.
While that approach I mentioned is not a perfect analogy to what trafficking countries (of which Mexico is a prominent one) have done, the end result is a valid analogy. Trafficking countries have helped to addict our fellow citizens. It is okay to call them out for it just like we do many of our pharmaceutical companies.
Criticism of Trump in this matter is valid, as his motivation is less about seriously addressing Mexico policy than creating distraction. But that doesn't make Mexico a saint. In many ways they are an awful neighbor, and one that rarely fails to squander the good fortune of having the US as a neighbor. They could have developed their population and trade to be like Canada (another country they're climbing over each other to move to), but consistently choose to be themselves. Sad.
Meanwhile, legalization of marijuana in some states cut into the profits of the Hispanic drug cartels, so they turned to other drugs, other businesses. The basic problem in Latin America is widespread tolerance for corruption that enables criminals to operate with impunity and even be admired for their criminality. Meanwhile, our near neighbor to the North, Canada, hasn't nearly the problems with drugs that Mexico does, despite its proximity to the US. If drugs caused the problems Mexico has, well, it should cause them in Canada, too. The drugs are a symptom of Mexico's problems not a cause.
The whole situation depends on the easy available access to high powered guns.
We are the problem. Our firearm purchase laws are so lax, that these guns are freely available.
We have a two way exposure. The Narcos sell drugs, and use some of the revenue to buy firearms. These weapons are then employed to intimidate the Mexican legal system from top to bottom. There are far too many Mexicans who are put into a no win choice; give me bribes or give me death. The result is corruption, chaos and murder.
If we want to interfere with drugs across the border, we must closely control the sale of assault weapons in the US.
"Trump is the arsonist who gets credit for putting out the fire", said Beto O'Rourke (Source: CNN). Unfortunately, the fire will spread even more and more. It has been happening since Nixon. And just look where Mexico is right now; On the verge of a failed state. If we don't realize promptly that such a nonsense public policy has done tremendous harm to both our countries, a few years from now there won't be enough firemen to put out the wildfire on both sides of the border.
Trump is one of many who think the it is always others's fault. The problem is that he is president.
1
The is a direct correlation between availability and opportunity.
1
"Trump Can’t Blame Mexico for Our Drug Problem"
Yes, he can. Mexico is not far from being a failed state. The level of violence keeps rising. I used to vacation in Cancun but wouldn't consider going now. There are better places to go where you don't find dead bodies on the beach. Too bad.
I beg to differ. She said something extremely ignorant and ungrateful to the country that took her in, and deserves to catch a lot of heat for it from the general public. She also has problems with anti-Semitism, as evidenced by previous comments she's made (anti-Semitism is a rampant problem in the global Muslim community, much greater than it is in the West). Many of her public comments have been low-brow - frankly, they're the kind of things you'd expect to hear from politicians in a basket case country like the one she fled. America is far from perfect, but we're better than that.
It would be better to focus exclusively on the shame of the death threats, which simply have no place in a civilized country. But when it comes to that there are plenty of white male politicians that have gotten those, too. She is not alone in that, even though it should never happen.
Ms. Omar has an equal right to other politicians to be called out for inappropriate comments and stupidity, and we should all do our part to help her with receiving the cultural education she clearly needs.
"Trump Can’t Blame Mexico for Our Drug Problem"
You can blame the Hollywood and entertainment elites who use these drugs and feed the coffers of the drug cartels and aggravate the misery of the victims of the cartels and are models of their followers/fans.
Such hypocrisy of the left is to be expected.
Nixon's interest in the Drug War (confirmed by Erlichman's later admissions) was to perpetuate his malignant Southern Strategy and further punch at blacks and hippies. It was essentially a scheme designed to manipulate voters, not unlike Trump's fealty to base attitudes. Neither cared a whit about victims of drugs.
No wonder we've failed. Drugs are a demand-driven problem, but we've been fighting it as if it were a supply-driven problem.
Drug cartels are meeting a demand. Reduce the demand, and the supply will take care of itself.
But that means addressing drugs as a complex set of mental health and social issues. The question we need t ask ourselves is: Why do Americans consume so many drugs?
Instead of putting a lot of money into demand-reduction (which requires costly prevention, treatment and rehabilitation programs), we've let the DEA cowboys pretend for 50 years that we can combat this problem on the cheap, with high-profile interdictions and high-level kingpin arrests overseas. That's a fool's errand. All we've done is create jobs for DEA cowboys without making a dent in drug flows.
Take care of the demand back home.
1
many americans sell and use illegal drugs. some states have legalized use of some drugs that are still illegal under federal law. the federal government has stopped(announced publicly) trying to prosecute the sale of some illegal drugs apparently because a large percentage of americans like to use the drug and arrests in the past have been for possession and small amounts of sales by minorities.
in sum the real problem relating to drugs is that a large percentage of americans use illegal drugs because they want to do so. law enforcement(this includes the Executive Branch of the Federal government) in the united states to some extent has been corrupted by the large amounts of money being made in the sale of the drugs. this has been going on for years. how high up in the political chain is unknown by me.
apparently many famous people in the United States have used hard drugs. this is widely reported in the media and the alleged users have not sued for libel and slander probably because truth is a defense. i have always wondered the reason why these famous folks are not subpoenaed before a grand jury and given a choice of identifying the source of their drugs or going to jail(granted immunity). i assume that our own law enforcement really do not care if people use or not. they have had no stomach for prosecuting famous people for use, possession and getting users to identifying their suppliers.
As an immigrant from east Asia, I am so sad and hopeless to witness what this country is going through. This drug epidemic is not simply caused by any other countries, Mexico or China, but so many factors domestically. Why is there such a high demand of drug in US? Are people happy with their life? How many people still have normal and happy family? Is there a solid and warm supporting societal support system when people need help? What is younger generation's value? How do parents educate their children and instill not just unconditional love but also discipline and grit to their children's mind? What do today's students worship?
There are so many problems and none of them has simple answer. In Seattle, the homeless and drug addicts can legally set up tent in the woods of a property belong to residents of condominium. They set fires, get into people's cars, steal mail packages and vandalize the property but police can't do nothing. It's so angry and sad to see a beautiful city is deteriorating to the paradise of junkies.
The problem is not only to get these people to mental health facilities and rehabs, but also how to prevent the younger generation from getting addicted. Schools, families, law enforcement system, government, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare system, every individual all have diligent duties to work together and resolve the problem. It will never go away, but it will never be resolved by using simplistic ultimatums and threats.
3
In 2017 there were 70,000 drug overdose cases in the US. That same year there were 88,000 alcohol related deaths (including 10,000 killed in alcohol related auto crashes). The US had prohibition from 1920 to 1933, it didn't work. Criminals sold illegal alcohol and terrorized our major cities. In the end we learned how to accept and deal with alcohol. it is now sold in grocery stores and mega alcohol related box stores as well as bars and taverns. It is advertised in all forms of media. We have numerous alcohol related support groups, rehab facilities and education on the dangers of alcohol. What makes anyone think the drug trade will end any differently.
It is easy to blame others than acknowledge and accept one own responsibility. While the sociological, psychological, economic and societal reason for rampant drug use is many it so far simpler to blame others.
The blame game has been played well for 40+ years but we are no where close to addressing the real underlying issue and damage to the families it has caused.
Too often politicians have used red herring scare tactics to engage voters but rarely have they spoken to the truth. the current administration is the last of a long line of truth twisters that just have no solution except blaming everyone else.
Prohibition was a complete failure. It produced a major crime wave without in any way reducing the alcohol available. So Prohibition was repealed without in any way reducing the alcohol available. We live with millions of deaths over the years
caused by alcoholism, traffic accidents involving drink, and fights and killings involving drink.
The War on Drugs is an even bigger failure that produced an international crime wave and hundreds of thousands of deaths, mass incarceration for minorities, the minor players that are easy to catch and jail, interference and militarization and destabilization for South American suppliers, and death, death, death from overdosing on drugs that are legal and make billions for the producers, which has taken corruption to the next level.
The only way to win "The War on Drugs" is to halt the demand for drugs in the biggest market for drugs: the USA. That is not possible. The best we can do is reduce what drives people to drugs, something we haven't even studied: young people adventuring, despair, people fighting pain, athletes cheating, and on and on. People love drugs, the EZ way to feel good in the short term and wreck in the long term. So Halt the Prohibition Crime by legalizing all the drugs and Educate massively and make rehab available to all. Then we live with the alcohol-like death and damage hoping for an actual cure/treatment for a human weakness.
One of those compromises that's bad but better than the War on Drugs.
The punitive coercion of criminalization- the War on Drugs- is the real "Drug Problem." It's the dry rot of public policy initiatives.
The ill consequences from the reckless use of hazardous drugs are undeniable. The "law enforcement" emphasis of the War on Drugs has exacerbated those problems in every conceivable way, along with sowing unheralded levels of corruption within institutions ranging from the banks to the police and the military, from rural police forces on up to entire national governments. A situation that has been fueling toxic levels of cognitive dissonance and cynicism in cultures and societies the world over for decades on end, in tandem with providing the foundation of financial power for the criminal gangs who have been granted a de facto monopoly over the trade.
As if that weren't enough, we're now at the point where the technology to manufacture super-potent synthetic drugs like carfentanil is being exploited by clandestine laboratories.
Opium use was widespread in the US and UK in the 19th century, and there were addiction and overdose problems. But it took decades of Drug Prohibition to bring us this crisis.
As in all addictions it takes two to tango. One to sell the appropriate addictable item and one who buys it. Sometimes a third party enters the fray: one who facilitates or encourages the use of the drug/alcohol. There is plenty of blame to go around here.
By choosing to attack only the supply side of the equation, the government avoids admitting problems at home. You can always blame the "other" for your situation. Coupled with a persistent view in many places that addiction is a choice people make, the war on drugs is destined to be about as effective as a war on prostitution. Legalizing access to drugs provides safety for uses, decreases corrections costs and provides revenue to support treatment. We learned nothing from Prohibition.
The only way to stop the drug trade is to stop demand.
As long as the docs keep prescribing OxyCodone and Fentanyl
and creating addicts among their patients, the problems will continue. The docs are sacrificing the few (addicts) for the benefit of the many (patients in pain). It's called collateral
damage. If Fentanyl became an illegal drug, like recently
in China, things would change. But it will never happen
@Tom Well here's another idea. Why don't we fund research on new drugs that alleviate pain but are NOT addictive. Hey, now there's an idea.
1
"Trump Can't Blame Mexico for Our Drug Problem"
Except that he can. And he will.
In case no one has noticed, Donald Trump is not even loosely tethered to objective reality. He will say whatever he calculates plays best with his "base". The man has absolutely no regard for honesty or integrity. No narrative specificity should be required to reinforce that at this point.
America is currently working its way through an insanity phase. Rational thinking and evidence-based debate have no currency in the contemporary Republican party or conservatism in general. It's anyone's guess how we come out on the other side of it.
Focusing on Mexico’s role in production and shipment of drugs is a shortsighted, one dimensional take on a far more complicated situation.
It makes sense when promoting wall construction propaganda, but all you have to do is look at the statistics for meth lab cleanup across the US heartland (Trump country I might add). Thousands of labs are found each year, and the flow of drugs is right from lab to nearby neighborhoods.
We have a cultural issue of tremendous proportion, and until we do something about the root causes - poverty, unemployment loom large - stopping drugs from Mexico, if even possible, would not stop the epidemic of use.
The original "simplistic ultimatum and threat" is prohibition itself.
"Drug Enforcement" is a supply side control, causing the price for drugs to remain high. Until we change our enforcement policy, narco trafficking will flourish.
If we're serious about improving our outcomes, we need to rethink all of our policies. Portugal is a good role model.
It defies logic that, as I write this, thousands of addicts on waiting lists to get into or back to treatment. After five decades of the "War On Drugs" began, the problem is worse than ever. Drugs like meth are stronger and cheaper. Communities across the country continue to be ravaged by opioids. Politicians, afariad of beging labeled "soft on drugs", continue to push the same failed law enforcement strategies while refusing to fund treatment solutions.
2
Not to mention the American drug pushers, Big Pharma!
Follow the money. A big part of this problem is how does this huge flow of cash get out of the country. Perhaps if attention was paid to this like we did on water gate and are trying to do now we can make it harder and cut down on drug deals. We seem to have plenty of skilled investigators that are capable of this. Why doesn't it happen more often.
The biggest drug pushers are our own physicians and Big Pharma!
Of course, if the demand drops, the cartels stop... no more drug smuggling, no more mega DEA and the border gets much more reasonable. But, if the demand cannot stop there's another option, the Portugal Option, legalization. Might be time to try it in a few states, like the ones with the highest OD rates? If it were to save lives and and money, duh?
1
We’ve been fighting this war for almost 40 years . And the situation is worse now than it was when we started 40 years ago. So our solution is just to keep doing it forever? Maybe it’s time for us to take a look at a different approach. But that doesn’t satisfy the old thinking people that believe we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve always done , over and over. It
would be great if some politician would come up with a realistic new idea to tackle this terrible problem. America’s worst addiction is Our addiction to old ideas , like our drug war, that have proven that they don’t work.
2
Yes there is a demand in the US.
Maybe the addicts who won't quit (that's what I said) can be relocated to the border area to be closer to their suppliers. This would introduce efficiencies in the process.
FYI: Most illicit drugs do not come in through the southern border! Containers ships, and also our own meth labs in cities and towns everywhere! And.....the biggest problem of all opioids!!! Brought to us by....Big Pharma!
The US is the biggest drug market due to despair. We don’t address the causes of addiction: no hope, little education and few prospects. And we stigmatized the treatment of addiction. (Watch HBO’s “Meth Storm”)
The “War on Drugs” abject failure makes Viet Nam look like an overwhelming success.
We weakly fight the symptoms, not the disease.
5
Why is there so little discussion of how the harrowing (& often intractable) disease of addiction could be prevented?
5
Because that requires healthcare, education, decent wages. And likely more taxes. Thus, no republicans and few democrats want to to discuss that.
Easier to blame immigrants, and not do anything meaningful.
2
Americans like their drugs. Just legalize it all. How much worse can it be for society to let people use their drug of choice? Going to bet alcohol abuse drops, and the drop in alcohol related deaths makes up for the increase in deaths from other drugs. It's not the fault of Mexico that so many people in America live such miserable lives that they need some pot, coke or heroin to get through it.
4
People who blame Mexico for drug problem, do not blame gun manufacturers from mass killing in US. Why double standard? Answer legal bribery-lobbying.
10
Boulder dash! The “War on Drugs” is, and always has been, a total failure.
Since the time of prohibition, the inane drug control solutions our country has implemented have ended up with worse consequences than the initial problem it intended to solve.
It’s also disingenuous to hear this from Trump, when even he has acknowledged being at many NYC parties where rampant cocaine abuse occurred.
It’s time to do what’s right, and follow what Portugal has done (with some success) - decriminalize all drugs and minimize conditions which encourage violence.
5
The biggest users of illicit drugs are Wall St. and the entertainment industry (particularly Hollywood and the music industry). The first are protected by the Republicans and FOX News. The second are the darlings of liberal Democrats and the liberal media do not report on them.
When particular users are identified they are always some poor shmoe, as illustrated in this piece.
1
Wrong. We have a crisis of opioid abuse, brought to you by America’s Big Pharma!
The drug problem precedes President Trump. If Trump had some support from the Congress he would stop it dead in its tracks along with illegal immigration. 60 years ago when I was a teenager living in the North Bronx, drugs were available for anyone who wanted them. Nothing has changed. I know its your job to criticize Trump, but please, it certainly is not his fault we have a dug problem. He knows it and wants to stop it but can't do it alone.
7
@NYChap it is not trump's fault that there is a drug problem, but it is his fault that he only wants to hype solutions with fake emergencies and playing the misplace the blame game. trump proves over and over that he only works at improving his label.
25
not long ago the Republicans had both houses of Congress. do anything?
7
@NYChap
Congress can't support him because he has no logical plan. Hurling insults and blaming immigrants is not a plan. As the article makes plain a real plan requires financial resources and officials working together on both sides of the border. The refugees at the border are not the one bringing drugs in or shooting up under urban bridges.
6
Alas, Trump does blame Mexico, Democrats, Muslims, LGBTQ people and anyone else he can think of for all the problems he has created. And, of course, only he can fix it.
1
halo Mr. Grillo:
Welcome. Receiving this exculpation column deserves to give a thank you note. Your initiative while being right is also neglected by the americans.
I worn expect to not consider or not even pay any reaction from the polititian crew.
In other words this action is futile, any way thank you.
Nearly 300,000 people dead on both sides of the border, and no end in sight. Anywhere else that would constitute an international crisis, but between the US and Mexico it’s just another day at the office. Open air markets in our cities; mass murders in theirs to control our markets. How do you stop it? More prisons just for druggies with stricter drug enforcement? Legalization? Mass military raids on production and control of the supply? The 5B he wants for the wall used instead for education and rehabilitation? Is there enough work for everyone? Is there enough empathy and local support for the afflicted to make a difference? Who lives and who dies? Who cares enough that profit from our becoming healthy again isn’t the motivation? There’s a long and dangerous road for both countries ahead, and the question of who has the political and moral will to make the journey may define our futures.
If Americans didn't want the drugs, cartels South of the border would have to change products -- maybe to weapons or sex slaves, which happen to be in demand in the U.S., also. Legalization of all drugs, with taxes on their revenue, would be a way to resolve the situation.
The American market drives cartel revenue, as seen in plunging sales of cannabis, now legal in many U.S. states. The demand for coke, heroin and meth, by American junkies, addicts and their vendors, will not stop anytime soon.
Drugs help keep the U.S., Mexican and South American economies afloat, by keeping opium poppy and coca leaf workers, their families and all involved in the supply chain, alive.
The same can be said of police, in all countries involved, who supplement their income with cartel payoffs. Also true for the drug shippers, stockers and distributors.
If the U.S. demanded to deal only with legal enterprises, whose profits were taxed, and who respected international human rights, cartels and American distributors would suddenly become international enterprises with employees.
The U.S. could assay the drugs for purity, open drug stores and tax their revenue. For homeless addicts, clean needles and free drugs could be provided daily.
This is not to say drug use is healthy. But, U.S. hunger for drugs won't diminish. Better to legalize drugs, tax the revenue, care for the addicts and fight human rights abuses. BigPharma, with oxy, is like a legal cartel, but not taxed enough.
2
Our drug problem is ours. It's a demand problem, not just a supply problem. A greater range of drug legalization allowing for legalized prescription of controlled substances, combined with treatment is part of the solution. As long as a market exists, there will be illegal suppliers. It would be better to have controlled legal suppliers.
3
Agree with your headline, America's promotion and usage of it is the end problem. Countries like Mexico are only enabling and co depending on a demand for it.
Treat hard drugs like drunk driving or cig. smoking ie lethal and do not promote it in any way shape or form especially in Hollywood.
Have enough places for people who want to get off them. Offer safe houses where somebody who is gonna commit a crime get a safe fix and then forced in re hab. Put the chronic unrepentant hard drug user in long term re hab.
You are never gonna end it forever but these measures would cut down on it drastically.
1
We killed Pablo Escobar in 1993.
And the drugs keep coming.
It is a demand-side problem.
As long as there are Americans paying for drugs, there will be people making money supplying the drugs.
2
Despite the title of the article, Trump can in fact blame Mexico. Trump blames everyone for everything. This is his style of Leadership," and it consists avoiding responsibility for everything, which, logically, means everyone else is to blame for whatever goes wrong or doesn't work.
4
The first American politician to recognize the "way out" of our drug situation, could win the next election.
Here it is: Follow Portugal, which, in 2002 (!), decriminalized ALL drug use and abuse, and moved their resources from "law enforcement" to HEALTH SERVICES, as drug use and abuse is a health issue, NOT a criminal issue.
You will NOT hear about their SUCCESS here, as this backwards country cannot handle losing the bribery, corruption and the criminal empire that has infiltrated all levels of our society, ESPECIALLY those who profit directly from addiction (SACKLER FAMILY).
6
Opioids are to the USA what cheap vodka was to the USSR. It helps deadened the pain of remorseless reality created by merciless Wall Street Capitalism!
4
Remove the hopelessness, the demand will quiet. It won’t go away of course but it could quiet.
If we had Democratic capitalism where folks they actually had an opportunity to build a nice life for themselves and their families without fear of “falling through some crack” due to chronic disease or accident—- this would help.
I can’t tell you how angry I would be if my children’s safety were in peril because they were trying to meet the demand for drugs in the US. It is amazing that anger from south of the border doesn’t just erupt and hurt us all.
1
Unfortunately, Mr. Trump can say and do whatever pleases him. The Republican Party leadership in the U.S. Senate has provided Mr. Trump with a free pass for any hypocrisy or crime he may wish to commit. This will most probably continue as long as Republicans dominate the Senate and Democrats spend time and effort bashing one another.
2
I am always surprised by deaths due to drugs. One would think that dealers would want repeat customers. It would be good for business for drug lords to fund special drug EMU's and provide them with free Narcan.
As long as there is demand for any product or service (i.e. profit to be made), people will sell that product or service, whether it's drugs, Hallmark cards, mercenaries, or the Final Four. That's really what it boils down to.
Why does Mexico, with very strict gun laws, have so many (often drug related) shootings? Same thing. There is the demand, so people sell guns (often from this side of the border) and others buy them.
It's not just tools of the trade, such as weapons, but all sorts of snake oil that is subject to the reality of "supply and demand", a dynamic that is likely as old as human trading itself, whether it's an elixir of youth, a pathway to God, a sex enhancer, a charismatic savior, a substance to make you feel good, or whatever. If you want it, for a price someone will sell it.
In any case, the title of this article, "Trump Can't Blame Mexico For Our Drug Problem" is patently absurd. Not only can he, but he has and has done so often. I know words and meaning are not highly valued at the moment, but Grillo's piece would have more credibility if the title read "Trump Shouldn't Blame Mexico For Our Drug Problem." Not that that more accurate title would likely change minds in an age of public acceptance of oxymorons such as "fake news" and "alternative facts."
2
Most drugs come through other ports of entry and are not originating in Mexico.
1
Don the Con will always blame someone, anyone else for whatever is the issue of the moment. That way he'll never have to give any thought to how to best resolve any issue.
Come up with a four word jingoistic statement and viola it's on to the next thing.
This president has the same potential for solving serious issues as a horse has of being able to deal cards.
3
In Colorado use of narcotics is down; use of drugs by teens is down; and violent crime is down. Why? The answer might be legalized cannabis.
Pot is easy to buy; safe to use; and a very effective anxiety deterrent, in many cases.
Research is being done that was formerly prohibited.
And it is being taxed and the tax money is very useful.
Nixon demonized cannabis because he was frightened of all the hippies and college students who were marching to end the war in Vietnam and for Civil Rights. Those kids were going to make a lot of noise about the Military industrial complex and the establishment and that wasn't going to end well for the so called Silent Majority's hold on our democracy.
And by the nature of the wave of new Congresspeople we see today he was right.
4
The only ones who benefit from the war on drugs are the police, prosecutors and prison guards and prison industry-the drug industrial complex. The drug sellers profit.
The drug users suffer. Spend what we spend on prisons and police and prosecutors on treatment and alternatives to incarceration.
Mexico needs less inequality, more rule of law and less corruption but that does not create the problem in the USA.
Suppression and drug wars only lead to innovation in supply and alternatives which are more deadly.
Vietnam Vet
4
Great article. Agree wholeheartedly. We need to focus on demand, treating addiction, and the unhealthy mental health issues that contribute to this. Young people are vulnerable because we do a poor job in our society of making them feel valued and helping them on a path that will lead to a happy life. It’s a complex equation, but mercenary capitalism is not a happy society to live in, and that unhappiness and lack of meaning to life is a key factor in the addicted society we have in the US.
4
The 21st amendment to our Constitution repealed the 18th (prohibition of alcohol). Those that are ignorant of history are condemned to repeating its mistakes. Unfortunately, there are those that know the history and wish to repeat the profits.
2
"...while seizures of marijuana have plummeted, probably due to the production of legal cannabis in the United States."
BINGO!
We have heard for decades now that the "war on drugs" has failed utterly and cost countless $ and lives. But still we pour money into the war machine. This is because - except for the state-by-state legalization of cannabis - the war is very profitable for those with power.
Imagine our great nation actually funding the treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts at the same level as we fund the war on drugs? Imagine decriminalizing addiction and providing community-based treatment and support. All the experts say this would be the ultimate/permanent game-changer. Problem is...there's no profit in it and thus we continue on insanely, doing the same old thing and expecting different results. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so freaking sad.
5
"Trump can't blame Mexico...." when are journalists going to stop reporting on Trump as if he were a moral, rational person? Trump is a petulant deranged child who can do anything he decides to do on any given day. Please stop pretending his thought processes are rational or logical and start addressing his pathology as it imperils all of us.
5
Mexicans, or Indios, were smoking la mota for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years without a whiff of a problem. The drug wars were started by Nixon fifty years ago when he declared his war on drugs which was about as successful as his war in Vietnam. As American students studying in Mexico City then, my pals and I laughed and kept puffing away.
1
If there's a problem anywhere in the world, always remember -- Blame America First. It's the liberal way.
@Gerber
So, it's not america's drug problem that causes it? Do you really think that w/o a market for drugs, a high demand in the US, that drugs would be such a problem for the producers?
How naive.
2
You seem to think drugs are a "problem" for the producer. You forget that it's also a tremendous money-making opportunity. The drug producers want to engage in that trade because it's easier, though riskier, than other employment options.
@Gerber
Sure and man has always taken advantage of demands.
But w/o that demand, there is no producer. No one makes anything if there is no market for it. And there is a huge demand for drugs of all kinds. Which means someone will step up to fulfill it.
By the way the opioid demand was started by american drug cos. and pushed by american doctors who got people hooked on the stuff.
Our demand is all home grown.
The stupid method of prohibition has been tried with alcohol and drugs. All it does is criminalize it and force people to buy it from someone. We have had decades of a war on drugs and no amount of prohibition has solved it. Just like we realized with alcohol and got rid of prohibition for that, we need to stop blaming other countries and fix our problem.
And hint you won't prohibit your way out of it.
I wouldn't say the drug trade is easy work, but it is extremely lucrative. And when large amounts of money is thrown around greed is to be seen. We see enough of the greed factor right in our own country.
Let's try a thought experiment:
Imagine building a huge dam on the Mississippi just south of St. Louis to "stop" the flow of the river. Do nothing else. Simply build a wall. What happens? All that water will still end up in the Gulf of Mexico. It will take a hundred--maybe a thousand--routes and still find its way. It's the slope of the continent and the pull of gravity, the way of the world.
Drugs flow from field to user because the user demands it. People flow from unsafe environs to more free, safe, and prosperous lands because survival requires it. If we do not attend to the needs of the person who is addicted or the family who is at risk, the flows will continue in ways--and with costs--yet unknown.
We must address the needs that people have if we wish to live in a safe world. If we choose to erect barriers to keep out things and people we risk becoming prisoners of our own prejudice, cruelty, and selfishness.
6
I am OK with decriminalizing the use of drugs, within reason. I would balance that by doubling down on the criminal penalties for the sale and transport of drugs. The trucker who transported enough drugs to end the lives of everyone in New Jersey received a sentence of ten years. Not enough. He should have received life, like his victims.
2
Legalizing heroin and its ilk would solve the problem if linked to control centers where addicts could get their fix for free or a low price. This approach has worked in some European countries. Why? Because the illegal drug trade is all about making money. Remove the ability for money making from the cartels and smuggling would stop. Also, jobs in the US would be created by a new industry, just as happened with marijuana.
2
@Ann One problem is the switch to other drugs. When our county had law enforcement, human services, prosecutors and courts working together, it worked. Dealers found the market for heroin went down. So? As enterprising capitalists do, they changed their product to meth which is a much harder addiction to treat in many ways. I can’t see just legalizing all drugs as a solution.
The drug problem in the United States is simply an illustration of the Free Market, which the Republicans worship, at work. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. We furnish the demand, and Mexico furnishes the supply. To blame Mexico for our problem is simply one more example of the stunning hypocrisy which is now the hallmark of the Republican Party.
9
@Vesuviano Who is to blame for gun sales in Mexico?
Anyone blaming any country for passing drugs into America refuses to see what is obvious.
Blaming Mexico alone as the source of America's drug habits is like blaming the alcohol industry for a person becoming an alcoholic.
Where is the 'free choice" that humans are supposed to have if it is all the fault of someone or some other country?
I knew a young man from the age of 8 who recently died in his early 50s of a heart attack from the use of heroin. Not once did I hear him blame Mexico for his addiction, only himself.
1
It's not "blaming” anyone. If drugs are coming from Mexico, it makes sense to interdict them. This is yet another appeal to emotion over logic.
@Michael Livingston The problem is that it’s almost impossible to do, and the dealers will switch to selling homemade drugs.
1
Please see Jason’s recent comment. I don’t know personally of anyone who wants to throw open the borders especially to criminal activity. If we ignore all our available options in favor of building a very expensive medieval type wall across the southern border then we are self deluding. I would refer you to previous “impenetrable” walls such as The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall and the Berlin Wall.
If no one here in the U.S. wanted drugs, there would be no market, hence, no suppliers/no drugs. A product needs buyers and there are hundreds of thousands of eager drug buyers here. All three of my younger brothers were drug addicts - begging, borrowing and stealing to feed their habits. I say they "were" drug addicts; they are all three dead from heroin and/or Fentanyl overdoses. My brothers drained our family financially and emotionally as we watched them die because they wanted drugs more than they wanted to live. Do not blame Mexico. When people want the oblivion that drugs provide, they will find them.
4
Trump's declaration blaming Mexico for a voracious demand in America, is just more simplistic, hypocrisy laden, no substance, fantasy argument from the mouth of the empty vessel, Individual-1; who has done nothing, other than to foment chaos to whatever he touches. He is the King Midas myth to America, and all we hold dear. Everything he touches, he ruins. The economy is soon to follow. Nancy Pelosi is correct when she says Trump understands he hasn't a clue to the requirements or tasks of the Oval Office. It's just a room to him to watch "Fox and friends" and Sean Hannity give him his marching orders. Sad.
1
Narco-corruption is the out growth of the USs insatiable hunger for drugs and getting high. The opioid crisis is more about the anxieties and the escapism of Americans than about Mexican politics. Fentanyl and Crystal Meth are the great escapes. The drug war has tarnished the USs judiciary system with the racist implementation of drug offenses. Legalizing pot was so over due. Trump and his crew seem determined to create anarchy over drugs and migration. The war on drugs is a dismal failure and it will never succeed. Trump's love of the yawning spread of economic disparity that will start to bite society hard when the current boom runs out of steam. This is truly disturbing.
The article is important for two reasons. First it tries to correct a series of lies and present the truth to a reading public. Second, it is imperative that every lie be refuted as the lies will continue and the truth distorted. Remember if you tell lies often enough and they are not refuted they will become the truth and reality.
1
Alcohol and drug addiction becomes a serious problem when a person looses self control. If easy availability of drugs and alcohol cannot be stopped then the problem cannot be resolved. Gun suppliers and drug suppliers create a demand and the drug traffickers and dealers keep the supply flowing. So where does Mexico come up in our severe drug problem?
Mexico cannot be blamed if drug suppliers and dealers are stopped from entering our Southern border, the primary entry point of drugs from Mexico, central America and South America through to the USA and as claimed by Mexico, trafficking of guns to Mexico from the USA.
What are the solutions? Our president Trump is an outstanding example of a person who does not smoke, drink alcohol or do drugs. Several millions Americans are like Trump why can we all be non smokers, teetotalers and drug free? Even without addiction we all have to deal with problems, why add more self inflicted problems than we already have. What deterrents or incentives do we need. Is just trying to stay healthy and living a full life not enough?
America spends billions on addiction research. Why can we not fully translate research findings and common sense approaches, secure the border and plug areas of Southern border through which drugs percolate and leave a significant numbers of our population free of addiction to drugs. As long as there is a demand for drugs in the USA we will continue to have a drug problem. If not through Mexico then where from?
The US market for illegal drugs disrupts and corrupts life in several Central and South American countries. It promotes drug addiction among vulnerable US residents, and creates great wealth for unsavory, dangerous characters and organizations. We should recognize the fundamentals of our illegal drug market rather than blame the producers, distributors, and countries of origin.
Our attempt to restrict the supply of illegal drugs is an abject failure. Each year, we spend $47 billion on a futile “war on drugs” and we send hundreds of thousands of people to prison for drug violations. Still, the illegal drug market expands and evolves. Still, the number of addicted Americans increases. Still the profit from producing and distributing illegal drugs incents suppliers and distributors.
Why not try the opposite approach? Why not bow to the inevitable rather than legislate and fight for the impossible?
Let’s produce addictive drugs legally, locally, and cheaply. Let’s make them available to addicts by prescription, at cost. The availability of cheap, safe addictive drugs would reduce the criminal activity associated with affording and distributing drugs. It would remove the profit incentive for recruiting new addicts. Distributing additive drugs by prescription would provide an opportunity to offer therapeutic assistance to addicts.
1
@AynRant
I think that approach has already been tried - with not great results. Next?
Bravo...how many businesses continue to exist if there are no customers?
2
I take issue with the claim that "the United States arrests millions on drug charges". These millions are overwhelmingly the small time drug dealers or users that crowd our prisons. When was the last time we heard about the arrest of an American drug kingpin? Apparently, those only exist in Mexico and South America.
2
Another inventory of the American / Mexican illegal drug disaster.
No mention in this piece of the key economic dimension of this massive issue of illegal drug use and trafficking.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Billons are at stake, both in terms of the societal impact, the illegal profits that drive the whole enterprise from top to bottom, the related enforcement and interdiction efforts, and the staggering human costs, and on and on.
No apparent solution forthcoming. Certainly not from Trump, and not from the Mexican government either. The same model for dealing with this scourge has failed decade after decade — the very epitome of insanity.
3
It's clear from reading the remarks that many of the posters, while well meaning, have no experience with addicts. I speak only of heroin/meth addicts. We have one in our family. He does not want to be helped. Thousands of dollars have been spent on costly rehab programs. He never suffered the 'stigma of shame,' because nobody blamed him. He's had access to the best private resources in California and been surrounded by love and empathy for more than ten years. Because of our addict, I'm unhappily familiar with the world of addiction. Many addicts are from solid, intact families who've been given every opportunity. I say make the punishment more severe. Presently, addicts live in a ineffective legal system where they cycle in and out of jail, rehab programs and hospitals (rampant infections from dirty needles), costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. When they're not in jail, they're stealing to support their idle lifestyle and selling drugs of questionable purity to others, including minors. They're selling death. I wonder how many fatalities our addict is responsible for. He's never served longer than six months, when guidelines have recommended three to five years. I'd like to see him get three years. Nothing else has worked. Of course, he is not representative of all addicts. But for him, and many others, these suggestions of rehab and loving understanding are pie in the sky solutions that addicts mock, and exploit. I wish it were otherwise.
5
The fact is that nobody has a heroin production facility in America and nor are there massive industrial scale meth labs here. And the reason obviously is that it would be impossible to not get caught doing it. In Mexico on the other hand they have enough production capacity to provide for a huge portion of the American market. So its rather plain that the US can prevent mass production of hard drugs on its territory while Mexico cannot. So Trump is not wrong in demanding that Mexico step up its enforcement because if the US can do it there is no reason Mexico cannot.
People want to escape their problems, and they use alcohol and drugs. Many people don’t have enough money for a nice vacation and companies give very little time off. It takes two people to keep a family going, another big stressor. No escape. Then there’s the entertainment industry. There is a genre of movie called “stoner movie” which lightly makes fun of the care-free guy who never has any responsibilities. Who doesn’t want that?
We create stressful economic environments, have a government that offers no hope, no path to success and a capitalistic demands hours of work. No gun control means guns can be flooded into nearby countries regardless of their arms policies and gangs can quickly take over entire countries. Our racial divisions, exacerbated by our horrible President, pushes minorities into low-paying jobs. Who wouldn’t want a drug? Nothing else seems to work.
6
Make all drugs legal. Yes they are bad for your health and that is why sensible people will not use them. Let stupid people use them and pay the price.
3
Americans are drug fiends. Stop blaming everyone else for the fact that lots of Americans love to take lots of drugs.
6
Oh yes he can. And he does. And fox news say he can. Full 🛑
The real problem is the long held American philosophy, engendered by marketing from entities ranging from the pharmaceutical industry to the tobacco industry to the alcohol industry that a drug in any form offers a solution. Follow that by the American belief in a quick fix, and you have an insatiable market of drug purchasers from all economic strata. The hell that America, through it’s demand for drugs, has created in places like Mexico and Colombia is really in the end solely an American fault and responsibility. Because no politicians are willing to admit that, Trump is able to propagate yet another lie with no contrary point of view coherently stated.
1
How did China kick it's opium habit?
2
America’s opioid epidemic wasn’t caused by M-e-x-i-c-o. It was caused by a family named S-a-c-k-l-e-r. The Sackler family became rich beyond its wildest dreams of avarice and greed pumping proprietary opioid medications into the market. And none of the Sacklers, or the cynical enablers who drew commissions and fat salaries selling their wares, will spend one second behind bars for the thousands of deaths that directly resulted from their amoral pursuit of profit.
Meanwhile, the President of the United States points his finger at Guatemalan mothers, carrying their infants on their backs, trudging hundreds of miles in worn-out sandals, fleeing poverty and violence in search of asylum.
And the red-hatted mob bellows approval. If you handed these people a coil of rope, it would be a lynch mob, in search of a scapegoat to swing from a tree.
1
This is a perfect mirror for illegal labor. The source of the problem isn't people willing to work illegally, but Americans hiring illegals. Of course, we never punish capital in the US, only labor.
Oh, sure he can.
Americans need to stop taking drugs, having sex with trafficked humans and hiring illegal laborers.
2
One sure way to reduce the violence in Mexico and weaken the power of the cartels, is to drastically reduce the number of high powered weapons and munition that the cartes buy in the USA, with no issues, thanks to the lax gun laws in America, dozens of armories in the southern border sell them to the cartels and make millions. The USA, is responsible for the origin 90% of all weapons sized in Mexico, Mexico puts up the bodies, thousands of them, so that the Baltimore junkies may have their drugs.
Nonsense.
Donald Trump certainly can blame brown Mexicans and black Africans for the illegal drug meth and opioid white European American Judeo-Christian crime wave
Trump is certainly not going to blame the white European Jewish Sackler family owned Purdue Pharma oxycontin makers and dealers. Trump is not going to condemn the drug dealers at McKesson. Trump is not going to blame white doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies.
Trump is not going to treat white drug addicts, dealers and makers like America did black and brown. Mass incarceration in prison for ignorant, immoral, lazy and violent criminals was their prescription. While white drug addiction is a "crisis" or an epidemic.
The American drug problem stems from white European Judeo-Christian hunger for drugs coupled with an American gun fetish.
Unless and until opioids are treated like a potential health abuse problem akin to alcohol and tobacco white European Judeo-Christian drug addiction, dealing and making should be treated as a crime wave. Prison will save lives.
3
The Sacklers hook Americans on expensive opioids, the cartels then sell them cheap opioids. Go after the Sacklers and there ilk. Oh wait, stop. The Sacklers are respectable donors to the GOP. Why would anyone kill the goose that lays the opioid eggs?
2
Left unsaid is the smuggling of guns from the US into Mexico.
Agreed. The US drug problem is the US's problem.
And using the same argument.....the violence and corruption problem in Mexico....is MEXICO's problem. Dont blame that on the USA.
1
“Simplistic ultimatums and threats”, throw in empty, undeliverable promises, knee-jerk lying, defamation, and backbiting, and I present the President of these United States.
Crystal Meth is the poor mans cocaine thus the uptick
in demand here in the US.
The president and his enablers are either naive, disingenuous, hypocritical, downright stupid, or all of the above.
Everyone else knows that stopping drugs at the Mexico border, or Canadian border, for that matter, will not reduce American drug usage by one kilo.
Drug users and their dealers are a motivated lot. They will find a way to get a new supply, or a new drug, when the old ones dry up. The government knows this, and has known it for decades.
Now Big Pharma is the biggest developer and marketer of more potent drugs. This is a fact.
In the 1960s, sixty years ago, San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district was a model of where the nation was headed. It began innocently with Marijuana and mushrooms, then through the supply network morphed to tainted psychedelics, amphetamine, cocaine, opium, Heroin, Qualudes, and the Big Pharma "research and development" program that has now captured the nation with pills that kill.
A bag of pills is a far cry from a bale of marijuana. A far cry. The president and his White House and Senate enablers, and their Big Pharma cronies, need a spanking not a wall.
1
Agree with your headline, America's promotion and usage of it is the end problem. Countries like Mexico are only enabling and co depending on a demand for it.
Treat hard drugs like drunk driving or cig. smoking ie lethal and do not promote it in any way shape or form especially in Hollywood.
Have enough places for people who want to get off them. Offer safe houses where somebody who is gonna commit a crime get a safe fix and then forced in re hab. Put the chronic unrepentant hard drug user in long term re hab.
You are never gonna end it forever but these measures would cut down on it drastically.
1
I keep saying "if there are no buyers, there are no sellers".
Blaming Mexico for America's drug problem is like blaming sex human trafficking on the women.
2
How about looking to Portugal as a method around funneling so much money to criminals, lawyers, and prison owners?
Americans want cheap drugs just like they want cheap everything. And what is the American solution to the problem? Take away the jobs that have gone to Mexico. Get rid of the Mexicans who are trying to make life better for their families, and force Mexicans and the people from Central America back into the terrible life they face. And cut off the help we provide. And what do we get for our "intelligent" answers to their plight? Worsening conditions, more unrest, Russian incursion, and, yes, more drugs. Because they have NOTHING ELSE TO DO. Just like in Afghanistan. The bottom line is America is a place where the Americans with the toys don't want to share. Not with the Mexicans, not with the Hondurans, the El Salvadorans, and so on. And yes America is becoming a place where we also don't want to share with.....Americans. And the result is....a population of increasingly desperate, sad, and hopeless people. Not only abroad, but here as well. And who gets elected to try and come to the rescue? The guy whose answer is: If you think you have it bad now, I can make it worse. The Chief Negative Reinforcer. Problem is there are millions of Americans who think that approach works. No carrot. All stick. Problem is Trump was a guy who got all carrot and no stick. Ever. Look where that got us.
2
Elaine Shannon wrote a good book on this topic, Desperados. A must read for anyone who wants to understand the subject.
1
Also, give some thought the Iran-Contra. There's a lot of interesting reading therein.
I wrote the thriller “Camp David Conspiracy” (by Antim Straus) that discusses what a real American war on drugs could look like. It deals with a way to actually follow the flow of drugs (vs money) for conviction and a plan to actually reduce the DEMAND for drugs in the first place. Though it is fiction, readers will think it is actually happening today. Check it out on both Amazon and Audible.
Let us blame the lack of sniffing dogs at the US-Mexico and US-Canada borders. More dogs could solve the problem.
The simplest solution is to tell the Mexican government that time is up, we are fed up, and turn the US military loose on the cartels, openly and massively, whether the Mexicans like it or not.
The next simplest solution is to send the Mexicans a check for one billion dollars, seize the northern quarter of the nation, move the border fence south, and be done with it.
The Castillian oligarchs that run the place are far more corrupt than anyone in this country can imagine, and drung money is just part of their overall compensation package.
They aren't going to act. Just play act, toying with the lives of the few people brave enough to put their lives on the line as police officers.
And they hold those of the north, of mixed native American extraction, in deep disdain. They treat them like second class citizens. They would be far better off as Americans.
"…seizures of marijuana have plummeted, probably due to the production of legal cannabis in the United States."
So the solution to the ending societal/criminal abuses resultant from our various addictions? Legalize it! Legalize, regulate, educate…
We cannot criminalize every human addiction in the futile attempt to eliminate addiction. According to , the top 10 addictions in the US are: coffee, gambling, anger, food, the internet, sex, booze, drugs (including prescription drugs), nicotine and work - each of which can be individually and societally damaging - or not. Most citizens handle those potential addictions just fine - some don't. Criminalizing addiction in the hope of ending addiction is idiotic.
The Mexicans would be more helpful in fighting the drug flow across their border if we would even recognize the massive and illegal flow of firearms from the US into Mexico. Any possibility of our recognizing the other side of the problem?
1
If you knew my parents, my sister's drug addiction makes senses. It has nothing to do with Mexico.
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@Bruce Savin: courageous and difficult statement, thank you. As you know, kids mostly don't just decide: Got it! I think I will do drugs. I am guessing that as much as possible you tried/are trying to support your sister AND you! Best wishes and hopes for you.
1
We're starting at the wrong end of the problem, with supply. If there is a demand, there will always be a supply; this is a basic law of both capitalism and human nature. (Ever ask why sex trafficking is on the rise? Same reason.) Eliminate demand as much as possible and the supply will decrease accordingly. Of course this is a much more complex problem, which is why politicians prefer to beat their chests and pontificate about "wars" on drugs.
1
The factors that drive people to want to use drugs are only increasing thanks to president lying greedy guts no jobs bombast, so yes, we can blame him. We can also blame him for allowing $65 billion a year to be exported to pay for drugs. People will do horrendous acts for a piece of that pie, so yes, we are causing the violence in Mexico and Central America.
Mexico should be demanding the cutoff of drug money entering their country from the U.S. It's what fuels the whole thing.
As long as there is demand (i.e. profit to be made), people will sell. That's really what it boils down to. Why does Mexico, with very strict gun laws, have so many (often drug related) shootings? Same thing. There is the demand, so people sell guns (often from this side of the border.)
It's not just tools of the trade such as weapons but snake oil that is likely as old as human trading itself, whether it's an elixir of youth, a pathway to God, a sex enhancer, a charismatic demagogue, a substance to make you feel good, or whatever. If you want it, for a price someone will sell it.
1
Gosh, Ioan where have you been for the last two plus years.
trump can blame anyone he wants for anything anytime. The guy has the attention span of a two year old and like a two year old makes decisions based on "what I want when I want it" and emotion. He has the education of a third grader and the decision making ability of a four year old.
And he has a congress that blindly follows him and 40% of the country that has crowned him king and even worships him like a god.
Its all about trump, power and greed and the people that give him this power and greed.
I find this piece of writing very accurate and well exposed. It is the truth.
I've written this before in the NYT's comments section: returning by car from a research trip in Mexico with our kids a few years ago, our family was pulled over at the Laredo border entry by U.S. agents. They inspected every inch of our car, luggage, computer and Mexican handicrafts. As we waited, I counted more than 20 huge trailer trucks waved on through by these same agents. No need to pull them over and inspect them. I'm sure a few of them carried Mexican assembled blenders, shoes and bras, or cans of chilies, but they should have at least inspected them, don't you think? What a charade. Corruption exists on both sides of the border.
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The book Why Nations Fail and The Fragile State Index denote characteristics and failures of countries from the Rio Grande River south to the Cape Horn. These countries have been free of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism for 200 years. Independence left the new countries with a small class of wealthy land owners, a rigid non reforming catholic church and arrogant repressive militaries that did the bidding of the land owners and church. The inequality between the rich and the poor between per the Gini Index is immense. The rule of law is eroded by corruption and a security that behaves with impunity. These militaries have weapons which are disproportionate to legitimate self defense needs of those countries. Historically the militaries have been used to repress their own people and to engage in coups. Tanks roll past peasants in bare feet on dirt roads. Revolts of peasants were crushed by tanks. The militaries do not serve the needs of democratic societies.
The problems of these countries relate to the failure of the political systems to confront the fundamental challenges of democracies. Carlos Slim in Mexico is immensely wealth while peasants lack drinking water in the far reaches of Mexico. The rule of law has not developed, the militaries and police engage in impunity and corruption is hidden in foreign banks.
The harsh assessment should force Mexico to look inward. The United States is not the root of all their problems.
Vietnam Vet
Sure he can. Facts are irrelevant to him.
my first and only thought on this issue of drug use in the US, is this........what is wrong with a country that needs to numb itself from reality? there is something wrong with our country, at its core, and it comes from the top down. you figure it out.
Yes, and parents of teenagers can’t blame the drug dealer/providers who make money marketing their poison to their kids.
Blaming America's drug problem on Mexico is like blaming traffic jams on automakers. Like good capitalists everywhere, Mexican drug cartels are simply providing the Supply to meet the Demand.
It is our problem . No demand, no supply. We should be working on reducing the need for drug and to cure addiction. Interestingly, large amount synthetic drugs come from China and there is no complain about China.
If Americans didn't want the drugs, cartels South of the border would have to change products -- maybe to weapons or sex slaves, which happen to be in demand in the U.S., also.
A sign of how the American market affects cartel commerce is seen in plunging sales of cannibis, now legal in many U.S. states.
But demand for coke, heroin and meth, by American junkies, addicts and their vendors, will not stop anytime soon.
Drugs help keep the U.S., Mexican and South American economies afloat. It's not just a matter of vicious cartels versus the "good guys". The vast amounts of revenue from the drug business keep opium poppy and coca leaf workers, their families and all involved in the supply chain, alive.
The same can be said of all police, in all countries involved, who supplement their income with cartel payoffs. Also true for the drug shippers, stockers and large to solo distributors.
If this vast commerce was made legal everywhere, it would make the revenue taxable. Cartels and American distributors would suddenly become international enterprises with employees. Each country's government would determine taxation and laws about human rights abuse.
In the U.S., we could assay the drugs for purity, open drug stores and tax their revenue. For homeless addicts, clean needles and free drugs could be provided daily.
U.S. hunger for drugs won't diminish--not until it's hurt enough people. Better to legalize drugs, tax the revenue and care for the addicts.
1
I started traveling around Mexico with a backpack in the seventies. It was a largely peaceful country, strikingly so in the small towns and villages. For a visitor violent crime was never an issue, though of course like anywhere you had to watch your stuff. Then Nixon and his followers, particularly Saint Ronnie, pushed the catastrophic War on Drugs, which has directly led to the explosion of violence in certain swaths of Mexico and Central America (most of Mexico is still peaceful). We provided the insatiable demand and created the obscene profits and of course the weapons too. And now like a bunch of vultures, we point our fingers in blame, maligning our victims.
Mr. Grillo suggests a better way forward which might slightly ameliorate the problems. But hiding in plain sight is a far simpler and more effective solution. Decriminalize all drugs, supply and tax them all, ramp up rehabilitation and education programs (a la Portugal which has had great success) With the magnetic draw of obscenely enormous profits gone, the current crisis will wither on the vine and violent gang and cartel crime will plunge. Of course with Mr. Trump in control, we are pouring gasoline on a raging fire first kindled by Richard Nixon and Saint Ronnie.
Mexico did not create a market for drugs, they are simply suppliers. If there was no market in the USA, they would send the drugs elsewhere. There is a large population of people who drown their sorrows in drugs rather than face reality, but nobody twisted their arms to take drugs in the first place. That is their personal decision. It is also their personal decision to stop. Making illegal drugs more expensive just means they have to steal more to buy them. The face of drug addicts is whiter than it used to be and I am still in favor of locking them up for being the criminals they are. Mexico did not create the addiction problem, it is 100% made in the USA.
1
@S.L.
We never going to be able to arrest and incarcerate our way to a drug free America, at least not if we want to to remain free country, by any meaningful definition of the word "free.
Assuming you don't want to turn the United States into a police state like Singapore, which doesn't have too much of drug problem but is not free in meaningful sense of the term--I certainly would rather have the U.S. remain a free country--the question becomes whether the harm of of drugs outweighs the harm of incarceration.
Unless you think the harm of drugs, to the individual and society, is greater than the individual and societal harm of incarceration--as destructive as drugs can be, incarcerating people for drugs creates, by most measures, more problems than it solves--we need to move away from the "tough on crime" approach.
Bravo! Spot on!
Unfortunately, nothing is going to change. A war on drugs is imminently fundable; treating addiction is not.
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@Marcus I know of a cheap and easy way to treat addiction: Individuals can simply stop taking drugs. If they don't want to, well they're grownups and *they* have to deal with the consequences.
@Gerber I too have held this immature and simplistic opinion. But I learned about the nuanced and varied ways that humans are damaged and the complexities of how we may perpetuate damage in others. Still learning, since we never seem to run out of ways to hurt or traumatize each other. Not everyone is equipped -- by design and/or by environmental influences -- to "simply stop" doing something (or to simply start doing something [beneficial]).
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@Gerber
Many of us could get on board with at least the intent of Naive Nancy's "just say no" mantra from back in rltbe 80s, as far as biologically and neurologically very healrhy individuals goes. But surely you jest in saying that addicted persons can "simply stop" taking drugs. If you have posted this as a conversation starter of sorts, fine. But no, ADDICTED persons cannot "simply stop taking drugs."
By the way ( not that this is the main point) not all are grownups. Children of ADDICTED persons, esp mothers, are born addicted and it is wired in their chemistry. Children living in homes where drugs are used are directly exposed to the drugs' active ingredients.
Aren't you the lucky fellow apparently not to have this problem!
6
Law enforcement is going soft on crime.The easier they get on dealers sentencing ,the easier it is to deal when they let them back out early or don't make arrests at all. Now they say it's a health issue ,well it is , an epidemic. So , what happens with an epidemic ,full scale assault on trying to cure it.Making the disease readily available to everybody is not exactly the way to cure it. You can make drugs legal ,but that doesn't mean that they're free,so there's still a lot of crime involved,and never will the government allow drugs to be free of cost. We've spent trilllions of taxpayer dollars eliminating dictators like Saddam Huessien ,supposedly to make the Nation safe, we built walls all over Iraq and supplied troops for twenty years to enforce Iraqs borders ,yet we do nothing here.The government could stop the drugs and they should and provide more treatment for users.
We can't even fix healthcare, which should be theoretically easy as the rest of the modern world has already done it. Why would we think we can fix the unregulated and illegal drug trade?
Efforts should focus on reducing demand for these drugs and the amount of people willing to pay high sums of money for them. Otherwise even if Mexico succeeds in stopping the flow, it will start coming from some other country or even internally... Cutting demand would be more effective
7
There used to be a particular gang problem when alcohol was illicit. That was solved by legalising the trade.
No one has to take illicit drugs. I wonder whether the emergency resources devoted to those who overdose does in fact become a cause of the overdosing.
The more efforts, money and lives are devoted to controlling the illegal use of drugs, the worse it seems to get.
I suggest the dramatic alternative. Stop fighting the drug industry. Remove the barriers of illegality. Stop treating overdoses. Let those who wish to kill themselves with drugs do as they please.
There will then be no street gangs killing innocent people because the financial incentive will have been removed.
5
Trump’s entire life has been based on blaming someone else. You can see that in his election strategy blaming foreign countries and immigrants or every prior president including Washington for every problem. You can see it as he fires every ine of his dream team cabinet. You can see it in his attacks on the FBI and CIA.and the FED and Congress
It is always someone else’s fault
And he is the only person in history who can save us.
No wonder the evangelicals think he nay be their second coming
27
@John Morton
I second this point, John Morton.
As to the second coming according to the evangelicals, I believe that's going to happen in Israel, and that's why the scion of casios, Trump, is making that bet.
I have for a very long time viewed America's war on drugs as full of hypocrisy. Let's blame poor farmers in Columbia who were looking for a more remunerative cash crop, not those in Hollywood or on Wall Street who loved to snort cocaine. I grew up in the 60's and saw the illegal drug trade blossom with ordinary people lighting up, snorting, shooting up. It took awhile but Heroin moved into the middle class eventually along with Coke. Diet pills, amphetamines, turned into meth., Cocaine turned into Crack. On it went, fell off a bit, then we had the made in America opioid epidemic with China chipping in some fentanyl to make things interesting. The craving for drugs is insatiable in the United States and made worse by big pharma. Mexico provides many of these drugs and they pay a huge price domestically for supplying Americans with their fix. Don't blame the messenger.
14
You mean don’t blame trump. So why not just say it, if u think it. BTW..there are more overdoses of opioids because American companies that make the drugs. It’s trump’s millionaire friends who are killing your fellow Americans. Let’s see you call them out.
The synthetic drugs that are used by many addicts don't come from anywhere except right here in the USA. In some cities, synthetic drugs are more available than any drug that has to be imported from somewhere else. Drug labs can be set up by anyone, anywhere. Synthetic drugs are deadly and send many users to ERs, over and over, until finally they just die. What's Trump doing to combat that scourge? Nothing. He can't blame that on anyone else, so he says nothing. But, the rise of synthetic and deadly drugs is taking place under his watch. And, it's an American problem, not a Mexican one.
10
As an addict in recovery.I know that the chief reason to use is escape from reality. That takes on different forms in our society.
But is you look around you and see a hopeless life you can become trapped in the depths of physical addition.
The way out is too surrender to the fact that it will kill. or land you in jail or just an outcast to family and friends.
The current administration could simply take a pinch out of the Defense, fence building, get tough stance 45 holds.
Since he's is sitting pretty and has no idea what to do- why no turn all the 'punishment-threats' to kindness and compassion. He does not possess those qualities and needs to deflate his enormous ego and let the experts in addictions handle this mess.
Meanwhile spiritually he is not out leader- so the more good folks who vote and support treatment over jail and disgrace- we may turn the tide.
7
Most fentanyl is produced in China and transited to Mexico. What are we doing to crack down on China's role in our drug trade?
2
Demand for drugs has always been at the root of the drug problem. And Americans apparently have an insatiable demand for all kinds of drugs. No demand, no supply? Well, let's also recognize that drug pushers do actively try to get new drug users hooked, resulting in what economists term "induced demand." Nonetheless, I'd venture that 90% of demand is just that, demand for the drugs for x, y and z reasons, and not created by drug availability. It's a very old argument. Stop trying to blame the problem on someone else, in this case the drug lords. Let's look at ourselves in the mirror.
9
In my Canadian upbringing one of the most important lessons I learned from my parents is that best way to fight a bad idea is to come up with a better idea. Thinking and acting with that lesson in mind it seems to me that the very core of your country's ethos has to change so that your citizens who indulge in all kinds of drugs can be made aware of alternative ways of living. Your war on drugs will never succeed as long as the drug taking segment of your population sees no alternative to taking drugs that ultimately destroy lives. Millions of Americans are addicted to drugs simply because it is the only way they have to cope with all the problems
(income inequality, racial bias, sub standard education etc) they face living their lives.
10
"...forward would be for the two nations to work together on real policies that reduce the damage unleashed by drugs and cartels. "
I cannot see Trump agreeing to work together with anyone. He issues demands, with little to no understanding of the underlying issues. His rhetoric just to cement his base. He doesn't care how many in our country die from overdosing. He doesn't care that farmers in the cornbelt suffer from tariffs. He doesn't care how many vulnerable people lose insurance from cutting the ACA. Any "working together" will have to wait until 2021.
8
We Americans hold the key to solving the drug crisis. Stop consuming illicit drugs and the problem is gone.
There is no need to wring our hands about what the Mexican government is doing or not doing.
Mexico is a big country with a fraction of the resources of the United States. As the author notes, if American cops are unable or unwilling to stop the distribution and sales of drugs here, why beat up on the Mexicans.
Finally, how is it possible that the America, the most advanced nation on earth, is unable to keep narcotics from crossing the border?
2
@Ricardo Chavira How 'bout this question, why are so many residents of the richest country on earth driven to such despair that using drugs looks like a viable solution? Research the number of adults on prescribed anti-depressants for an eye opener.
This article does not distinguish between different kinds of drugs. People do die from heroin overdoses, but zero have died from marijuana overdoses, ever.
Alcohol and tobacco kill many people each year. Even worse, drunk drivers kill innocent people as well.
This article ignores how many people want marijuana legalized, and how many states are moving towards that.
You can't just stop this by burning marijuana fields, just like prohibition failed to stop the desire for alcohol. Nothing in this article shows any insight into why people want drugs. There are no funds and no rehabilitation programs for people who like smoking marijuana, nor should there be.
By the way, heroin was originally a brand name from Bayer because they mistakenly thought it was an addiction free substitute for morphine. So just like oxycontin this drug was not invented by evil Mexicans, but by pharmaceutical companies. It also failed to even begin to discuss what program could be successful to "rehabilitate" heroin addicts. They have tried for decades, and none have ever worked.
4
Narcotrafficking is a huge and complex problem, both for the countries of 'origin' (of heroin, cocaine, amfetamines, fentanyl, marijuana, you name it) and the one's at the receiving end. Violence gallor, unending; as long as the demand for the drugs is there, the supply won't dry up. And trying to work cooperatively to control this plague may help; but if you think it can be erradicated, think again, as the narcotraffic trade is one of the most powerful 'industries' in the world, and even providing jobs to the forces of order, transportation, housing, entertainment, etc. Hypocrisy in blaming others for what we ourselves may be so well endowed...by looking the other way or being complacent, is for all to see, and feel. Meanwhile, the ravages of destruction of too many lives and society itself go on, unperturbed. And to add insult to injury, we have a president who blames the victims instead...while doing absolutely nothing to solve the issue.
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@manfred marcus
The persons who take drugs are "perpetrators" not "victims."
The real victims are the innocents caught up in drug wars and the families of heedless, uncaring, drug users.
3
@manfred marcus
nothing rules out the establishment of a carfentanil lab inside the borders of this country. And tight controls over the precursor chemicals only adds extra steps to the process; all of them can be manufactured from commonly available ingredients.
@M Clement Hall
The beginning of the "heedless, uncaring" process begins when someone is officially relegated to the status of criminal and social outcast by the institutions of lawful society from the moment of their first voluntary contact with a forbidden substance, which typically occurs between the ages of 15 and 18. It's a message that's internalized early on in the course of the taboo violation.
1
The core of the problem is not that Mexico is the source of the drugs, it is that America is the market. One would think that political leaders who hawk the mantra that the "free market" drives all, would realize that demand creates the product.
It is the seemingly insatiable demand for drugs in America that has created problems for both countries.
13
Users, look in the mirror for our drug problem. Let's stop blaming it on everyone else.
4
Whatever happened to the law of supply and demand? Illegal drugs are just as effected by demand as any other commodity. America's voracious appetite for illicit drugs is a demand that is always going to be supplied, one way or another. The claim that Mexico is corrupting Americans because some of those drugs pass through Mexico is a canard. Does Trump really think that closing the US/Mexican border would stop the flow of drugs to American addicts? It will only cause economic damage to both countries. Mexico has not corrupted America. America has corrupted Mexico by creating an incredible market for illegal drugs. Without that lucrative market there would be no criminal cartels like the ones that are devastating Mexican society. The answer to America's drug problems is not a futile attempt to stop the supply, it's to address the social causes that are creating the demand in the first place.
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@Tom Barrett, couldn’t agree more. As long as the insatiable American need is there for euphorics, and as long as these are prohibited, there will be suppliers and crime. In addition, when much-heralded big arrests occur, the price of street drugs temporarily increases, and the drugs are diluted more. So the addicts’ need for more money increases, and even more street crime is a consequence.
The only approaches that make any sense are legalization treatment. The core question will remain: why do humans, when they can, demand inebriation? The political system we have, based on short-term and simplified narratives aimed at votes, cannot even imagine anything this complex.
17
@Tom Barrett Who is to blame for the rampant obesity in Mexico: stores that sell food or individuals who eat too much?
3
@Tom Barrett
Not to mention de huge inflow of assault weapons from north to south of the border......weapons which most of the time end up in the hands of the drug cartels...….as we say in Spanish " se lloran y se cantan "
12
The war on drugs is a lost cause. Legalize them, tax their sales, and make the price competitive to discourage black markets. But don’t ask for a dime of my tax money to clean up the addicts. Live with the consequences of your actions.
1
Criticizing Mexico for its corruption is so hypocritical because the main reason for Mexicos overloaded Narco problem is the American consumer. As Mr Grillo points out Mexicans are burning opium poppies while drugs are sold in the open in the US.
The article also point out that marijuana production and sales in Mexico has dropped since the US has legalised cannabis,
This fact points out that the answer to Mexicos terrible narco violence is for the US to use capitalism (the religion of the GOP) to combat the illegal drug trade with competition by legalizing all drug production and sale.
The millions that are spent on drug policing could now be used to rehabilitate the American consumer and to successfully lower drug addiction as it did with the American tabacco habit
4
If you eant to put the pushers out of business, give addicts their fix. Free of charge and without conditions.
Drug cartels are after the money, take away their market they will go on toother things.
And likely stop addicting new ‘customers’.
1
About the only encouraging drug news in the US has been the decline in tobacco use (though we'll have to see whether Juul and its ilk will create a new wave of tobacco-free nicotine dependency). I don't know where marijuana legalization will go.
This is, of course, one of those opinion pieces that seeks balance where there is no need. This essay should have begun this way: The United Sates is the reason Mexico has convulsed into anarchy; immigration and drug trafficking are two different issues. The reason more Mexicans will die this week is because of all the cocaine that was snorted yesterday afternoon in countless homes and bars and restaurants across the country. Had we spent the billions we have spent since Nixon on border enforcement on drug prevention instead, our politics would be different -- and neither country would be the messes they are.
124
@Jesús Treviño Absolutely true, but please note that the majority of this beautiful country apart from cartel war zones and trafficking corredors is peaceful, safe and welcoming.
34
@Jesús Treviño
Mr. Grillo and you make many good insights. However, you avoid the one and only solution to the problem: Legalization of these drugs, similar to what Portugal and Switzerland have been doing for many years -- and their overdose rate is zero. The war on drugs has been a futile effort for 50 years, as you correctly have noted in your article. But the nice-sounding solutions you propose either are idealistic or useless. On the other hand, keeping drugs illegal is big business for many people: First and foremost, it is a revenue-producer for the drug cartels, whom you correctly noted have seen a huge drop in their marijuana business because of legalization in the US. They surely are against any further drug legalization efforts. Second, it is big business for the DEA, which would be all but out-of-business if drugs were legalized. I respect the many brave sacrifices that our DEA agents have made over the years, but the DEA lobby is much more interested in protecting its $10 billion budget than it is is solving the drug problem. Third, politicians and others in Mexico who benefit from the corruption engendered by the drug trade would be sorry to see that source of income go away. And finally, the nit-wit in the White House is against drug legalization because he would lose one of his main talking points for construction of his stupid wall.
21
@Jesús Treviño, you made many excellent points. I suggest that people interested in the topic read Don Winslow's trilogy on the drug wars. They are works of fiction that explore many of the same issues that you have raised in your comments. The drug war that has devastated Mexico and harmed the United States is fueled by the American appetite for illegal narcotics along with US policies that have backfired.
3
The extradition of El Chapo to the US to face trial was an important step, one that strikes at the primary justice issue in Mexico: the barest fraction of those arrested for major crimes ever get convicted. Even when they do get convicted, they can have a relatively comfortable life in prison if they have enough money. But bringing traffickers and organized crime figures north, securing a conviction and imprisoning them in Idaho or elsewhere, with scant visitation rights and the same spare privileges everyone else enjoys, is the ultimate nightmare for narcos. Making arrests and making them stick will be something atypical in Mexico: a real deterrent.
But if we see a dozen or two reiterations of the El Chapo story and the narcos feel genuinely threatened, we should be prepared for the unintended consequence: narcos go legit, invest in other businesses but manage them like the thugs and murderers they are. That is the next step in the evolution of the Mexican-US relationship. It may even be worse.
1
@Brian Prioleau Start with our President before you talk about justice and corruption in Mexico.
2
Let us also remember that the guns that fuel the violence in Mexico mainly come from US companies. So the US supplies the markets and the weapons.
10
Finally, a beginning to a conversation on what is driving the violence in Central America that is prompting so many to flee. Let's call it by its rightful name; it is the insatiable appetite that America has for illicit drugs and the firehose of money that a market for these drugs generate.
Preventing people with money from getting the drugs they want is impossible, the only solution is to legalize and tax. End prohibition and end the violence
6
@Enrique Hernandez It is two way street. We provide guns that create violence and kill them, and they provide drugs that kill us.
1
My parents, now long gone from the planet, suggested to me in the early 90's, that perhaps the best way to combat the illegal drug trade was to legalize the drugs. At the time, I thought it was not the best idea.
Now, almost 30 years later and a drug problem which has become worse with the introduction of opioids by the pharmaceutical industry, it is time for a different approach.
Legalize and control the distribution of the product. Use the money from the sales to provide treatment for addicts, rather than jail. It is working well in states where marijuana is now legally sold.
None of the other remedies to curtail the drug problem has worked. It is time to think outside of the box.
5
Agreed:
I am 60 years-old and since the Nixon 'war of drugs' I've always wondered why we blame suppliers when the problem seems to be the sites of too many willing consumers.
Certainly, as a "business man", 45 should understand this.
5
Attacking both the demand and supply chains is the obvious solution.
Criminalizing addiction is not part of the solution. Treating it is.
Glorifying and rewarding obscene wealth without giving all equal opportunities to achieve that wealth is not part of the solution. Criminalizing international money laundering and making it easier to track is. Taxing it is.
Shouting meaningless slogans and proposing ineffective and simplistic approaches is not part of the solution. Understanding the problems and their causes is.
5
It’s never the drugs themselves that are the crime problem, it’s the money that prohibitions cause that cause violent crime. Decouple the drugs with the crime and we can begin the healing.
4
My guess is that it is still overwhelming to think to address the source of using than blaming others, inside and beyond the border. This is a collective issue.
1
If we truly want to reduce the demand for drugs in the US, we need to treat drug use primarily as a health issue instead of primarily as a criminal issue.
We also need to look at the underlying causes for all of this drug use. Why does it seem like Americans are so much more likely to use these drugs than people in other countries? Are we so much more unhappy? That much more in pain? Why?
7
Portugal provides an excellent lesson in solving the drug problem: they removed penalties at the level of the user, provided free needles, safe & clean places to shoot up, and most importantly, facilitated a complete paradigm shift from criminality to public health. The results are astounding: overdose deaths, addictions, and all other ancillary public health concerns are a fraction of the problem they had been.
It is difficult to deny that our "War on Drugs" has been a colossal failure. Expending billions on efforts to stop the flow has only succeeded in increasing demand and filling our prisons. And yet we insist that this time, it will be different. It's the very definition of insanity.
Donald Trump is a black and white thinker: good vs. evil and nothing in between. Drugs are evil, therefore we should continue to pour money into efforts that don't work but instead serve to exacerbate the problem. In other words, we keep doing what we "know" is right, even when it is overwhelmingly ineffective. And we refuse to do what works because - well, because it's "wrong."
When we use our heads to find effective solutions, we can solve just about any problem in the nation. But Trump is not about problem solving; he is all about pounding the podium, shouting out whatever phrase gets the crowd worked up, and "winning."
13
I was shocked when I first started working in the MH/SA field in the early 70s at how much production overcapacity was being done openly by the pharmaceutical industry. Far larger amounts of stimulants and depressants were produced and sold to "wholesalers" in Mexico far beyond what the medical market called for. No one called for penalties against the pharmaceutical companies except "crazy" treatment professionals. Our politicians are as addicted to the legalized bribery called campaign donations from the pharmaceutical industry as the other addicts are to the products, both legal and illegal, that they are addicted to. As a nation, we take the easy way out by blaming the "illegal" suppliers and consumers, rather than holding the pharmaceutical companies accountable in any meaningful way. We are "shocked" when we are forced to confront the current "scandal" with the oxycontin and fentanyl plague. We cycle through our outrage at a particular type of drug of choice every twenty years, but our response is always the same. You know what the say is the definition of insanity.....
11
The War on Ethanol during Prohibition had only one positive result: fun movies about Elliot Ness. Why do politicians think that “warring” (oh, how do we love martial metaphors) against other psychoactive chemicals will be more successful? Oh, yes, they don’t care about results only appearances and empty rhetoric.
4
Reducing the demand side is a key component of any effective anti-drug policy.
However, we will never be able to arrest and incarcerate our way to a drug-free America, at least not if we want to be a free country in any meaningful sense of the word "free."
Reducing drug usage is a complicated problem and involves addressing some significant issues that many people in this country would rather not deal with or even acknowledge exist.
3
Let’s be real- a better way to stop the drug trade is to eliminate the demand for drugs from our country. Education, drug treatment programs, and opportunity for populations of American citizens left behind will be the ultimate answer.
Lets ask what responsibility publicly traded companies have for increasingly bleeding financial resources from companies to throw money at the quarterly bottom line reports and to shareholders, thus enriching only a a small portion of us citizens. What responsibility do those corporationss have to our society ? To the citizens who are increasingly eliminated by automation for instance? Or from the disappearance of the manufacturing economy in our country ( now outsourced to 3rd world countries which generate more profit for corporations)? What INVESTMENTS in American society should those corporations be making?
I will say, as I often do, that government is the CONSCIENCE of capitalism. Programs to incentivize corporations to help in this fight should be implemented, or tax give-backs to corporations should carry a commensurate requirement for corporations to contribute to the betterment of the societies In which they do business.
Eliminating the demand for drugs will eliminate the drug trade, and consequently, the violence of that trade. Let’s make it happen here at home.
5
Did you know....
Amount spent annually in the U.S. on the war on drugs: $47+ billion
Number of arrests in 2017 in the U.S. for drug law violations: 1,632,921
Number of drug arrests that were for possession only: 1,394,514 (85.4 percent)
Number of people arrested for a marijuana law violation in 2017: 659,700
Number of those charged with marijuana law violations who were arrested for possession only: 599,282 (90.8 percent)
Number of people in the U.S. incarcerated in 2016: 2,205,300 – the highest incarceration rate in the world
Number of people in the U.S. incarcerated for a drug law violation in 2016: 456,000
Number of people in the U.S. who died from an accidental drug overdose in 2017: 72,000
Number of states that allow the medical use of marijuana: 33+ District of Columbia
Number of states that have legalized marijuana: 10 (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington State) + District of Columbia
Number of states that have decriminalized or removed the threat of jail time for simple possession of small amounts of marijuana: 22
Number of people killed in Mexico's drug war since 2006: 200,000+
Number of students who have lost federal financial aid eligibility because of a drug conviction: 200,000+
Tax revenue that drug legalization would yield annually, if currently-illegal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco: $58 billion
16
We are a nation of people who love the feeling of being high. We are in denial about the powerful detrimental effects of that feeling. A few beers after work, wine with every meal, the first thing one is offered when getting together with friends...alcohol
( yes guys it is a powerful mood-altering drug) dominates our lives and our social scenes. Drugs of all kinds are simply the sequel that provide an even better high. And we all love to be high. In my mind ( and I have been on both sides of this equation) there is no such thing as responsible use of alcohol or drugs. We have all kinds of excuses and rationales for why we can use responsibly but the example we set for our children and the myths that we perpetuate are selfish and damaging. What makes me the saddest is that the majority of people in our country need mood-altering substances to get through the day. I can hear the familiar refrain already...”I don’t need it I just enjoy it...what’s the harm...I can stop any time I want...I’m not hurting anyone...etc etc the drug crisis is of our own making. It is not the fault of Mexico, China, South America or any other drug producing country. They have simply found our Achilles heel and are profiting from it. As long as we are in denial about our own use, as long as we look the other way, as long as we see ourselves as above the fray instead of part of the problem, nothing will change.
4
Mr. Grillo--
I was a clinical addictions therapist for many years, and while your points about history and policy are accurate, the problem is very much about Culture-driven-by-Business. More than ever before, we are selling and promoting a shiny lifestyle that most Americans can only dream about. At the same time, we are provided with every conceivable sop for managing the anxiety, sadness, and anger that sprout from our dissatisfaction and sense of failure. Walk into any CVS, and you have a pretty good idea of why there's a drug problem in the US. We want it all, and with enough money, we can have it.
10
Having retired after nearly 50 years of work in the drug treatment and federal law enforcement fields, I find it almost sickening that too many of our “leaders” continue to blame other countries for our substance abuse problems. Unless the insatiable demand for drugs is reduced, people will find a way to bring drugs to the potential customers. Whether they do so across the border with Mexico or across the junior high school playgrounds, sellers will find a way to supply the buyers. President Trump’s approach is nonsense from practical and realistic points of view, but from a political perspective it accomplishes the objective of helping him appear as if he really cares. Nothing could be further from the truth.
35
When asked : What percentage of crime in your city relates directly or indirectly to drugs?, a retired captain of the Youngstown, Ohio police department once told me “95 percent”.
He felt that the reasons for America’s drug crisis were largely twofold: the lack of any economic opportunity by large, mostly impoverished, sectors of our society, and the breakdown of the nuclear family leading to societal disintegration.
Mexico is not to blame for America’s ongoing drug crisis.
The problem rests with an American political and economic system that has become so dysfunctional over the decades that hopelessness and an absence of a caring personal support structure have consigned so many to resort to drugs as either a means of livelihood or escape to get through the struggles of every day life.
No major industrialized nation has the drug problem America has. The problem rests not with the suppliers, but with the demanders.
118
@RHD Law enforcement cannot be trusted on this issue. Like the private prison industry and legal system, making criminals of drug users is essential to cash flow. Do some research on seizure laws. In my state, when a medical cannabis program became to popular, the LEO's asserted that it was causing an increases in crime. If 30,000 people whose purchase and use of cannabis was no longer criminal, how could their statistics show an increase in crime? Our drug laws are a meal ticket for LEO's, so anything they assert is suspect.
6
@RHD
The War On Drugs is one of the major elements in the breakdown of society. Not the drugs.
If Federal Alcohol Prohibition had continued for another 85 years- instead of being repealed in 1933, after only 13 years- the level of dynastic criminality and corruption connected with the illicit alcohol market would be off the charts by now.
1
I live part time in Mexico and part time in the US.
I see all the focus from the US government side (regardless of Republican or Democratic leadership) focused on the supply of drugs. However, until the 'demand" is addressed, the supply will not stop.
The US has a drug consumption problem, this drives the supply. Not only is this drug consumption problem seriously impacting the US, it also causes a violence/murder problem for Mexico, since the vast majority of weapons used by the drug cartels are supplied from the US.
The focus needs to be on reducing the demand for drugs, and that is a very complicated issue, not easily solved. Supply will always be there to satisfy demand.
47
Illegal drugs flow into the company because there is a market for them. Billions have been spent to stop the flow and it is a total failure. I cannot think of a single time when prohibition has worked. Legalize them and gain control over the supply. The ban has been a 50 year failure.
25
Don't at least some of these drugs make their users pretty much incapable of performing any job? How are such incapacitated persons to support both themselves and their addiction?
the policy is more wrong headed "supply side" economics. like the rest of the economy, it is demand side driven. not clear why we don't challenge Americans to stop buying drugs, and provide resources to those who are addicted.
14
Let’s bring back the science on drugs, let’s bring back health education and teach the economic hijacking that drugs will cost a person for the rest of their life, and all the social norms a person will break just to get to the drugs, and the consequences. The consuming of drugs and alcohol is a mystery that dates back to before Jesus and the study of the brain could unlocked the why. To identify that spot in the brain we can then address addictions and why it occurs and how to combat.
8
@CathyK
Indeed. A difficult scientific problem, but it is being worked on.
@CathyK
"Vaccines" that nullify the effects of various opioids for an extended period of time (months) are currently in the process of development. Some are currently undergoing human clinical trials. Interestingly, the biochemistry of opioids is apparently so specific that each opioid requires a different blocker. But it does appear likely that it's technically possible to develop them.
Finally, we're addressing some of the causes of our border crisis: drugs and climate change. We need a gathering of leaders from every country in the Americas to come together and address this issue, and now.
8
It would appear after years of failure to stop the traffic that the only solution is to legalize the drugs, make them available free, so as to reduce the incentive the dealers' financial incentives. Of course, such program must be accompanied by a huge initiative educating us about the consequences of drug usage.
Yes, it's a terrible "solution" but nothing else has worked, why not give it a try ?
17
@eclectico I agree completely. Since the US banned the use of Heroin almost 100 years ago, the US authorities have had nothing but catastrophic failures in enforcing the law. A large percentage of crimes and the number of prisoners in jail are due to drugs. By legalizing the drugs and controlling their issue, the supply market would collapse and the drug lords would be out of a job, the murders would decrease and the prisons would be drained of inmates. Some South American countries are venturing along this path. When you look at the number of deaths caused by tobacco, you could ask why the treatment of nicotine is not controlled in the same way as opiates are now.
8
@eclectico
That solution proved correct with the first addicive drug: alcohol ...
2
Overdose deaths are tragic but have little to do with smuggling across our southern border. The biggest reason for overdose deaths is the VARIABLE potency of illicit drugs. Chinese chemical companies have been producing large quantities of fentanyl or its even more potent derivative, carfentanyl. When these drugs are admixed with "regular" heroin, the result is overdose with increasing frequency.
These opioids often arrive here in regular shipping containers and even have been mailed to the US.
Building a wall at our southern border will not stop international trade nor the fentanyl and derivatives within it. But building a wall is satisfying because as a tangible object, it makes some people feel SOME action is being done.
Changing attitudes, while more effective in reducing the human misery of addiction, does not satisfy our edificial imperative to build something onto which a politician can put his or her name.
16
The author says the President of Mexico "...seems to be placating Washington by stepping up arrests of undocumented migrants heading through Mexico." Say what? As far as I can see Mexico is doing nothing, nada, to stop the flow of illegal immigrants (aka "undocumented migrants") flowing though its borders to the US.
Americans welcome welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL immigrants. They recognize that the US cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al., and that they and other US taxpayers cannot possibly support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
No other nation has open borders, nor should the US.
4
This addiction/supply/demand cycle is a process, not a war. The ground zero is the addict, of which we are many. Harm reduction, stigma reduction, loving family support and available services are the tools of healing.
19
@Er If only it were so simple. We have an addict in the family and none of your suggestions, over years, has done any good. Nothing changes. Yours are the idealized solutions of someone with likely no experience of heroin and meth addiction. Hundreds of thousands do not wish to be helped, and if the addicts I've known are representative, many users are from solid middle class, intact families with resources to help. I've watched it for years, the destruction and chaos addicts create in the lives of those who love them. I'm finished with the journey, and expect a call alerting me to a final, fatal overdose at some point.
1
Death dealing drugs are supplied from an intricate, complex, and not necessarily related, system of rivers, streams, and tributaries, some illegal, some legal, some involving El Chapo-esque thugs, some involving wealthy pharmaceutical companies in pretty suits.
Demand, while daunting, is less complicated. Our just as serious alcohol problem is addressed almost entirely at the demand end. Legal suppliers are free to promote booze in any way they like, with, of course, a few trenchant reminders to drink water on occasion and try not to kill people with your car. (Ads never target drunks with guns.)
Supply follows demand. People being what they are, suppliers will arise because there's gold in them thar meth labs. Drugs being what they are, demand then increases demand until death intervenes.
Shy of converting everyone to Mormonism, an admittedly tempting solution, money spent fighting the descent into addiction, fighting smartly, is money better spent than that tossed away on shooting suppliers, burning poppy crops, and arresting drug company execs (kidding about that one).
Since attacking supply is hopeless and attacking demand is more promising, there's little likelihood politicians will move in the more promising direction.
Let the games continue.
41
@Victor ... Right on, Victor!
Supply follows demand, but demand does not inevitably follow supply. History is littered with failed businesses.
Is it not possible, even likely, that some people would turn to addictive drugs if booze were not available? Is it not likely that the availability of legal marijuana would reduce the number of people who become addicted to illegal drugs? Is it not likely that addictive drugs, even if legal and cheap, would not be any more in demand than illegal expensive addictive drugs?
Legislative attempts to regulate supply and demand are unnecessary and futile in a free society!
@Victor
I agree with your fundamental point, which seems to be that we should focus on reducing demand. As long as there is strong demand there will be a supply.
I must challenge your assertion that "Demand, while daunting, is less complicated." Supply always finds a way--that is actually the simple truth. The logistics of supply chain may be complicated when the product is illegal, but it is a straightforward truth.
Drug use--especially over-use and addiction--are complex on the individual level and are not easily addressed in aggregate either. That is why we have the problem we do: there are no simple answers to this truly demand-sided issue.
The most cost-effective and efficacious methods to reduce drug use and addiction rely much less on punitive measures and much more on treatment and rehabilitation. These things cost money, of course, but ultimately less than incarceration. Punishment, however, seems to satisfy some people’s sense of moral rectitude and righteous indignation at what they consider a deficit in character.
As long as the country continues to be led by religious, social, and economic hardliners, drug use will be seen as a moral failing, not a medical/biological issue, and retribution will be the order of the day.
Until the powers that be decide that punishment has little to do with actual progress, and that healthcare is a human right, many Americans will continue to self-medicate themselves into oblivion.
34
I am a recovering alcoholic (30+ years sober) and ex-smoker, so I have some personal acquaintance with addiction. (Indeed, I know people who have kicked both heroin and nicotine, and who say that nicotine was the more difficult.) There is a simple course that will dismantle the cartels that are destroying Mexico (and whose influence is surely part of the picture here): legalize all the illicit drugs. Legalize, regulate, tac...and use the proceeds for rehab treatment. This should appeal to true conservatives (are there any left?) as using the free market while minimizing government intrusion.
Of course, the deeper question remains: What is it about the way we order values in our lives that leads so many Americans to seek relief in oblivion, risking death in the process? The free market has no answer to that, nor does, it seems, facile (or cynical) appeals to religion, at least of the born-again variety.
It may be veering into Alex Jones territory, but our experience with Prohibition also suggests that there are many in our establishments (e.g. police departments that use forfeiture) who benefit from the corrupt system now in place; indeed how many Captain Renaults do we have being "shocked" that we have drug dealers among us, while pocketing the bribes?
167
@Jprfrog
Congratulations on your long term sobriety.
That being said:
So your “solution” is to legalize illicit drugs, allow people to become addicted and then use the revenue to open rehabs? Really? What will you say when the revenue is not used for treatment?
Do the alcohol manufacturers financially support AA, for example or other treatment centers or do they use those profits to create more advertising to entice younger people to drink?
We couldn’t even get NYS to fund education through lottery revenues without bait and switch tactics. What makes you think this time your proposal will be different?
Is the rationale there is no winning so just join in? If so, I have some other proposals:
Eliminate the FDA and let drug manufacturers produce more highly addictive drugs. Use the revenue to open more rehabs also.
Reduce the drinking age to 18. Same reasoning,
Don’t prosecute crime in cities with high crime rates. Clearly they aren’t winning so why fight? Use the funds saved to pay for funeral costs and grief counseling.
Absurd? You bet it is. So is giving up and deciding it is not worth the effort.
6
@jprfrog It's not Alex Jones territory. There are people and industries which profit from criminalization. Law enforcement and private prisons gain from jailing people for personal drug use. Local LEO's love the property seizures laws which essentially allow wide-scale theft with no legal process. Questionable rehab facilities make fortunes by trolling for inpatients on late-night TV.The cartels also love our drug laws, the real irony of us blaming Mexico is that we send so much wealth to cartels the government has no chance. The entities that benefit from our drug policies are quite good at lobbying and propaganda.
13
@ArtM What is absurd is persisting at trying to deal with this as a criminal issue when it is a public health issue. We cannot stop drug use, and suppressing it and criminalizing users ruins more lives than the drugs. To repeat the mantra, a definition of insanity is expecting a different outcome by endlessly repeating the same actions. You criticize legalization, but seem to support policies which have never come close to succeeding in 60 years. Who is being absurd?
22
In a society governed by supply and demand why do we always focus on the supply of drugs. Obviously drugs aren't your typical widget, but the surest way to stop the supply of drugs is a national coordinated effort to work on reducing the demand for illicit and addictive drugs. Everything else is really a waste of time in the long-run.
62
@dolbash
It's remarkable how addiction to tobacco was reduced so dramatically since the postwar period. I think there are lessons in that, but telling people to just say, "No," is a minor component of what's required.
Yes, educate to insure that most people know the dangers. In addition, provide a cushion for people who have come to depend on selling drugs to make a living. Before anyone protests that that is impossible, think about the tobacco farmers who were paid to stop growing the evil weed. Programs will be needed here and in other countries to deal with drugs.
We also need to address the for-profit pharmaceutical industry. If people can make a lot of money, it's likely that they will do so no matter what our laws say.
Treating addiction as an illness rather than a moral failing is critical. People who are dying from drug addiction aren't just making bad choices.
16
@Betsy S
I'd argue that the effort to curtail tobacco smoking has owed its success over time to three factors:
1) tobacco really is as dangerous as it's made out to be. The charges against it are not exaggerated. The education programs directed at it are grounded in well-established facts. In the case of tobacco, the facts are pretty bad.
2) Despite its hazard profile, tobacco has not been legally prohibited from possession and use by adults, or from sale as a commerical product. It isn't the target of a witch hunt by irrational punitive moralists imagining that the goal is to eradicate all tobacco use by force.
One positive consequence of keeping tobacco legal for adults is that the hazards of tobacco can't be plausibly dismissed by anyone as propaganda hyperbole to serve a control agenda promulgated by punitive mentalities.
3) tobacco has become much more stringently and effectively regulated over the years, particularly in terms of the enforcement of the prohibition against sales to minors. (I think that the regulation has been undone in the case of vaping, particularly of those formulas containing nicotine. Vaping and tobacco need to be subject to the same rules. But it also needs to be understood that vaping nicotine should remain legal for adults.)
Compare that situation with the historical track record of total criminalization of various substances.
1
One solution to the drugs problem would for gouvernments to set up drug shops which would sell all drugs at controlled prices. A record could be kept and anyone over buying forced to undergo treatment. The illegal trade would disappear, and buyers would be getting a pure product. A modest tax uplift would provide a useful source of revenue.
18
We need to recognize that our "war" on drugs has had no small part in leading to the situations we face on the border today. Between Cold War interference in the entire hemisphere, the residue of American interventions protecting business interests and the current prohibition that has created billionaires of cartels from Mexico to Peru we need to realize that our "strategy" doesn't work. At some point, we need to step back and truly rethink this. Legalizing marijuana is a start, reining in big Pharma is another. Understanding that something is terribly wrong in a population where so many have so little and so many have no hope would be a key to ending this.
32
Excellent comment. I would point out, however, that American interference with Latin America started way before the Cold War. For example, the Mexican War.
7
The largest shares of deadly drugs reaches the US via the US Postal Service. Other than privately owned delivery companies the USP has failed to clamp down on this.
But in general terms the US has been the biggest market for drugs over decades. Usually we don’t blame the producers but the consumer and the culture: as in our epidemic of alcoholism that by any measure has been much more destructive than the effect of illegal drugs.
Drugs will always find a way in, so the real solution lies in a preventive approach. It will take decades. We are seeing this in the decline of tobacco use.
13
@Oliver Herfort
The post office does what it can. But it's dealing with a massive volume of parcels, and is even less able to "clamp down" on that situation than the US Customs department is able to stop and thoroughly search every automobile driving over the border into the USA. That's a physical reality that doesn't respond to even the loudest and most incessant gavel-banging.
To compound the problem, we're now faced with the phenomenon of underground laboratories capable of manufacturing fentanyl analogs, which are 100-10,000 times the strength of morphine by weight. Thousands of doses of a substance like carfentanil can be sent in a 1st class mail envelope. 0.2 grams of pure carfentanil is considered roughly equivalent to a kilogram of heroin. That amount of carfentanil can fit inside a single large vitamin capsule.
The annual heroin demand in the US population is estimated by the DEA at around 20 metric tons, or 20,000 kilos. Theoretically, that entire demand can be satisfied with the substitution of 400 kilos of pure fentanyl- or 4 kilos (8.8 lbs.) of pure carfentanil.
In the match between the cops and the smugglers, that's about one move away from checkmate, in favor of the smugglers.
The market forces will always dominate. It is simply a supply and demand situation. If Americans did not buy drugs they would not be smuggled in. Pretty simple. The question , of course, is this: Why are some drugs legal and some illegal?Who really benefits? You can be sure that those who are most adamant about keeping drugs illegal are the Latin American and North American drug cartels. Legalization destroys their business. Follow the money.
89
@Joe
A favourite observation of the late, great, Bill Hicks. Those tax earning drugs are fine as the govt are happy for them to be regulated, even though they kill in their hundreds of thousands, year on year.
Right, until we find a way to shut-down or at least greatly diminish the market, sellers will always find a way to bring their product in. Rehab beds are in woefully short supply. We ought, instead of locking people up, provide mandatory rehab along with job training. The opioid crisis followed by the reaction which is now depriving some chronic pain patients of needed medication must be managed better - even if that means monitoring folks who receive any opioid prescription. We can and should do better. Until we do, the drugs will flood in - wall or no wall, closed border or open border.
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Where there are buyers there will be sellers. The problem begins with the willingness to consume and abuse. Did not the futile prohibition laws of the 1920s demonstrate that clearly?
The solution can only come with an educational (and yes propaganda) program of such proportions that it undermines demand.
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The worst drug epidemic in our history was caused by a FDA approved drug by Purdue Inc. distributed through our health care system.The breakdown of our communities with underemployment,despair and poverty also contributed.American's needs to take a long look in the mirror and see what are society has become.Until you know the problem you can't fix it.
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@robert conger Your penultimate sentence is good advice not just to the USA but to a lot of other countries in the West (including my own). I can not get out of my mind the awfulness of this report concerning a man who was being stopped by the police from cutting homeless people's hair free of charge. When this sort of things begin to happen we do indeed need to take a close look at ourselves: https://twitter.com/i/status/1117373413692198912
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@robert conger Your first sentence is incorrect. Drug epidemics of various kinds have been here long before Purdue. The rich white side of the epidemic may be what you’re referring to?
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@robert conger
I'm inclined to put much of the responsibility for the Oxycontin epidemic that began in the 1990s on the DEA, which was so caught up in emphasizing its efforts against illicitly grown or smuggled substances that it completely fell down on maintaining prescription accountability for DEA Schedule II/III/IV drugs, especially schedule II. ("Controlled substances" accountability is the responsibility of the DEA, not the FDA. The FDA merely approves drug formulations; it has neither the mission or the means to account for their quantity of prescription.)
Instead, the DEA left regulatory control almost entirely to the separate states, some of whom had terribly ineffectual regulations in place. There's still no Federal requirement for all states to link to a central prescription database; as recently as five years ago, fewer than 20 states were linked, thereby making it easy for out-of-staters to purchase large supplies of opioids from physicians and pharmacies in the states with the most negligent accountability procedures.