cannabisnews.com: Common Sense





Common Sense
Posted by FoM on June 15, 2001 at 09:17:48 PT
Editorial
Source: Arizona Daily Star 
Border governors struggling with the failures of the drug war and a massive immigration problem have settled on some common sense suggestions to the cross-national problems. Some solutions, like drug legalization, are simple. Others, such as the call for more investments in infrastructure and economic development, will take considerable time and money. The remedies came from governors meeting in Tampico, Mexico last week to work on solutions common to both countries. 
While an all-out war on drugs has been an expensive failure, the governors' alternatives - legalization and the designation of drug trafficking as a health issue - merit consideration as viable solutions. No one knows better than the governors of the border states the human toll and public costs of trafficking and illegal immigration. Arizona Gov. Jane Hull expressed her sadness at the deaths of 14 illegal immigrants who died in the heat last month as they tried to elude the Border Patrol in their journey to find work. But her solutions, to expand the Border Patrol and to impose harsh criminal sentences on the human traffickers, would remedy only the symptoms. And while she is moving in the right direction, increasing the ranks of the Border Patrol would increase the public costs of the new officers and the incarceration costs of added would-be immigrants. A better solution she offered has met with resistance from the federal government. That solution would create a guest worker program to allow illegal immigrants legal entry to find work in the United States. On the other hand, the legalization of marijuana is a ripe issue. Already, voters in several states have voted to legalize medicinal marijuana. Legalization of marijuana is a solution preferred by New Mexico's Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, who sees legalization as a means of reducing crime, violence and corruption along the border. Johnson is on point when he says "I happen to believe that this is the reason why we have a militarized border and this whole concept or belief that everyone who comes across the border is a drug trafficker - that's the perception in the United States." But even he is realistic about the possibility of legalization, noting the reluctance of two Mexican governors who acknowledge the world may not be ready to accept legalization. In the meantime, the governors have agreed to study such a possibility. Perhaps the most important concept to come from the conference is that the problems are not limited by the lines that separate the countries. The United States has a drug use problem exacerbated by a trafficking problem. The conduits are the countries to the south where corruption and trafficking are synonymous. Eliminating drug use and trafficking will take a cross-border effort. Said Baja California Gov. Alejandro Gonzalez: "One country or one region can't do it when it is a problem of many countries." Source: Arizona Daily Star (AZ)Published: June 12, 2001Copyright: 2001 Pulitzer Publishing Co.Contact: letters azstarnet.comWebsite: http://www.azstarnet.com/Related Article:U.S., Mexican Governors To Study Drug Trafficking http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10004.shtmlBorder Battles Escalating http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8641.shtmlCannabisNews Articles - Governor Gary Johnsonhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=gary+johnson
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