cannabisnews.com: Three-Part Solution Against Drugs





Three-Part Solution Against Drugs
Posted by FoM on May 11, 2000 at 11:11:53 PT
By Alejandro Gertz Manero - 5-10-2000
Source: Narco News
Mexico City Police Chief Calls For Holland-Style Drug Policy:The possible solutions to the drug problem, if we accept the premises given in our last article about the grave and irreparable damages that addiction and drug trafficking produce in people and in countries, are the following:
The first has been applied to the hilt in communist China and in ultra-right Singapore, consisting in brutal execution, without tolerance nor exception, one of the most Draconian policies that can be imagined: The death penalty and the making of examples for any act involved in drug trafficking, including ferocious punishment for consumption.The results of these policies have flattened the drug trade, to the point that in these nations the evil has been eradicated at the root and has almost stopped being a problem for their inhabitants and government. The social cost paid by these nations has also been very high, since both countries are known for their social intolerance and fierce authoritarianism. And each one, with its economic limits has a common denominator of repression and control that is inapplicable in a country like our own.On the other extreme are found countries like the United States, Spain and other European nations that are known for democracy, openness, liberties and general respect for human rights: in these countries the trafficking and consumption of drugs has grown exponentially and has become a true nightmare.In the United States more than 20 million people are daily drug addicts and the apparatus of production, transport, storage and distribution that is needed to supply this immense number of people daily has to be colossal, efficient, sophisticated and highly productive, and it generates profits much higher than those of the largest legitimate businesses in the world. Faced with this overwhelming criminal apparatus, the governments of these nations have lost ground day after day, in spite of the economic and political efforts made by thousands and thousands of people involved in this fight, from police to judges and prison guards, and the untiring rhetoric that defends this policy also fails daily. Nobody gets it right to correct the problem.The production and transit countries for drugs, like Cambodia, Colombia and Mexico, live with their own hell, while their institutions are infiltrated by drug traffickers and suffer a constant decay, their social structures brutally erode without finding answers or viable solutions.The third path has worked for countries like Holland that try to end the economic pressures of drug trafficking and recognize that drug addicts are ill, taking charge to allow the free use of drugs by those addicts inside of a therapeutic project, so that those who have irredeemably fallen into this vice do not become instruments of the economic interests of crime.This option has the merit of recognizing a reality and confronting it in a scientific and social form, and has provided small but satisfactory results.From the three options, I believe it is possible to design the one most viable for our country.From the first would come legislation that is fundamentally more effective with greater penalties that establishes an efficient and well supervised vigilance in schools and neighborhoods to eradicate drug commerce from these places that are so important to the community. This would require taking very clear actions on a police level to confront the natural promoters of drug trafficking.From the project of the more democratic countries, we can use the budgetary support and need for health programs and public education projects that permit the organization of these tasks within the atmosphere of how the great majorities prefer to live.From the third option, it is indispensable to rescue the fundamental idea of ending the economic interest in drug trafficking, recognizing that addicts are sick and they require a controlled dose of drugs, that lessens over time, and medical assistance so they can recover.The common denominator in this fight must be to end the economic interest of drug trafficking while creating conscience in the entire community about the damages of these addictions so that the youth are protected to prevent them from falling into into this evil.Alejandro Gertz Manero is Police Commissioner for Mexico City. This text appeared on May 10th in his regular column in El Universal, Mexico's most widely-read newspaper, and translated to English on the same day by The Narco News Bulletin:http://www.el-universal.com.mx/Direct Link To Article:http://www.narconews.com/hollandmexico.htmlMore to come on this developing story from... http://www.narconews.com/
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Comment #2 posted by Scott on May 11, 2000 at 17:05:49 PT:
Go Dutch in Mexico? Just a dream...
The idea of going Dutch in Mexico almost makes me laugh. Mexico has a very high rate of unemployment. 50-60% of the population are unemployed, and the illegal drug market acts as a good financial tool. Countries south of the border, such as Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, etc. make too much off the drug trade to even consider moving to a regulated market. I'm surprised that any Mexican authority would even suggest a regulated market for fear of death by scum bag drug lords.Scott
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Comment #1 posted by Tim Stone on May 11, 2000 at 15:56:38 PT
Very interesting article
Please permit my attempt at a "deconstruction" of the Mexico City Police Chief's article:>The possible solutions to the drug problem, if we accept the premises given>in our last article about the grave and irreparable damages that addiction>and drug trafficking produce in people and in countries, are the following: In starting any article that may be at all critical of drug war orthodoxy, especially so in a hot spot like Mexico, it is necessary to CYA by mentioning sundry drug war myths and professing appropriate moral tsk-tsk, to assure readers that you are not a flaming crazy "legalizer," but rather a Respectable Source of Information who applauds the drug war, but would like to add some cautious paranthetical comments. >The first has been applied to the hilt in communist China and in ultra-right Singapore, consisting in>brutal execution, without tolerance nor exception, one of the most Draconian policies that can be>imagined: >The death penalty and the making of examples for any act involved in drug trafficking, including>ferocious punishment for consumption.>The results of these policies have flattened the drug trade, to the point that in these nations the evil>has been eradicated at the root and has almost stopped being a problem for their inhabitants and>government. The drug policy of the countries cited may be a significant victory for prohibition as a national and international policy, although the author gives no documentable evidence. It may also be that the countries, because they have taken such a strong prohibition stand, are compelled to fudge the data to try and justify their savage policies. If they have "eradicated the root" of humans substance use/abuse, then they are the first in human history to do so. Perhaps the author is here again paying homage to drug war Myth, to reassure his readers that he's on the side of Prohibition, thereby hoping his readers will then listen to his ifs, ands and buts. Perhaps what actually happened in these Prohibition success stories is that ever more vicious prohibition just caused the whole drug issue to go even further underground, to where the Authorities will once again have to regroup and start all over in trying to figure out how much of a drug problem they actually have. And perhaps the Authorities are under the gun from Higher-ups to produce data showing success in drug prohibition, so they can keep their jobs, even if the drug problem still continues, as usual.>On the other extreme are found countries like the United States, Spain and other European nations>that are known for democracy, openness, liberties and general respect for human rights: in these>countries the trafficking and consumption of drugs has grown exponentially and has become a true>nightmare.Grown exponentially? Again, no data presented. An example of exponential growth would be if you started out with seven heroin addicts, and each of those addicts was compelled as a component of his addiction to addict seven others, and the resulting forty-nine were compelled to each produce seven more, who in turn were compelled to produce seven more... Sort of like an old horror vampire/zombie B movie in which an aging Boris Karloff makes a cameo. In fact of course, as a result solely of Drug Prohibition, drug production has gone up to accommodate the market that drug prohibition has created. So it's no surprise that there are more drug users because drug Prohibition has created the economic profit sufficient to attract more drug dealers.>In the United States more than 20 million people are daily drug addicts and the apparatus of>production, transport, storage and distribution that is needed to supply this immense number of>people daily has to be colossal, efficient, sophisticated and highly productive, and it generates profits>much higher than those of the largest legitimate businesses in the world. Twenty million daily drug "addicts"? Something over 50% of the adult U.S. population drink alcohol, and around 10% of alcohol users tend to become problematic alcohol abusers and alcoholics. We all know an alcoholic from personal experience. Yet this statistic, again, with no documentation, would suggest that there are as many drug "addicts" as alcoholics. This assertion is contradicted by everybody and everything, including individual personal experience. Compare the number of alcohol abusers you've run across in your life with the number of clearly problematic cocaine and heroin abusers you've run across in your personal life. Perhaps, paying homage to drug czar McCaffery from whom he perhaps got the 20% addict datum, the author is including cannabis use and using the drug czar's garbage definition of addiction as anyone who uses a mind-altering substance more than at all, or at most a few times through "youthful folly.">From the project of the more democratic countries, we can use the budgetary support and need>for health programs and public education projects that permit the organization of these tasks>within the atmosphere of how the great majorities prefer to live.Gimme more gringo dollars. The author probably found it wise to include this bit to lessen the number of possible people who might want to assassinate him for writing this article. The people who profit from Prohibition, rather than killing him for writing this article, may even protect him, so long as he is still calling for mo' money.And having done his best to contextualize his comments and create a context where people will actually listen to him:>From the third option, it is indispensable to rescue the fundamental idea of ending the>economic interest in drug trafficking, recognizing that addicts are sick and they require a>controlled dose of drugs, that lessens over time, and medical assistance so they can recover.>The common denominator in this fight must be to end the economic interest of drug>trafficking while creating conscience in the entire community about the damages of these>addictions so that the youth are protected to prevent them from falling into into this evil.Having covered his tracks and genuflected at the altar of Prohibition, and perhaps engaged a few more round-the-clock security guards, the author now dares to deviate from drug war orthodoxy.This author is so courageous, we in the U.S. can't perhaps understand his heroism. 
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