What Will it Take to Stop the Violence?
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said in a Mexico City radio interview in August that he supported Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s call for a debate on drug legalization. He also said that he will work to build a united front with Peru and Mexico on legalization if voters in California approve Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana in November.
Colombia and Peru are the world’s top cocaine producers. Mexico is the leading producer of marijuana and opium in this part of the world, and is the home to some of the world’s wealthiest and deadliest drug trafficking organizations.
President Santos has made such remarks before. In 1998, as head of the Good Government Foundation, he co-signed an open letter to then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for a “frank and honest evaluation of global drug control efforts” because “we believe the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.” Two years ago, he told a London conference on cocaine that legalization should be part of the debate.
In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced a new military offensive against his country’s drug cartels. Since then the cartels have become more powerful than ever, financed primarily by marijuana sales. Violence has spread not just in the border areas but throughout Mexico and more than 28,000 people have been killed in the prohibition-fueled violence. Realizing that his hard-line approach has not worked, earlier this month Calderon said the time has come for Mexico to have an open debate about regulating drugs as a way to combat the cartels. Ignoring this problem, Mr. Calderon said, “is an unacceptable option.”
Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, went even further, writing on his blog that “we should consider legalizing the production, sale and distribution of drugs” as a way to “weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to earn huge profits… Radical prohibition strategies have never worked.” Fox is hardly alone. His predecessor, as well as former presidents of Brazil and Colombia, has also spoken out for the need to end prohibition. Meanwhile in the US we’ve given criminals a virtual monopoly on something that U.S. drug-policy researcher Jon Gettman estimates is a $36 billion a year industry, greater than corn and wheat combined. We have implemented laws that are not enforceable, which has thereby created a thriving black market.
Sadly, despite 14 states flouting US federal law and legalizing marijuana for medical purposes and, despite a referendum to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes that will be put before California voters this November U.S. officials refuse to even acknowledge that such a debate is taking place. Obama’s Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has said repeatedly that the Obama administration is not open to a debate on ending marijuana prohibition. Even worse, we’ve donated $1.4 billion to fund Mexico’s horribly failed drug war.
Recently six former “drug czars” got together and released a statement in opposition to Prop 19 in California. All past directors of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the administrations of Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, these bureaucrats have presided over a policy that has been a documented failure since its inception and they continue to lie about the facts and encourage more of the same disastrous policies. After decades of America’s drug war and close to a trillion dollars spent on their policy one would think it would be nearly perfect instead of the resounding failure it has obviously become.
America’s insistence on drug prohibition has caused violence and crime, not only at home but in all of Latin and South America. Now the violence has reached such heights that the stability of these country’s governments is in jeopardy. The wealth and power of the drug cartels could easily lead to the establishment of narco-states. That would give America a raft of new countries to send troops to and to war against. We are already all over the Middle East and looking at expanding into Africa; can we sustain enemies to our south as well?
Mexico officially calls for national debate on drug legalization
Mexican President Calderon announced that the time has come to entertain a serious national discussion on the pros and cons of legalizing drugs. To cover his ass he then announced that he doesn’t support legalization. Why call for something you don’t like? Well President Calderon is very familiar when his predecessor Vincente Fox had the same idea. Fox was pressured by the Bush administration and forced to drop the idea. With the border issues facing the two nations and the distinct possibility of the US taking actions that would cause serious harm to Mexico’s economy this is dangerous time to go up against US policy.
Calderon has faced criticism as violence plagues the country. In years past he has been able to claim that it was drug dealers killing other drug dealers and therefore not really a problem. Now official figures released this week put the number of drug war related murders at 28,000 and many of these are honest civilians, students, even children on their way to a birthday party. Gun battles rage in the streets and the public is fed up but entry into the US illegal drug market is so hugely profitable that the cartels do what ever they must to see it continue. No amount of troops or police can possibly stop it.
Calderon’s opposition party, the PRI opposes legalization for largely the same reasons that opponents in the US do. Fear-mongering about addicting the nation’s youth were they to legalize drugs is promulgated in PRI’s broadcasts on radio and television. Their solution? More of the same. Use the police and military to crack down on the drug cartels when they commit public violence but turn a blind eye to the actual drug trade. They figure the violence will slow down if the cartels are allowed to continue the lucrative business.
Several prominent politicians from Latin and South America have called for legalization in the past year because of similar problems in their countries. Some have moved down the path toward legalization already by adopting measures to decriminalize small quantities of drugs intended for personal use. These other counties may help to provide cover for Mexico but the key player here is really the US. If the US legalized drugs then the drug problems these nations face would fade quickly .
So what will Obama do? He stated during his campaign that he knows the war on drugs has been a failure. He admitted to having smoked marijuana and tried cocaine himself as a student. Can we count on a president to honor his campaign promises?
What’s happening in Costa Rica in the name of the War on Drugs?
What’s happening in Costa Rica? On July 1st, the Costa Rican Congress authorized the entry into that country of 46 warships from the U.S. Navy, 200 helicopters and combat aircraft and 7,000 Marines. The U.S. military personnel will enjoy complete immunity from Costa Rican justice, and its members will be able to enter and leave Costa Rica entirely at will, and move through the entire country dressed in their uniforms, carrying their combat gear and weapons.
There hasn’t been much coverage of this in the US press but apparently the government of President Laura Chinchilla lent her support and that of her congressmen in obedient response to Washington’s request. Why? Well the reason given by the US is that such troop presence in Costa Rica is necessary to prevent the flow of illegal drugs from Latin and South America into the US.
Of course the US has a strong military presence in other countries with absolutely no reduction in drug activity visible. In Colombia, despite no less than seven US military bases for example, the U.S. presence has not prevented the significant expansion of the area designated as that devoted primarily to the cultivation of coca. As a matter of fact the United States is the number one worldwide producer of marijuana, according to some studies, reaches a sum of more than $35 billion dollars in that country, a figure that surpasses the combined value of wheat and corn production. We can’t stop illegal drug production here in the US but yet we spend billions of dollars sending troops to Latin America?
Could there be an ulterior motive here? Perhaps preparation for some sort of military action in Mexico? Civil unrest in Mexico caused largely by US drug policy has destabilized the government there. States on the US border with Mexico are concerned about border security and so far neither country has been able to stop incursions by either illegal immigrants or drugs.
It’s hard for small countries to oppose the US when it decides to pressure them into doing embarrassing things like permitting foreign troops to operate freely on their soil. Remember what happened in Panama? It seems that even after almost a century of failure US attempts to control the availability of conscious- altering drugs still provide an excuse for pointless, expensive overseas adventures. When will we learn?
La Cucaracha
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
Marijuana que fumar.
Roughly translated….
The cockroach, the cockroach
Can no longer walk
Because he doesn’t have, because they can’t find
Marijuana to smoke
What? You mean this popular Mexican folk song refers to illegal drug use? Well, sort of. The song is of Spanish origin and references to it go back to the 1880’s or earlier. Because of it’s catchy tune and rhyming pattern it lent itself to improvised verses. During the Mexican troubles at the time of presidents Diaz, Huerta and Madero Mexican peasants fighting in the revolutionary army of Pancho Villa, often smoked marijuana to help them feel better after a long hot day of evading the armies of the American general “Blackjack” Pershing or by President Diaz. Because of the poverty filth and hunger which these troops lived they were often referred to as “cucarachas”, cockroaches in English. Not really all that different from the typical American worker sharing a few beers after a long day at the factory or, for that matter, commodities traders going out for a scotch after a long day on the floor.
There are probably hundreds of verses to La Cucaracha - another version, also from the Mexican Revolution goes like this:
Una cosa me da risa –
Pancho Villa sin camisa.
Ya se van los Carranzistas
Porque vienen los Villistas
One thing makes me laugh most hearty–
Pancho Villa with no shirt on
Now the Carranzistas beat it
Because Villa’s men are coming.
Of course these days “La cucaracha” is sung mostly by mariachi bands playing in restaurants and bars for the tourists but there is a new kind of popular music south of the border - “narco corridos”.
These songs coming mostly from the state of Sinaloa, home to several major drug cartels, tell the stories of today. Instead of glorifying revoloutionaries like Pancho Villa fighting the government they sing about the exploits of the drug smugglers fighting the government. A very popular song by one of the most popular of these bands, Los Tigres del Norte begins like this
Una troka salió de Durango a las dos o tres de la mañana.
Dos muchachas muy chulas llevaban coca pura y también marihuana
pero se disfrazaron de monjas paí poderla llevar a Tijuana
A Durango troka left to the two or three in the morning.
Two very cool girls wore pure cocaine and marijuana
but dressed up as nuns to carry it to Tijuana
A few verses later the two “nuns” are questioned at the border -
“Una dijo me llamo Sor Juana la otra dijo, me llamo íSorpresaî
y se alzaron el hábito a un tiempo y sacaron unas metralletas
y mataron a los federales y se fueron en su camioneta.”
One said I am called Sister Juana the other said, I am called íSorpresa
and they raised the habit at the same time and they removed submachine guns
and they killed the feds and they left in their light truck.
… Stories of life sung by and for the people.
The New Jim Crow?
There has been much talk over the past decade or two about the paucity of leadership in the African-American community and the silence of what leaders there are about the massive incarceration of blacks in America and its connection to the war on drugs. In New York State for instance some 93% of prisoners doing time for drug offenses are Black or Latino. Knowing that these groups drug use per-capita is about the same as in the White community it’s pretty hard how one can’t see racism in that number yet there has been silence on this from the NAACP and most Black leaders.
We’ve known since H.R. Haldeman’s revealing memoir on his years as Nixon’s chief-of-staff that the war on drugs was used as a tool to exercise control over the African-American community without seeming to do so. As Nixon so shrewdly planned, this tactic apparently worked on the majority of White America. What about the Black leadership though? How could intelligent, politically-savvy black leaders not care that their communities were being devastated by mass incarcerations for the same crimes that Whites generally got probation for? How is it that the NAACP focused on the perceived racial imbalance on TV sitcoms while the constituency it purported to represent languished in prison?
A tiny handful of mid-level Black leaders spoke up but were ignored by the higher-ups. Long-time NAACP National Board member Richard Burton started something called Project Reach that focused on the racial injustice in the drug war but his message was apparently ignored by NAACP leaders. Why?
One possible answer may be found in the history of alcohol prohibition in America. Back in the 1920’s and 30’s immigrant groups such as Italians, Jews, and Germans were heavily involved in the sale, smuggling, and production of alcohol because of the economic opportunities the illegal market provided to them because discrimination prevented them from many legitimate avenues to make a living. Understandably perhaps, these groups were reluctant to speak out against the law for fear of being considered un-American. Since they didn’t want to call attention to themselves for their traditional alcohol use and possibly bring down yet more difficulties on their communities they remained largely silent. If the alcohol prohibition laws were like today’s drug laws and users and small sellers were going to prison for years things might have been different.
Another possibility is that some sort of understanding was reached whereby silence on the drug policy issue would ensure continued social benefits in the form of welfare and other government aid to communities of color.
Whatever the reasons things may be starting to change. With the growing understanding in America that the war on drugs is a failure there are signs that at last the Black community may be ready to speak out about this horrible injustice. There is a new book out called “THE NEW JIM CROW” by Attorney Michelle Alexander. She says “…I wrote this book because I was so deeply alarmed by the relative quiet of the civil rights community and African-American leaders in the face of mass incarceration. And I admit, at the outset, that I, myself, failed to fully grasp the extent of the devastation caused to communities of color as a result of the Drug War. There was a time when I didn’t fully get it.”
Alexander makes a compelling case for the idea that Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status-much like their grandparents before them.
Another promising sign comes from California where that state’s chapter of the NAACP has endorsed state representative Tom Damiano’s bill to legalize and tax the sale of marijuana in the state. That is a bold step. Still no word from the national NAACP about this issue but a step like this from a major chapter like California’s must have been noticed on high.
It’s a terrible shame that this travesty of justice didn’t get the attention it deserved before a generation or two were hammered mercilessly by this senseless drug policy but, as we see all too often in America, change comes slow.
