This can get a bit long, get confortable Legalization of drugs is a common theme of discussion in leftist orgs in my country, with the main argument for it being that the legalization of drugs would force dealers out of business by allowing a legal and safer access to said drugs What these people dont understand is that the danger drugs pose doesnt come from backyard weed farmers selling cheap shit to kids and teenagers on the streets, but instead from the organized drug dealing factions and cartels, that control not only the drugs business, but also end up getting involved with piracy, prostitution and even human trafficking, big drug dealers nowadays have the control and freedom of small feudal lords, having free reign over whole communities of terrorized workers that couldnt give less of a shit about what high school kids have to say about the medicinal uses of marijuana, these impoverished communities, under total control of druglords, have its citizens firmly under its control, supplying them with lots of cannon fodder to throw at the police and army, said cannon fodder end up being an example to previously mentioned high school kids about "the failure of the war on drugs" and the circle continues
What do you guys have to say about this situation?And what are your personal opinions of the whole drugs thing? For me, I say its past time we take the fight to them, tear em apart one by one and liberate these communities for further development, of course its easier said than done, as these druglords often have contacts in political circles and even the police itself, but I cant understand how so many leftist insist on the bullshit excuse that these organizations are just more victims of the system, theyre bourgeois of the worst kind and should be treated as the scum they are
I heard dudes coming back from Russia, taxidrivers in Moscow constantly telling them that there were no drugs abuse or prostitution problem back to the Soviet years
I remember Michael Parenti talking about this in one of his speeches and saying it was bullshit.
Lincoln Cox
the drug trade is a pressure release valve for violent low Autism Level men who would be otherwise unemployable who would wreak havoc on society with much worse and much violent crime, along with all of the black, white and grey cottage industries that crop up around it
drugs will remain the way they are because the current system is 100% beneficial to tptb as it currently stands
Nicholas Myers
The problem is that because of retarded human rights laws it's impossible to hunt those fuckers without upseting the "international community". But that's how a society should tackle drug cartels. Just kill them without any pity nor trials. Some will immediately give up and switch sides. Drug cartels are no different from a bank owner or a right wing politician.
Anthony Wilson
B-but muh totalitarianism, muh tolerance!!!!!1! Drug bosses are people too, you know???!?!?! This just proves you commies are actually no better than nazis!!!!!!!!11!!!!
t. liberals
Adam Rogers
It wasn't true when Parenti was there in the 80s but I think they were far more successful in other periods
Jonathan Morales
Going to quote a paraphrase of Joan Rivers here.
Point more being the second one about organized crime being better than disorganized crime. I don't really know what the solution is but it's better to have a monopoly over the trade (whether it be the state or one big cartel) rather than a bunch of shattered, disorganized mafias fighting over control in a region with weak central authority.
This is what happened in Mexico after the collapse in the PRI's vertically-integrated corporatist hegemony starting around 2000, when the PAN came to power. Before, the politicians were bought but everyone know who was bought and who was doing the buying. After that became disrupted, the marketplace also became disrupted and then exploded in violence in 2006 when the PAN was re-elected and Calderon declared war on the cartels and sent the army into the streets.
But this state violence was not applied consistently and largely served to advance the interests of these warring political families. Part of the reason the PRI-governed states also had more violence is because the PAN government used that as a political tool, blaming the PRI for the violence in those states. The whole time, a firehose of cash money and firearms were pouring across the border from the United States. The PRI came back to power in 2012 and was then BTFO'd by AMLO in 2018.
I don't really know where I'm going with this but beware the mantra of "let's just crack skulls" in this authoritarian way if you don't have a new structure to replace the old one you just smashed into bits.
What a load of horseshit. Some sexually frustrated bitch watched too many gangster movies and now idealizes mobsters with fedoras because they're oh so charming. Her "point" is laughable, too. If you manage to crack up huge drug cartels you can deal with a bunch of small gangs. The thing is that the bourgeois state doesn't bother, because they're not a threat.
Jose Diaz
You're an idiot. These people exist because there's an economic niche that they fill.
Jose Sullivan
Your anecdote about Mexico doesn't fit either, since you're talking about warring cartels with state support.
Levi Sanders
Sounds great in theory. But in practice, the smaller gangs are often more violent because (a) you have 5,000 gangsters in 10 gangs instead of 5,000 gangsters in one gang (b) those 10 gangs are now at war with each other because you messed up the big gang that used to run the place.
Let's say you're now in charge of a fictional country called Narcopolis and you send in the army into an area and round up the local gangsters (including the local police, who are corrupted) and summarily shoot them and throw them in a ditch. Problem solved? Not quite if those gangsters' rivals then move in after the army leaves, or if the survivors then band together to fight over the scraps. And the first thing they do is attempt to extort / bribe the politicians who were previously bought off by the last cartel – and then the new gangsters shoot them if they don't agree. Or worse, the army screws up the job (say, they're fed intelligence by a rival gang without their knowing) that creates just enough chaos to allow the gangsters' rivals to move in and you get a big multi-sided drug war and bodies being hanged from overpasses several times a week.
I'm trying to complicated the picture the OP presents. It's not that the cartels "have contacts in political circles and even the police itself" but they *are* the political circles and police in these countries. Again in theory it all sounds great to go round up the mobsters and shoot them, but who is going to do the shooting? The army? The police? You're trying to fight gangsters with gangsters. It doesn't work.
lmao Joan knew a bunch of mafia types. She started her career in the mob-run nightclubs in the 60s.
Justin Gutierrez
...
Grayson Perez
Shoot them too.
Adrian Martinez
That's defensible.
Cooper Nelson
Agree with you, OP.
The cartels profit from drugs but would still exist without them. The cartels would still use violence and coercion to make money so long as the state fails to eliminate them.
The drug cartels are not entrepreneurs. They create organizations based around the use of violence and forced labor. They acquire property via violence and the threat of violence. The "business" they operate is the exploitation of people and property they hold at gunpoint.
I agree with you, but would point out that the root of the problem is that the police and security forces never, at any point, had adequate control of the situation. This led to the development of organized cartels. When they attempted to eliminate the cartels, like you said, it simply fractured the organizations. So the crime still happens but it's split into local gangs.
It is a serious problem in Mexico. It is a failure of civil society itself. The only communities managing to avoid this breakdown are the smaller indigenous ones which still have "organic" bonds. I can tell you that in the big city no one trusts police since they are seen as most likely "bought" by the criminals. So people are very unlikely to report crimes. It is also unfortunate that many local neighborhoods protect their own criminals out of tribal stupidity. Meanwhile, the government is incompetent and rarely catches criminals due to an ineffective justice system & poorly paid/organized police.
Ryan Richardson
Drug cartels are first and foremost a social inequality and bad living condittions problem. The great majority of cartel members are poor people (commonly raised by single mother) with bad oportunities who get lured in to living an "intense" life and getting some guaranteed money and respect. Emphasis on guranteed because being a cartel thug usualy pays less than the avarage job but they pay on time. they also accept anyone and usually at any age unless you are gay and maybe based on your religion(that's how it is in RIO atleast). The only realistic way of stopping drug cartes is cutting them short of new manpower ie. Poor unemployeed people and out of school teens. All other methods are either too expensive, temporary or genocidal. Legalizing drugs would also help quite alot since it is one of the main sources of income. Some cartels can still survive on "security taxes", illegal light, gas, water, and prostitution still all those sources of income can be dealt with by having social reforms, and organized state intervention in poor comunities.
Rio de janeiro is considered to be way more dangerous than são paulo because there are a bunch of smaller factions constantly at war and São paulo's crime is dominated by the strongest/largest criminal faction in the country, it is by no means a safe city but you are less likely to be killed by a stray bullet.
Elijah Lewis
Drug dealers can afford all of those other operations because of their monopoly on the selling of drugs, which in turn is only possible because they are illegal.
Also, sure, the left should foccus their efforts on fighting an endless war that would affect the poor more than the bougie.
I swear to god, this chan was taken over by Zig Forumsacks that got bored of fascism.
Easton Hughes
It was long ago. So many reactionaries here. Classic psychadelics is one of best to get legal since it opens people up to new perspectives and helps treat alcoholism.
Legalisation / De-Criminalization wouldn't work here in Aus because of the fact our drug of choice is crystal meth and that would probably just lead to way more people hacking their family to death with hatchets and sheit
Cameron Hall
But if it was legal to get less harmful stuff maybe you wouldn't have such a bad meth problem
Jason Bell
Lmao fuck off with your bourgeois media hysteria. 99% of the supposed dangers of meth are either extremely exaggerated or total bullshit.
Look up Dr. Carl Hart.
Colton Howard
??
Zachary Taylor
aaand stopped reading
Kevin Ward
Why? Being raised with only one parent can lead to many problems especilly in the third world. People raised in this fashion commonly need to work early so they leave school. Both these factors increase the chance of someone joining crime organizations.
Julian Robinson
there isn't anything that excuses the drug dealing scum from their crimes. they cause their communities harm with what they do, end of the story. they should get one chance, the state should give them a job and if they fuck it up there should be no second chance.
Evan Baker
my comment was referring to meth heroine and crack dealers btw., not giving a shit about cannabis although that shit should be sold only in pharmacies to guarantee good quality and prevent addiction
Jeremiah Phillips
Gulag or death, these individuals are unrecoverable, nothing good can come out of them.
Charles Gonzalez
Sure they are scum but just punishing the individuals is not enough to solve a systemic problem. All troughout history, death penalty, torture and public humiliation alone werer never enough to stop people from commiting crimes. And we can agree that punishment for heavy crimes was waaay worse a few centuries ago.
Carson Hughes
do a deep dive into CIA involvement in this
you'd have to go Mr. Worldwide first before dismantling all this shit and even then, organized crime is a horrific metastasized cancer on society. it's feasible to limit it's scope but we'll never truly rid ourselves of it
