quote:

ORIGINAL: outlier
The boarder is simply ceasing to exist. This is the sort
of thing some people have been campaigning about for years.

Basically the question is (has been)
"Where will it stop if we don't enforce our boarder?

I fear this is part of a very ugly answer.

Outlier

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

That is how I view this situation shaping up too.  A future with the National Guard assisting the Border Patrol seems very likely.

quote:

ORIGINAL: outlier
The boarder is simply ceasing to exist. This is the sort
of thing some people have been campaigning about for years.

Basically the question is (has been)
"Where will it stop if we don't enforce our boarder?

I fear this is part of a very ugly answer.

Outlier

• Money cost.  We flat out could not afford this at our height, how much less now that we're involved in two wars in the Middle East and we're worse than bankrupt here at home?
  
• Cost to civil liberties.  Which are damned near dead already, after 60 years of National Security State and 8 years of the Bush regime.
  
• Diplomatic costs.  Like the entirety of our relationship with Mexico and points south.
• Trade costs.
  

quote:

ORIGINAL: domiguy

Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.  Whoopdeefuckin'dooo!, is it news that someone got killed because of the drug trade? or is Arizona supposedly off limits?  People end up face down in Chicago about every day and many of these killings are the results of fights over drug turf and trade.

Nothing newsworthy here....Legalize the shit.  End of story.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aquilifer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

That is how I view this situation shaping up too.  A future with the National Guard assisting the Border Patrol seems very likely.

quote:

ORIGINAL: outlier
The boarder is simply ceasing to exist. This is the sort
of thing some people have been campaigning about for years.

Basically the question is (has been)
"Where will it stop if we don't enforce our boarder?

I fear this is part of a very ugly answer.

Outlier

The obvious problem here is that the border between the United States and Mexico is more than 1950 miles long.  Look that up if you don't believe me.

So the border you want to "enforce" is longer than the entire Western Front during WW I.  It's longer than the "Iron Curtain" was during the Cold War.

You're not going to be able to seal something like that, or come anywhere close, without employing literally millions of soldiers and support personnel.

And when you start getting serious, your troops are going to have to kill people attempting to cross in a more or less routine fashion.  When you start killing Hispanics at border crossings, they'll often have relatives in this country who'll scream "bloody murder" for real.  California and Texas are 25% Hispanic.  Arizona is 30% Hispanic.  New Mexico is even higher.  When these people go to the polls, the people who signed off on the "shoot to kill" orders are going to be out of jobs.

Absolutely everybody who carries on legitimate cross-border trade is going to be hammered by the border security, right in the pocketbook.  We're in a global depression already; we don't need to create even more ways to destroy businesses.

Long story short, you can't "enforce" a border that's 2000 miles long without invoking something like a state of war.  With all the costs that implies:

• Money cost.  We flat out could not afford this at our height, how much less now that we're involved in two wars in the Middle East and we're worse than bankrupt here at home?
  
• Cost to civil liberties.  Which are damned near dead already, after 60 years of National Security State and 8 years of the Bush regime.
  
• Diplomatic costs.  Like the entirety of our relationship with Mexico and points south.
  
• Trade costs.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lorr47

quote:

ORIGINAL: domiguy

Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me.  Whoopdeefuckin'dooo!, is it news that someone got killed because of the drug trade? or is Arizona supposedly off limits?  People end up face down in Chicago about every day and many of these killings are the results of fights over drug turf and trade.

Nothing newsworthy here....Legalize the shit.  End of story.

Are they finding pits containing 300 or more bodies in Chicago? 

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster

quote:

ORIGINAL: Honsoku

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

What is the best way to cut off their funding?

Legalize the product. It won't actually cut off the funding, but the price will crash along with the profits. The violence will dissipate as the extreme profit and illegal nature of the operation go away. It is our own "war on drugs" that feeds the cartels.

Exactly right.


Augustus Owsley Stanley III writes:
" In the effort to "control" drug use, the approach taken on an international scale has been to prohibit even the use and possession of many materials. This model is the "American" one. That this approach is a failure has been widely noted by many prominent and even conservative commentators. The use of substances which alter in various ways the conciousness of man, is an extremely ancient and established practice, in spite of the belief of those who feel their moral views are the ones which should be imposed on all humanity. The use of draconian legal laws as deterrents, to attempt to eliminate ("control") drug use has already led to the widespread development of a powerful and dangerous black market, and in fact, any further movement in this direction will have the following inevitable results:


1. The use and distribution of drugs of all kinds will increase in direct relation to the increase in penalties. The penalties represent the "degree of risk" to the supplier.

2. The price on the street will also increase, removing ever larger amounts of money from the legitimate economy.

3. The number of dealers on the street will increase, especially those targeting the most vulnerable of our society- in particular, children.

4. Dangerous infectious diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis will increase, perhaps to epidemic proportions. At the same time, many more users will die of overdoses and blood infections due to the unknown purity and concentration of the drugs as furnished.

5. Crimes will increase, especially property crimes like burglary and armed robbery.

6. The increased flow of money into the criminal element will increase the likelihood of police corruption to the point where it will become the norm.

7. All political systems will be placed under great corrupting influence as the elements profiting from the money-for--nothing drug trade use their funds to buy influence to maintain the level of prohibition.

8. Our systems of taxation, already stretched to the limit to provide services will be threatened with collapse in the attempt to imprison all the people who will be convicted and require incarceration.

9. The lure of "easy money" will entice many perfectly ordinary citizens to become criminal cultivators in order to make ends meet (interested persons are urged to examine the American Broadcast Company News Special "Pot of Gold", Peter Jennings, reporter, on marijuana cultivation in the USA. Aired on 13 March 1997. and available on video from the ABC).


10. The money paid for drugs is not based on the real value of the drugs themselves, but is based on the risk of delivery, which in turn is the result only of the law. This presents us with an economic crisis of enormous impact, wherein a person with no skills, experience or education can have an income (tax-exempt), greater than the highest paid individual in the entire industrial world. Such a situation destroys the mutually agreed upon basis of modern society, which is the assumption that a person is rewarded, or remunerated in direct relation to their contribution to the economic whole."
http://www.thebear.org/essays.html

It's been a couple years since I communicated with Bear. he should know about black markets. I used to communicate with Pickard, too.

It's Prohibition which creates the crime, not the pot.

quote:

WomenDontRule: Do you really want that many more people on the road,  operating machinery, or engineering things or working in transporation that are high, buzzed, and fucked up?  A person's "right" to do anything ends at the point where it negatively  tramples someone else's rights.  If you legalize it...human nature is going to be a hard thing to supress....

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Aquilifer,
 
I am well aware of the length of the border and the issues surrounding la frontera.  I live in California in an agricultural area and many members of my family have worked in the ag industry.  Socially and economically the entire region is unique and is a blending of several culures.  Right now this region is having serious problems.
 
The warfare between the Mexican government and the cartels is already affecting trade, travel and daily life for the people in this area.  Both for the Mexican and the Americans who travel back and forth on a daily and weekly basis
 
The likely response by the U.S. federal and state governments will be an increased police force and National Guard troops.

quote:

A few posters here have suggested legalizing drugs to take the money out of the drug trade but that still leaves the problem of kidnapping people for ransom.
 
Do you have any suggestions on how to address these problems?

quote:

Aquilifer:Legalizing possession of drugs might help.

But the unanswered question is where we draw the line and why.  I think those questions are liable to be answered in terms of the amount of collateral damage we are likely to encounter, and the amount most Americans believe we will encounter, if we do this.  Of course, real damage and perceived damage aren't likely to match up.  People's brains don't seem to be wired to think of security issues in a rational way.

Legalizing possession isn't going to work any miracles either. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

President Obama needs to put Troops along that Mexican border.
I think the drug cartels are "testing" his resolve.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aquilifer
Legalizing possession isn't going to work any miracles either.

I think we can fall back upon our own experience with the ill-fated Volstead Act (a.k.a "Prohibition") for clues to what'll happen.  Ending Prohibition didn't put the gangs out of business.  It put a very serious crimp on their activities, but they soon found new markets and expanded older ones which didn't involve bootlegging.

quote:

Red herring. Alcohol-impaired people are not allowed to legally drive. Employers don't permit EtOH-impaired people to operate machinery, engineer things, or whatever, except Corporate Execs get a pass. Probably why so many companies perform abysmally.
I'd much rather be on the road with someone who is stoned, than someone who is drunk.

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheUtopian

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

President Obama needs to put Troops along that Mexican border.
I think the drug cartels are "testing" his resolve.

It will take the threat of seizure or control of PEMEX by the cartels before any current or future administration sees fit to intervene in Mexico...

But on the other hand, if the cartels seize PEMEX and remain friendly with the American /British petroleum industry, I can see a budding and prosperous scenario for the cartels on the horizon. Very similar to when our government tried to buy-off the Taliban pre 9/11.

quote:

If the cartels become hostile and strike up a friendship with Hugo Chavez, well then all bets are off....and we're likely to see some obscure, under-cover informant come forward with information about the cartels trying to build a nuclear weapon...

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou

quote:

Red herring. Alcohol-impaired people are not allowed to legally drive. Employers don't permit EtOH-impaired people to operate machinery, engineer things, or whatever, except Corporate Execs get a pass. Probably why so many companies perform abysmally.
I'd much rather be on the road with someone who is stoned, than someone who is drunk.

I strongly support the legalization of marijuana.

quote:

It's beside the point that I am going to make, but I don't support legalizing harder substances like methamphetamines, cocaine, various opiates, and hallucinogens.  Like it or not, there is a problem with marijuana in relation to DUI laws and prohibitions on workplace intoxication.  Alcohol intoxication is easy to test for, marijuana is not.  A breath test for alcohol will determine if a person has enough alcohol in their system to be considered intoxicating.  You can't do that with marijuana.

quote:

Dear Alice,

How long does marijuana stay in the body?  

Dear Reader,

While marijuana itself does not actually stay in the body, some of the chemicals in the drug do. THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the substance in pot that's mainly responsible for people's high, may stay in the body forever — scientists aren't exactly sure. However, THC is only detectable for a certain period of time after using marijuana or being exposed to marijuana smoke.

Compared to other controlled substances, THC is able to stay in a person's system for a relatively long period of time because it is fat-soluble. Being fat-soluble allows it to be stored in fatty tissues of various organs. From here, THC is slowly released and metabolized. This metabolite of THC is then excreted and cleared from a person's system.

In testing to see if someone has recently used pot, there are two important substances to keep in mind: THC and 9-carboxy-THC. 9-carboxy-THC is a product of the body's metabolism of THC and, more importantly, it is detectable for a longer period of time than THC is detectable. This is the reason that drug tests, namely urine tests, look for 9-carboxy-THC.

Many of the following numbers are estimates. The actual amount of time that these substances are detectable in a person's body depends on several factors, including how much pot is used, how often a person uses it, and the rate of his/her metabolism of the substance.

Typical Periods of Time that Marijuana Use can be Detected‡

• Frequent Users*, Blood Tests for THC ---- 4 - 8 hours
• Frequent Users*, Blood Tests for 9-carboxy-THC ---- 2 or more weeks
• Frequent Users*, Urine Tests for 9-carboxy-THC ---- 2 weeks – 1 month†
• Infrequent Users**, Blood Tests for THC ---- 3 - 4 hours
• Infrequent Users**, Blood Tests for 9-carboxy-THC ---- 2 - 3 days
• Infrequent Users**, Urine Tests for 9-carboxy-THC ---- Up to 10 days

‡ Some private companies may use hair tests to detect possible marijuana use. Positive hair test results have been found to be unreliable.
* Frequent users are defined as people who use marijuana several times per week, if not more often
** Infrequent users are those who use marijuana seldom enough that THC and/or its metabolite are no longer detectable before their next use. In essence, these users do not use pot often enough to allow for the tested substances to build-up from one use to another.
† The detection period for 9-carboxy-THC in urine can be as long as 3 months in extremely heavy users.

quote:

When I read this, I recalled reading that blood testing was quite effective in detecting recent marijuana use.

So I checked, by doing a Google search on the strings "marijuana blood test".  And sure enough, there, on the very first link, was the data I was reaching for.