Unfortunately, yes. Massive U.S. interdiction in Colombia brought about the demise of the Colombia's Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s, which destroyed their stranglehold on narco-trafficking and allowed the Mexican cartels to arise and take their place. The crime center moved north.
Originally Posted by I B Hankering
That does not back up your contention. But the main question is , "Do you want a granny state?" A state telling you what is and isn't good for you? You have not read the Columbian model...they made paece with their exporters. All we have done in this country is spent billions playing wacjk a mole!
http://www.csdp.org/news/news/colombia.htm
18 Percent Increase Over Past 5 Years in Andean Coca Production, $4 Billion Wasted
The United States has poured billions of dollars over the last 20 years into South America towards cocaine eradication, all while Bolivia has seen a significant rise in cocaine production. In South America, coca is viewed as a central crop to many farming families survival. According to The Washington Post September 3, 2008 article,(
"Despite U.S. Aid, Coca Cultivation on Rise in Andes") "Across the Andean region, the size of the coca crop has increased 18 percent in the past five years, a period during which the United States has spent $4 billion on anti-drug programs. With farmers turning to pesticides and modern irrigation to improve crop yields, the amount of cocaine produced in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- source countries for nearly all of the global supply -- hovers at 1,100 tons a year, according to a recent U.N. report."
The article states, "Here in the lush Yungas region of western Bolivia, farmers are allowed by law to plant a total of nearly 30,000 acres of coca--leaf that is then sold in the domestic market for tea or to be chewed to ward off hunger. But production here far exceeds that threshold, and much of the surplus feeds a cocaine trade thriving in part on the new regional demand of a rising Latin American middle class. The Andean cocaine supply now exceeds the amount produced in the 1990s, when U.S. policymakers pushed anti-drug aid to the region to counter powerful Colombian cartels. In 1993, when a U.S.-supported police unit shot dead the drug lord Pablo Escobar in his home town of Medellin, the Andes produced 200 fewer tons of cocaine than it did last year."
The article adds, "So far this decade, the United States has invested nearly $8 billion in the drug war, funding manual eradication efforts in Bolivia and neighboring Peru and an aerial herbicide-spraying program in Colombia that has covered more than 2.5 million acres since 2000. In Colombia, where the United States has spent the most, coca cultivation rose 27 percent from 2006 to 2007, to about 245,000 acres. That accounts for more than 50 percent of all coca production in the region. Coca plantings in Bolivia and Peru also increased by about 5 percent each. Taken together, the United Nations reported a 16 percent increase in Andean coca production in 2007."
It's not a scare tactic, it's a reality. Many users do turn to crime to support their habit. Innocent bystanders are unnecessarily killed in drug related crimes because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Originally Posted by I B Hankering
I’ll concede too many Americans are predisposed to surrender themselves to a drug habit based as it is, upon a human craving no laws can eradicate, but I’ll never excuse the drug abusers weakness (alcohol etc.,) and the misery abusers visit on others. Legalizing drugs in no way mitigates the negative impact of recreational drug use on society.
Originally Posted by I B Hankering
You have fought and lost the war for the last forty years.
Do like they do with alcohol. Legalize it and deal with it in a rational way.
You sound like some pansy liberal trying to change people's personal habits with laws.
My God , outlaw idleness why you are at it.
These laws are just another form of government control.
Originally Posted by I B Hankering