Fear, senseless violence, and shitty drugs

http://nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/narco-war-update

by DmitDav • 14 years ago

126 69 14 years ago

sixQuarks2• 14 years ago

The way to combat the Zetas is to join hands across Mexico in a non-violent protest and chant "Just Say No to Drugs". It worked in the 80s in the US.

logn2• 14 years ago

^Sarcasm noted. Seriously though, we know what needs to be done. Legalize marijuana and probably make cocaine available in a medical setting for people who are truly addicted, like methadone/heroine injections in Europe. But unfortunately the damage is probably already permanent just like the alcohol prohibition gave the mafia a start: there's no putting this cat back in the bag (thanks, reefer madness people).

jbkring2• 14 years ago

Agreed. If the US legalized the production and distribution of all drugs (a la Portugal http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/blog/time-to-end-the-w...), a good bit of the american money funding these folks could be taxed and redirected to schools and healthcare in the US. Unfortunately, there's a large swath of americans who would see that as another Obama step towards a communist apocalypse. So it would never get through the Republican House.

tehayj4• 14 years ago

Absolutely agree.

The problem with drugs has changed though in recent years. The new generation of addicts are doing mostly research chemicals or regular pills like painkillers and such.

So in a sense some of the biggest drug dealers in the future will be pharma companies. When you hear how severe something like oxycodone withdrawal is compared to heroin withdrawal you understand that our societies drug problems have not peaked yet.

pmr_• 14 years ago

While you can often get the medical methadone/heroine programs they are not the norm in Europe. And they always come with the risk of a user falling back to the black market should the need arise. The availability and quantity of drugs is usually heavily restricted and don't allow for any lapses in daily routine or emotional affection. As a result methadone is readily available on the streets. I don't think such programs are a cure-all, merely a first step.

In Europe it does not only depend on the country but also on the city, which programs are available to addicts. The same goes for possession of minor quantities. Rules are highly confusing and it is usually safest to go by: "If you don't know the unspoken rules, try not to break the written ones."

AJ0072• 14 years ago

My fear is that as the Mexican drug war begins to spread through the United States that we will end up with the opposite. Instead of Homeland Security at every airport, we will have it in every neighborhood.

The success of localized pushes to legalize marijuana is a good sign. The failure on the federal level is not. Sadly the legalization push has largely been rationalized as "marijuana isn't that bad for you, it even has medical value" ; that same argument doesn't work very well in the other categories.

Rather, the legalization story needs to be switched to one where criminalization causes increased usage and death to abusers along with irreconcilable and inexcusable damage to bystanders.

Everyone with a rational mind knows what alcohol prohibition did. We need to break down the barriers erected by decades of government financed propaganda to move forward.

sixQuarks2• 14 years ago

I agree with legalizing drugs, however, there's a big unknown: if you get rid of the main profit center of these huge drug gangs, what will they do to keep the money flowing? They're not just going to pack up their bags and leave. There may be major blow-back that we can't really predict. Possibly even more violence, if that could even be imagined. Certainly kidnappings would rise.

guylhem• 14 years ago

This is a great read, but it begs the question - why did 40 or so special forces agents defeated to the dark side?

Was it for money, because they felt unappreciated, because they saw too many bad things and just stopped caring (or were ordered to do said bad things and it broke them), because they didn't care in the first place and enrolled just to get the training?

The situation is certainly quite bad, but understanding why it got there in the first place could be interesting, if only to protect other countries from the same experience - ie a drug startup could consider setting shop in, say Canada, with a much larger and far less controlled border, lots of empty space and forest to run labs (etc) using the very same methods.

Reservations, crime and drug friendly cities like Winnipeg could offer them a great advantage - or if we talk about geography, sea access from Labrador to the European market could also be an advantage.

So the question is - why did it happen in Mexico?

NathanKP• 14 years ago

Because hemp and coca can not be grown effectively in Canada without expensive greenhouses because of the climate. Also there are already many drug plantations in Central America.

So that explains why Mexico instead of Canada. But I'm not sure what motivated those particular soldiers to go rogue.

bbaker• 14 years ago

True for harder drugs, yes, but not marijuana. Canada (and BC specifically) produces billions of dollars of marijuana per year. It's a fairly well known fact.

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

>expensive greenhouses

You might want to look into the margins on cocaine production. Either that or the person selling you your greenhouses is ripping you off.

kenjackson• 14 years ago

I'd suggest reading: http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2009/3t...

Mexico is a needed stop into the US. From that article, "Due to U.S. interdiction successes in the Caribbean during the 1990s, Mexico has now become the single most important way-station for cocaine and heroin produced in the Andes, and is itself a major producer of marijuana and methamphetamines. The permeability of the U.S.-Mexican border allows for easy transit into the United States, and Mexico’s share of the drug trade has grown steadily over the past 15 years."

IMO, whenever you have as much poverty as Mexico, but a very wealthy neighbor, this can be a possibility.

D9u• 14 years ago

Pure, unadulterated, bullshit. "El Pozolero" worked for Tijuana & Chapo, not the Zetas.

logn2• 14 years ago

Trolling much? "El Pozolero" is not even mentioned in this article.

ryanmolden• 14 years ago

Or perhaps he is referring to this:

"the Zetas would delight in kidnapping and torturing him for fun, videotaping the snuff, and finally dissolving the poor bastard’s carcass in an oil drum full of acid."

I believe it was "El Pozolero" who was the one notorious for the 'drum full of acid' routine.

jmd_• 14 years ago

Obviously, the drug problem is a serious matter, but there does seem to be something off about this article. Its style, what you mentioned, and the fact that he referred to the Zetas as "Las Zetas" twice.

rizzom5000• 14 years ago

The current situation in Mexico is a quintessential example of a direct side effect of prohibition. The US's War On Drugs has been a failure, completely and all the way across the board (well, except for those who profit from the industrio-prison complex).

It's interesting how little coverage the US media gives the situation in Mexico. Then again, the US media currently gives very little coverage to its own war(s).

dimitar• 14 years ago

Another economic explanation is that the US a country with an expensive currency with many poor people and other potential customers for your drugs. Even if your poor and your life sucks your few dollars can buy the passage of drugs from abroad. Maybe sometimes its too hard to resist.

European countries with where recreational drugs are still illegal are generally abuse less drugs because they have less income inequality. Even when you have only a few euros, you can afford to go to university and lead a pretty comfortable life.

This may all change with mass unemployment and poverty austerity will cause, although. I really hope this will not be a race to the bottom.

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

How much is "a few euros" exactly? Because you won't go anywhere without food and shelter, and last time I checked, the cheapest bread was E1.70 and a bus ticket E1.50, and it adds up pretty fast...

AJ0072• 14 years ago

Crystal meth and crack are one thing, but the consumption of cocaine and prescription medications is very wide spread among the upper working class -- lawyers, finance, sales, etc. These are the same people who pretty much run the US.

My friends that are middle and lower class don't do drugs, although they do drink a considerable amount of alcohol.

I went to high school in the city. It was common for kids to smoke weed after class and came to school drunk. As for the kids who went to school in the upper middle class town I grew up in, their problems included ODing on heroin. The kids that smoked weed might not have the most balanced careers, but that is a whole lot better than being dead because you ODed on heroin.

Of course that is all anecdotal. However, I think it is a major stretch to believe drug abuse has something to do with not making enough money.

The drug problem needs to be fixed first with ending prohibition. After that happens the vast resources being spent antagonizing a war can be redirected to figuring out how to fix the core problem -- people being more concerned about getting high than what the rest of their life is going to look like.

yummyfajitas3• 14 years ago

While income inequality is a popular trope to blame things on, I don't think it really applies here.

In the US, the poor live quite comfortably. Even people with income of zero have consumption of about $20k/year.

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ce/standard/2009/income.txt

For comparison, Hungary has a GDP per capita of $21k, the Czech Republic of $26k, France and the UK of $35k.

Further, inequality in the US is higher mainly because the rich earn more. That doesn't cause the life of the poor to suck, unless they get jealous or something.

rndmize• 14 years ago

"Unsurprising" is the word I would use. Darfur got minimal coverage at the time when mass killings were going on, and Mexico is an even worse story - not only do you have a country approaching a degree of civil war, but the US public is effectively funding the criminal side. This is not something that's likely to play well on CNN.

tehayj4• 14 years ago

What I think simply sucks is that the US brings democracy to countries if those countries want or not for whatever reasons but do not do anything about the civil war next door.

The next step in human evolution is to wake up and for people to at least try to see things as they are.

chisto• 14 years ago

I live in Monterrey , México, The city go on, but the people is full of fear, that fear that no one could take, neither the police or the military, we just live our lives avoiding conflictive zones and trying to handle it. Specially in this city the people have some guilty of part of it, we have a sense of "work if you want something" that idea come from our founders, but the lack of education, lack of tv content (here is very important), there is a extreme sense of religion in the zone that's other factor many of them don't try to understand why are in that way, just live their empty life's having beer and roast meat, watching soccer...

Is hard to tell how, but I think the problem is beyond the drugs is social, cultural and political, all of that combine did the big problem we have.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

I can imagine that the socio-economic issues around the cartels in Mexico are much like the issues with inner-city gangs in the US: They provide a feeling of "belonging" for groups of people who haven't felt that; and they provide a possibility of being lifted out of the poor masses. Of course, your life is on the line, but if one's quality of life is poor enough, that may not be much of a consideration.

I agree that, even if the drug factor completely disappeared, it is unlikely the problems would disappear. On the other hand, having huge amounts of drug money flowing through can only massively exacerbate the problem.

nowarninglabel2• 14 years ago

More (and sometimes better researched) news on the drug war is available at http://narconews.com

mariorz• 14 years ago

> "mostly I wanted to score some bragging rights with you Scarface-obsessed gringos"

I think that is one sincere line to keep in mind when reading this post. The part about municipal cops in Monterrey taking anyone caught with "non-zeta drugs" to "las zetas" (sic) for killing would stand out as pretty a ridiculous fabrication for most people there.

mcantelon• 14 years ago

One thing he doesn't mention with his "Zetas are the future" assertion is that this level of violence can be disruptive to overall national productivity and harm other business interests.

This is could be why the US gov has allegedly worked out deals with the Sinaloa (as Zeta presence in the US could be disruptive and needlessly violent people can be a nuisance to work with):

http://www.businessinsider.com/stratfor-the-us-works-with-ca...

And why the head of the Zetas was recently killed by the military:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/world/americas/mexico-zetas-ca...

And why a fairly complimentary piece about the Sinaloa's business practices appeared this summer in the New York Times (revealing they use age-old methods of achieving internal stability such as intermarriage between families of senior cartel members):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-dru...

carsongross• 14 years ago

But no worries: the CIA, etc. would never devolve into something like this.

We are, after all, America.

DrStalker• 14 years ago

They'll just outsource to the ATF.

ahi2• 14 years ago

This obviously isn't an accurate article. The writer occasionally writes for ExiledOnline, a formerly expatriate paper in Moscow. Exiled is in the Hunter S Thompson tradition of gonzo journalism. They are more interested in conveying the truth than being factual.

Volpe5• 14 years ago

> They are more interested in conveying the truth than being factual.

That is an interesting statement, I don't think I understand what you mean? Isn't conveying the truth being factual? Or is this an expression I am not familiar with?

ahi2• 14 years ago

Facts can obscure the truth, or if the right facts are chosen a completely false story can be told. The author is trying to convey the state of Mexican political economy, not compile a list of facts about Mexican political economy. That some details may be stretched or erroneous is inconsequential so long as the thesis remains strong. Nitpicking over who killed who and why is entirely beside the point.

chubbard2• 14 years ago

Mexico is pwned, send in the drones.

Fear, senseless violence, and shitty drugs

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