Another reason to legalize dope(and other drugs)

[MadHound]

"Texas law enforcement officials say several Mexican drug cartels are luring youngsters as young as 11 to work in their smuggling operations.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told Reuters the drug gangs have a chilling name for the young Texans lured into their operations.

"They call them 'the expendables,'" he said.

McCraw said his investigators have evidence six Mexican drug gangs -- including the violent Zetas -- have "command and control centers" in Texas actively recruiting children for their operations, attracting them with what appears to be "easy money" for doing simple tasks."
<http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-cartels-recruiting-texas-children-173402030.html>

That's right, they're recruiting kids here in the US to work for them. As the Drug War spills over from Mexico into the US, more and more of our citizens are put at risk. When are we going to finally wake up as a nation and recognize that Prohibition, be it of alcohol, pot, or any other drug, simply doesn't work, and in fact makes the problems worse?

It is time to legalize and regulate pot and every other drug out there.

[polichick]

1. If we didn't have a FOR-PROFIT PRISON SYSTEM in many areas...

...there would be far less resistance to legalizing drugs.

We have a SICK SYSTEM!!!

[Scuba]

2. +1

[midnight]

4. True...

[MadHound]

5. It's not just the for profit prison system.

Several small but influential groups of people make big bucks off of the drug trade. Cops do, because of forfeiture laws and the graft associated with the drug trade. Lawyers, because the drug trade is one of their top money earners. Bail bondsmen, for the same reason. Various corporations like alcohol producers, because they remain the only legal drug. These and a few other similar groups wield a large amount of power and are able to keep drugs illegal. They do so because illegal drugs make them lots of money.

[polichick]

6. Exactly right - which makes our system even SICKER. The United States...

...should be ashamed.

[sofa king]

3. Is one of the control centers at TCU?

Sorry, that was a sorority joke, making me a double candidate for a Colombian necktie.

[Romulox]

7. Correction: the Drug Wars started in the US. They aren't "spilling" into here. nt

[MadHound]

8. I'm referring to the violence being fomented by the Mexican drug cartels.

That did start in Mexico, and has moved north of the border.

[Romulox]

9. Me too. Mexican violence is a direct result of US prohibition. WE are the customers for this stuff

[dtexdem]

10. The only dope that shouldn't be legalized is ...

your local GOP candidate. ;-)

[randome]

11. So legalize all drugs?

Not just pot but heroin, cocaine, everything else? That might make for an interesting societal experiment but I'm not sure I would want to live in it.

If it wasn't pot, the drug cartels would be smuggling something else in. They aren't in it for the drugs. They're in it for the easy money and when the money is easier somewhere else, that's where they will go.