- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- worldnews@lemmit.online
The mayor of a Mexican city plagued by drug violence has been murdered less than a week after taking office.
Alejandro Arcos was found dead on Sunday in Chilpancingo, a city of around 280,000 people in the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been mayor for six days.
Evelyn Salgado, the state governor, said the city was in mourning over a murder that “fills us with indignation”. His death came three days after the city government’s new secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot dead.
Authorities have not released details of the investigation, or suspects. However, Guerrero is one of the worst-affected states for drug violence and drug cartels have murdered dozens of politicians across the country.
So, I don’t disagree, but we legalized weed in the civilized parts of the country and it had little effect, I’m not sure I want to legalize cocaine, it’s much better at killing people.
Portugal set the standard years ago. Legalize it and divert all the money that would go to incarceration to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation for drug addiction.
Minor clarification -Technically it was decriminalized, not legalized. Distribution will send you to jail and, after 2 or more possession offenses, you’re forced into a treatment program.
And sadly, things have started to get worse again in Portugal. Lately they’ve been sending fewer people to treatment, and surprise surprise, usage and deaths have gone up.
I believe Switzerland was the first country to establish centers where drug addicts would receive a controlled dosage for “free.” Of course paid for by taxes. The Suisse found out crime decreased, the parks were cleaner and emergency rooms saw fewer overdose patients. Basically a win across the board.
That happens when much of citizenry can be characterized as “rich blokes who will take coke at some point with no shadow of doubt”. When everyone involved knows that, including the voters, it’s an easy decision.
However, in many other countries the general population mostly forms their opinion on drugs, weapons and even political freedoms based on fear of what will happen.
They don’t look at all this critically, thus don’t understand that the worst things happening because of the current state of things they don’t know anything about, because information is not and will never be as available as their thought process requires.
That involves said current state of things funding things like cartels, criminal groups in governments involved in drug trade (it’s much more profitable when you ban all the competition), creating a vector of control over addicted people. These all have ugly consequences - violence abroad, strong (and rich) mafia groups in governments.
The correct thought process would be comparing abstract mechanisms. In abstract no consumable substance should be illegal, provided the buyer knows its contents and effects.
BTW, in abstract the right policy about weapons ownership would be opt out, not opt in, - mandatory mental examination of every adult citizen, but also mandatory weapons ownership for those who pass it! Perhaps except felons. With other exceptions being a process involving some justification being filed - as in pacifist views, religious reasons, bad atmosphere in family thus inability to keep it secure, something like that. It’s not about “good guy with a gun”, it’s about distributing real power. People who should own weapons are not the same people who want to own weapons generally. Thus mandatory.
I think legalizing weed didn’t make that much of a difference because the whole claim that buying random weed from a random dealer put money in cartel or terrorist pockets was a lie.
Not that there weren’t any large weed organizations, they just weren’t murdering people at the scale the cartels are or doing it to fund violence.
They’d also rely a lot on temporary workers since trimming was really the only labour intensive step, and then it would be sent out into a distribution network that wasn’t so much an organization as it was a collection of independent or small scale distributors. Which in some locations might have been gangs, but I’d guess was mostly normal people looking to make some extra money.
We don’t need to legalize. If we decriminalized, then took the money for jailing and funded mandatory treatment, we could do what Portugal did in the early 00’s.
I’m actually fine with decriminalizing consumption so long as distribution (real distribution, not piddly shit) stays illegal, at least without proper licensing, etc.
I’m not thrilled about it but I’m open so long as cocaine and heroin aren’t fully legalized.
I am sure. Legalize all of it. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, use half of the new income for prevention and education, one quarter for medical support for addicts and the rest fills the coffers. You take away the power from the criminal gangs, while at the same time increasing your tax revenue, adding new legal avenues of business and minimizing the health impact considerably.
Still waiting for legal grass.
Assuming you’re in the US:
It’s called THCa and is the same weed you’ve been smoking your whole life. You can get ounces to your door in the mail 100% legally thanks to a poorly written Farm Bill.
The farm bill only states a certain % of THC is illegal. Well, THC isn’t on the plants in large quantities - that only exists once you heat the cannabis to isomerize it from THCa to THC. It’s not delta 8 or some weird synthetic cannabinoid, weed has always been THCa before it’s heated.
There are dispensaries all over Texas these days selling great weed with this loophole. Texas, of all places.
Good to know. I moved out over a year ago. Going back EOM for a family visit. Hate landing anywhere dry, so I’ll probably check these out.
California announced they’ll be opening cannabis cafes
Come do some smoking tourism in BC!
As I said, the civilized parts of the country.