Me personally, I find the EZLN fascinating. (if there is anything bad about them, let me know because I do not know much bad things about them)
They are one of the few movements that anarchists praise that I actually think are based, although the Zapatistas have told westerners to stop calling them anarchists, communists, or anything else.
They also fight against drug cartels and seem to have created one of the most stable territories in the Chiapas region.
However, they are too small to do anything big like overthrowing the Mexican government. They would be crushed quickly.
Give me your thoughts on the EZLN and/or, as the title suggests, any non-ML movements that you support.
It reduced consumptions and reduced hospital visits because who is going to admit to breaking the law? Fun fact, criminals usually don’t go to the hospital for injuries sustained from their crimes, or report their crimes to the authorities.
Further the major economic issues came after the prohibition. The Great Depression started in 1929 and prohibition started in 1919.
Also banning alcohol absolutely did not reduce crime. Alcohol sales increased by several thousand percent before prohibition was enacted as people stocked up. Moonshining was a massive career and pastime. The mafia was making a killing off of created, moving, and selling alcohol, speakeasies we’re extremely common and everywhere.
Also again; who would report their illegal drug usage to the authorities??? Of course consumption would “decrease”. And if the police does not hunt down or prosecute drug users, then of course the “crime rate would decrease”, in the example of China. Do you think Chinese police are scouring the lower levels of Shanghai and Nanking and doing massive drug sweeps every Tuesday?
Banning things has never, and will never be an effective solution. This has been shown time and time throughout history.
Banning this alone doesn’t solve them. But banning along with other changes can. The issue in the case of the police not being active enough is making them active. Having common drug checks, inspections, drug tests etc etc
Do you think that’s that easy? I’m so surprised that China hasn’t thought about that.
You have just described the US war on drugs positions. Do you know what that creates? You over police drug users and create a permanent underclass that is trapped by police action, criminality, and poverty.
Criminalizing will never have positive results. Remove the systemic barriers that create drug addicts and don’t throw the addicts in prison.
Your solution again is a magical and utopian solution that has no material basis for succeeding.
You are right. Thank you for your logical pragmatic responses, comrade.
The material reasons for people importing drugs to be traffickers isn’t always done because of poverty in the cases of large traffickers. The issue was the way the US handled stopping drugs. They didn’t do a good job. That doesn’t mean drugs can’t be stopped
I’m not talking about traffickers, I’m talking about users.
A large percentage of drugs in the US are domestically made or even homemade. Meth is incredible common in the Midwest due to how drop dead easy it is to make.
I meant we should take an absolute hardline stance against traffickers and handle users through having rehabilitation centers where they would be sent on a first offence
Trafficking will virtually disappear if the drugs they are trading are legalized and not criminalized. Would it not be better to undercut the drug market by having the state offer its own drugs to users? You would effectively starve out traffickers and producers, while making sure that dangerous substances are not being cut with drugs, which will reduce overdoses and death.
People will not magically stop using drugs if you throw them in a rehabilitation network many times. You have to make them want to be helped, and you have to remove the reason why they are using drugs in the first place. Do you think drug users are pushed to their circumstances by their material conditions, or are they pushed to use because they are destined to?
Removing third party influence, while advocating and pushing the people who are using to seek help are a much better solution. Would you rather a drug addict keep using needles filled with god knows what under a bridge where they then go and become a public danger and be homeless? Or would you rather an addict be given a clean dose in a medically supervised facility, while having their own apartment, and then incentivized to go clean with methadone treatment through some sort of benefit?
But yeah, you are right. I’m sorry if I seems combative but thanks for explaining it. Thinking about this about killing trafficking via this could definitely work along with a host of other actions taken
I’m fine with using methods beyond just rehabilitative centers to work and agree that what you said is an option (or a mix of it with other things) I think we need to strike a balance between helping those with addictions get clean and preventing new addictions from starting via increasing the quality of living, mental health care and stopping trafficking