3/27/09

Drug War Criminals

Scaling back on the War on Drugs is akin to murder. American's who use illicit drugs are accomplices to murder. Their demand for narcotics empowers drug cartels in Central and South America. These cartels use local gangs of organized thugs to push their stuff across the border and into the US. This has resulted in a US-Mexico border that more resembles an orgy of guns, drugs, cash and violence than a border between two civilized countries. This orgy has spread into much of Mexico and is threatening to spill into the US.

Americans whine about the casualties caused by the Bush Wars. Liberals protest and pitchfork while calling for Bush's head, accusing him of war crimes. What about the millions of Americans who use drugs illegally, and fuel the cold, hard murder of at least 7,000 Mexicans in the last year alone? Aren't they acting at least as much if not more irresponsibly than President Bush and now President Obama? Aren't they guilty of "drug war" crimes? But yet we aren't willing to punish Americans for that. I guess Bush and Obama are safe.

Sure, I know the gangs and cartels are the ones actually pulling the trigger, throwing the grenade or wielding the knife. But every American that uses illicit drugs should be tried as an accomplice to murder. If I were to give a known murderer money to buy a gun after him telling me of his plans to kill someone else, I could certainly be tried as an accomplice to murder. The drug-using accomplice is a little more removed from the murder, but the principle remains the same.

In light of my accusations, it dumbfounds me that forward-thinking states like California and New York are looking to scale back on the War on Drugs. Until the US can come up with an efficient, effective and ubiquitous early drug use prevention program, along with equally matched rehab programs, states shouldn't be promoting drug use and murder by scaling back criminal sentences. That is a more sure death sentence to thousands of Mexican and American citizens than was the vote to go to war in 2003.

Most drug users aren't murderers. But their choices have certainly led to an astonishing number of innocent people's deaths. Now I know our prisons are overcrowded and underfunded. The solution? Let the Mexicans handle it. If we can't reform drug users and help them remunerate the society they so readily destroy, we should outsource or drug related prison sentences to Mexico. Extradite them all. I'm sure they'll figure out how to imprison and punish our accomplices-to-murder of thousands of their and our citizens on a budget we can afford. And that's just it.