Mexico: the cartels take revenge
The deadly violence sparked by the military killing of an infamous cartel leader has now spread widely across Mexico, as American citizens near the border were warned to shelter in place.
At least 20 of Mexico’s 31 states have seen violent clashes in the wake of the death of the country’s most wanted man, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Cervantes — better known as “El Mencho” — died in custody Sunday, shortly after Mexican special forces captured him in Tapalpa, Jalisco state.
The notorious drug kingpin was seriously injured in a firefight between military commandos and his bodyguards and died from his injuries en route to Mexico City.
Cartel members responded to his death by declaring war on the Mexican government of socialist Claudia Sheinbaum, shutting down Jalisco’s state capital, Guadalajara — the country’s second-largest city — as they engaged in running gun battles with authorities.
Can we call that an insurrection? I think so.
Apparently, the US provided some intelligence to Mexico that helped the success of the operation.
The cartels are very powerful in Mexico, and well-armed with some weapons that are military-grade, such as rocket launchers.
Ace has a long piece on the subject, in which – among other things – he quotes this:
A Senator from Mexico went on Fox News and exposed it all
* The President of Mexico works for the Cartels
* She was funded by money from the cartels
* It’s not just the President, there are an entire group of Mexico politicians labeled the “arco politicians”
* Mexico is a “Narco state”
* Mexicans are afraid of the alliance between the Mexican government and the cartels
* The Morena (political party) is financed by the cartels, that’s how they get elected
* Once they get elected the deal is for the Mexican government to then protect the cartels
* The President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo doesn’t want this information getting out
* Mexicans and the Politicians who are no paid off by the cartels want Donald Trump to help with the cartelsThe Mexico Senator exposing all this says she is now being threatened with prison for speaking out “The President has threatened me to proceed against me with criminal prosecution to get me out of the Senate and get me in jail just because I told you in this space in Fox News”
Here’s the Mexican senator on Fox, about five months ago:
As the newscaster says, Sheinbaum sometimes seems to be working against the cartels and sometimes refuses to do so. There’s also this:
JUST IN: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she doesn’t want to use force against the cartels because it would violate their human rights.
“Returning to the war against the narco is not an option. First, because it is outside the framework of the law.”
But that’s actually not “just in.” In fact, Sheinbaum said that back in November. So, what’s going on now? I can’t say I know, but there’s this:
The political risks are particularly sensitive for Sheinbaum, whose leftist MORENA party’s rise to power in 2018 was in large part fueled by Mexicans’ anger over the drug war that has left tens of thousands of people dead or missing.
Her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, prioritized alleviating poverty and other root causes of violence through social programs, embracing a slogan of “hugs not bullets.” But critics say that his approach allowed crime groups like the CJNG to entrench their territorial holdings and expand into a dizzying array of industries, from the extortion of avocado producers to complex fuel smuggling schemes.
While Sheinbaum has mostly followed Lopez Obrador’s political map, with the killing of El Mencho she has definitively broken from her predecessor’s security policy, said Jeronimo Mohar, CEO of Aleph, a risk analytics company. …
Still, on Monday, Trump again heaped pressure on Sheinbaum, writing in a social media post: “Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs!”
Sheinbaum may have succumbed to US pressure on Cervantes, thinking it could be limited to that and it would get Trump off her back. But now she faces a big decision on how much more cooperation to offer.
You don’t want to be Hugo’s sister, Shirley Sheinbaum.
Mexico’s Cartels are a National Security Threat to the US. Their alliance with Mexico’s ruling leftist MORENA party compounds that threat. delenda est cártel!
Considering the likely penetration into the government, how did this op stay secret?
i wonder if this is just a cartel, or other state actors who have operated in that region, you have to look at this through the prism of the Sao Pablo Forum, and their liberation theology/ direct action matrix, currently events are South of the Border, but as we have seen in South Asia, and the Levant borders are an often ignored
its interesting than another cervantes (no relation to my handle) who was the defense minister, was discovered having enabled sinaloa that was the prime cartel player under two administrations, he had been caught by the trump administration, but lopez obrador took offense, so he was sent back similar to the counterpart to
barry mccaffrey, this was noted in sodeberghs traffic
this echoes pena nieto, the PRI prince had captured Guzman Loera, of course that was the opening of Pandora’s box in many ways, the iglala fiasco,
the sinecures paid to his wife, the former soap opera star, and a host of other kerfluffles,
There seems to be serious question on who will win, the narcos or the Mexican military.
there are some parallels with our recent expedition, points east, where the security forces and the insurgents were fighting
the last kingpin that was iced, was amado carrillo cifuentes, he died on the surgical table, but a few years before was Pablo Escobar,
I could suggest something similar has happened to Canada, Europe, and to a lesser extent, the US – the “criminals” have taken over (are they criminals if they pass laws legalizing their actions?)
Should we go in and “save” Mexico? Do the people of Mexico want that?
Would we “win” if we did? And if we did so, do we want to deal with the consequences? (possibly absorbing the northern states into the US)
It is remarkable how willing the left is to allow open borders, which resulted in the cartels having operational control of the border. And of course increasing their operations north of the border.
As cartels increase their operations north of the border they will become much, much harder to eradicate. With Trump they no longer have the open border, but that will change if Democrats win.
I wonder if US border control and deportations are having an effect on cartel income.
Andrew Branca expands on this today–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGkimASGq6U
Apparently the elements of the Mexican military that acted against the cartel did not seek permission from the G nor advise any higher-ups of what was being planned… apparently for good reason. Be prepared for he MSM to refer to these military groups as “rogue”.
The cartels in Mexico have an annual revenue of somewhere between $20 and $50 billion. Fundamentally this money is coming from Americans.
Transporting the drugs into the US is the obvious part of the problem, but how the money gets back to Mexico and onward into the countries supplying drugs to Mexico is something I see talked about much less often. Likely because large financial institutions such as HSBC have been involved.
I don’t think we can expect Mexico to be cleaned up until we clean things up on our side of the border. It’s the demand from Americans for these drugs that has brought the cartels into existence. There’s no sellers without buyers.
Plenty of us have pointed out how dumb and wrong it is for Europe to buy oil and gas from Russia and at the same time want to try oppose them in Ukraine. How much dumber and wronger is it for Americans to keep buying drugs from the cartels while trying to oppose them in Mexico?
Decriminalization of drugs, starting with marijuana but not ending there (thank you Soros and the demented doper libertarians) facilitates brain damage and demand for more drugs. Que bono? Cartels but also more quasi legal progressives/leftist Democrats. Not an accident that Shirley Sheinbaum is a leftist. Open borders and no voter ID, Que Bono?, leftist Democrats.
Well Niketas it’s going to at least take decades to “clean up” our side of the border. It may never happen but something has to happen. Several people I know when I worked for Indiana DOC tells me that drug counseling is successful, at best, 25% of the time. I don’t think cleaning up our side of the border is going to work. Get to them before they get hooked? There is so much involved in preventing drug abuse…what about rebuilding the family? That means the culture has to be family friendly again. I’m old and I think we are too far down this road to change the society. I hope I’m wrong.
@Richard Cook:Well Niketas it’s going to at least take decades to “clean up” our side of the border.
Reasonable, since it took decades to get as bad as it is.
I don’t think cleaning up our side of the border is going to work.
Then nothing is going to work. A demand worth $10 – $50 billion annually is going to be filled by somebody. But something we’ve been doing over the last 20-30 years has made things much worse. I don’t know exactly what it is but it’s probably not just one thing.
Demand can go down as well as up. I’m not sure what’s driving this one either, but probably not just one thing.
Niketas
Just listening to young people I get the impression that:
They think there is no future for them
Building the American Dream is not possible due to cost and the unpredictability of employment
Men being the enemy
The culture is not family friendly
There really is no societal contract
The goal of employers is to get rid of humans
Siccinctly they don’t see the value in giving a f**k
Your last post rings ominously too true, Richard.
FOFA
Unfortunately…..
Crime is a phenomenon derived from predatory impulses. You defeat those impulses by deterring, punishing, and incapacitating those who harbor them. Social programs have their uses, but they do not attack human predation.
==
As for Latin America, it would benefit from a social mobilization to combat crime (of which organized crime is a subset). Anything done by the United States Government would be incidental.
Flooding the country with drugs and illegal aliens was Win-Win for the Democrats.
(Just ask President Fentanyl. Oh, wait…)
Which means the cartels were/are/will be(?) very, very useful…for some.
And…for a bit more of that Anti-Fascist/No-Kings/Bilk-Back-Better corruption north of the Rio Grande….
“The DNC Covered Up Its 2024 Election Autopsy, And Now We Know Why”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dnc-covered-its-2024-election-autopsy-and-now-we-know-why
THIS supports my Team Trump meta theme: the fight is against Dems, but corruption at all levels within the US. And internationally, like Mexico among the narco states in LatAm, and wh9 are subject to China’s goodies and national veto.
People here–and all over, really–are ignoring a factor in the drug-market problem: There are very large numbers of people in this country who do, in fact, NEED pain medications; accordingly, a non-trivial part of the problem is that government (ahem) has embedded itself in controlling the medical practice and the doctors who carry it out. David Manney, one of the regular PJMedia columnists (and whom I recommend highly), discusses this matter from time to time; here is an example of his valuable work:
https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2026/02/18/dependence-is-not-addiction-chronic-pain-patients-deserve-better-n4949645
One of the things this information suggests is that an elemental problem with which we are faced–and about which Donald Trump is doing exactly the opposite–is relentless expansion of governmental power and its over-arching magnitude.
Correction on my own post, immediately above: I did not mean to suggest that Donald Trump is NOT expanding governmental power; on the contrary, he is expanding that very power quite seriously and relentlessly. The difference between his said expansions and the ones we under which we have been living for decades, now, is their political belief system–NOT their magnitude. He is intending to dismantle the Left by expanding the Right, under his own control.
Then nothing is going to work.
==
Latin American governments are capable of building prisons, hiring police officers, deploying police officers, setting up court systems, and incorporating inspectorates to check their work. They are also capable of building their armed services. You have a severely disorderly situation, send in your militia and have them shoot anything that moves.
==
They don’t do these things for all the reasons governments do not do salutary things. It would be helpful to them if coke users in Los Angeles were sent to prison as a matter of course. It would be helpful up here. Improving the level of public order in Latin American countries (which varies wildly from one place to another and one time period to another) isn’t going to require we take any action.
om,
The logic behind the decriminalization of drugs was threefold: 1. Many of the people using the drugs are not breaking other laws and are no threat to anyone but themselves and their families; 2. If you wished, you could tax legal recreational drugs out the wazoo, whatever a wazoo is; and 3. Ultimately, government cannot protect people from themselves. When it tries to do so is when the true infringements on liberty come in (see, eg, Michael Bloomberg trying to ban soft drinks and potato chips). The more it tries, the greater the infringements (see, eg, trying to buy Sudafed). At some point, you have to trust the people to make decisions that are best for themselves. If they don’t, that’s on them. If they use drugs, the best you can do is make sure they don’t hurt anyone else.
What options does that leave for the drug war? Education so people don’t start using drugs and making treatment available for those who do. Seal the border. Try to put the fear of God into the cartels. How? By doing what the Mexican army just did to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel’s leadership. (And, seriously, what the hell kind of name is “Jalisco New Generation Cartel”? Is it to differentiate themselves from the “Jalisco Old Generation Cartel”? Is it marketing? “Jalisco. The choice of a new generation.”)
The cartels are not stupid. They are trying to lay low until a more malleable (ie Democrat) POTUS is in office. They have diversified their income to get through this time. And watch what the Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been doing. They have been murdering law enforcement and military, but relatively few civilians. They have been torching cars everywhere to block streets, but usually they have been careful to force the occupants out first and then get them a safe distance away. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is fighting a PR war as well. They are violent and powerful but traditionally not as brutal to civilians as the Sinaloa Cartel.
Another Mike,
Branca’s story would explain a lot, including why the Mexican military was not prepared for the response. Scheinbaum can’t talk about this publicly because it would make her look weak.
However, this opens up another possibility. Why did this unit of the Mexican army strike independently? Mexican law enforcement has long been riddled with cartel agents; the Mexican army less so, but it does have them. Is this Mexican military unit in the pay of someone besides the Mexican government? Did this unit strike to advance the interests of another cartel? Or was it someone else …?
Put bluntly, Branca’s story combined with the acknowledgement that US intel was used makes me wonder if we (as in the US) have part of the Mexican military on our payroll. And that part is what attacked the Jalisco New Generation Cartel without telling Scheinbaum. We publicly give Scheinbaum all the credit for the raid. She can’t challenge it. Ingenious, if true.
@Betsybounds:There are very large numbers of people in this country who do, in fact, NEED pain medications…
I read your link and it’s a bunch of sad anecdotes. Missing is any estimate of what percentage of drug cartel revenue is actually coming from sad people who just need pain medication and can’t get it prescribed to them. I’m guessing it’s zero point something percent.
That law-abiding people can’t get a drug they need prescribed to them is a real problem, but this is not where and how the cartels are getting the vast majority of their money. Part of the reason these rules went into place was to stop crooked MDs from running pill mills. Those docs are not getting their pills from the cartels, they’re getting them through normal channels and billing insurance companies or Medicare or Medicaid for them.
The logic behind the decriminalization of drugs was threefold: 1. Many of the people using the drugs are not breaking other laws and are no threat to anyone but themselves and their families; 2. If you wished, you could tax legal recreational drugs out the wazoo, whatever a wazoo is; and 3. Ultimately, government cannot protect people from themselves.
==
Those were the talking points. There are flaws in all of them. You can look at the west coast from Vancouver to L.A. and see how these ‘insights’ have worked out for everyone.
It sucks to be the family member of a drug addict, for a libertarian can’t bother, not his problem.
It sucks to be a libertarian who imagines that a drug dealer/supplier will voluntarily pay any, much less more, taxes on whatever he is selling.
It sucks to be a libertarian who thinks that a drug dealer/supplier has any scruples about the health effects of his “products” on the buyer. Except maybe that the product is not immediately deadly or not sufficiently addictive to the buyer.
It sucks to be a libertarian who thinks that the dealer/supplier has any concern that their product may be bought by people of limited (children) or impaired mental capacity.
The cartels are for all intents and purposes a heavily armed, “rebellious” army with thousands of members, and who have infiltrated into the entire Mexican govt. apparatus including the military.
They will kill anybody – and their family members – who dares move against them.
I would not be surprised if Sheinbaum has been told that if she moves against the cartels, they kill her parents, siblings, children, etc.
The ONLY solution is to do what El Salvador’s president , Nayib Bukele did, though I can’t figure out how he did not wind up murdered.
Sheinbaum (if she is serious about the cartels (but who knows?) should consult with Bukele.
If you notice that the trigger pullers are Mexican Marines, that should tell you all you need to know. This has been a problem for centuries, now it’s on steroids and beating on the door.
What are the career prospects for the Mexican troops involved? ICE-free immigration and the witness protection program?
Sennacherib on February 24, 2026 at 10:53 am said:
If you notice that the trigger pullers are Mexican Marines, that should tell you all you need to know. This has been a problem for centuries, now it’s on steroids and beating on the door.
The Marines have been used in a lot of key moves against the cartels because they are less compromised than other Mexican security branches.
Jeff Cox,
CA legalize MJ, but then taxed legal sources out the wazoo (and regulated the hell out of them). The result was that legal sources can’t compete and illegal cartel grows dominate. It seems CA doesn’t prosecute the illegal grows in a manner that has any real effect.
Basically CA is at the anarcho tyranny stage of government.
Don:
And of course those meddling government minions impose restrictions regarding the chemistry of the drugs being legally sold and taxed. How much THC it can contain IIRC. How oppressive and draconian of them !*11
— Don
Not just the Left. Not by a thousand meters just the Left.
The reason we’ve struggled literally for decades to put a stop to things like open borders immigration, ‘free trade’, the relentless march of the 60s anti-human social agenda, etc. is precisely that it’s supported and approved (though not always openly) by both the elite Left and the elite Right. So no matter who the electorate voted for, they got variations on what they hate.
The GOP would not actively advance the Lefty social agenda while in office, most of the time, but they rarely or never did anything to undo any of it, either. Instead they would focus on their economic agenda, which the electorate more or less hates. That would get them voted out, and the Democrats would immediately pick up where they left off, since the GOP had not reversed anything.
Back and forth, the GOP and Dems fought to be the one in charge of the common club, but the overall agenda just kept rolling forward, from the 70s to 2016, with brief partial reversals under Reagan and (to a lesser degree) Bush II.
That’s why the Left vs. Right paradigm really doesn’t entirely work anymore. It’s more aristocrat/oligarch vs. commoner.
— Richard Cook
They have some reason to feel that way. Employers do long to dismiss all their employees. Labor is a huge cost.
Likewise, the elite classes have long since stopped regarding themselves as having any obligations to the commoners. Libertarians often can’t even conceptualize a non-individual involuntary obligation without breaking their own worldview.
Likewise, for decades elite society, the entertainment industry, and the ‘theraputic’ industry has pushed a vision of male-female relations that simply is not compatible with the biological and spiritual realities of real, flesh-and-blood people. We’ve trained young people to expect things of the opposite sex (on both sides) that the opposite sex usually will not, and often simply cannot fulfill.
So, anger and resentment follows naturally.
— Jeff Cox
Of course, all three premises are false.
1. The people using the drugs harm their families, and themselves, and thus harm everyone, since that harm does not and cannot stay contained to those people. The larger harm from specific instances may dilute quickly, but multiplied by millions of users, it becomes hugely significant. To say nothing of the harm the money flow into criminal enterprises does.
Which leads to
2. Yeah, in theory legalization of drugs can choke off the illegal crime, and you can tax the crap out of it at the same time. That theory works if you are a complete economic and social naif. It doesn’t work in reality because if you tax the crap out of the stuff, the illegal supply becomes cheaper in comparison. The criminals don’t have to undercut the legal supplier by very much, and the infrastructure to do so is already in place. So if you want to cut off the money flow to the crooks, you have to refrain from taxing the drugs very much so people will buy the legal stuff. So, in practice, no new big flow of money.
3. Government absolutely can protect people from each other, though, at least in some ways, and in fact that is the reason it has to exist in the first place. Drug use does not simply and only affect the individual user.
Plus of course the entirely predictable (though many libertarians were surprised by it when it happened) effect that legalization increases use. Whether we like it or hate it, having something be made legal carries a social imprint of acceptance and approval, and there is a swath of people who will start using who did not when it was illegal because it was illegal.
I’ve by now seen many libertarians who supported the drug legalization in Oregon, and/or the legalization of marijuana, admitting that they just never foresaw it causing people who didn’t use it to start using, or the other social negatives that followed on. Some of them have admitted that they were wrong to support it.
I’m happy to see that awareness on their part, but honestly, how naive can an adult human being be?
(Obviously the answer is ‘very naive’. I’ll admit to some pretty naive beliefs myself when I was younger.)
Libertarian often (not always, but often) is another word for naif.
There was a time when drugs were not criminalized at all in this country. They were gradually criminalized over a period of about 50 years, starting in San Francisco in 1875, in response to growing social problems associated with drugs. Opiate use in this country peaked before 1900, well before the Harrison Act, and has never returned to that level.
We have cartels and narcoterrorism now because something is different that is not just about criminalization or decriminalization. I don’t have the answers.
There was a time when drugs were not criminalized at all in this country.
==
You were dependent on yourself, your family, and what used to be called ‘indoor relief’. The society as a whole was considerably closer to subsistence.
That’s why the Left vs. Right paradigm really doesn’t entirely work anymore. It’s more aristocrat/oligarch vs. commoner.
What I’m seeing now is a left that’s batshit insane.
That’s not saying Republicans are great, they tend to be weak losers. But the left is insane and should be near the reins of power anytime soon.
om,
MJ isn’t something I much care about, but what happened in CA is a clear case of the government pushing the grows to cartels. Legalization didn’t work out the way it was claimed.
There is a way they could legalize it without allowing the cartels to take it over. They didn’t do that, and as far as I know are not looking at changing things to make it work out different.
Even cigarettes and alcohol draw organized crime, if the taxes are too high.
And the cartels are even into avocados, which aren’t punitively taxed or regulated as far as I know.
So how are cartels making money on produce? Slavery of farm workers? Avoidance of even minimal food safety or inspection requirements? Avoidance of taxes on land or theft of property for the farms?
I doubt they make their profits in a legit fashion.
Regarding marijuana, how does a society go to “Idiocracy” in just a few generations?
— Don
No doubt. The problem is not just that the GOP are ‘weak losers’. The problem is that a great many of the high-level GOP officials privately agree with the Dems on most stuff, and see the rest of the batshit insanity is no big deal. They see Trump as the problem, not the Dems, because the Dems will privately go along with most of the corporate agenda.
They’ve learned from painful experience to be careful about saying it, but it’s there.
Just a few days ago, Governor Mike DeWine of Ohio (RINO-business interests) said that he hoped after the 2026 election that Trump would see his way to open borders and amnesty. He didn’t use those words, but that’s what he meant.
McConnell orchestrated 30 meaningless show votes to defund Obamacare. When the chance came to actually do it, he ran and hid.
Etc.
@HC68:The problem is that a great many of the high-level GOP officials privately agree with the Dems on most stuff
I think that’s a bit too strong. “Willing to make concessions provided that the GOP gets to direct tax money to its friends” is more accurate. On immigration and failure to repeal Obamacare the GOP has a lot of complicity, sure, but not on say trans issues. As long as they get to keep their hands in our pockets, letting the Dems have their way on stuff doesn’t bother them, but they don’t exactly agree, necessarily.
Om at 9:44 am:
Sigh… Thank you. I totally agree. Libertarianism is a shallow, selfish delusional belief system.
…
Jeff Cox earlier — on why the initial concept of legalization was marketed as ok:
“1. Many of the people using the drugs are not breaking other laws and are no threat to anyone but themselves and their families; … ”
…
That “and their families” part is a huge, non-trivial, destructive reality. With sooo many negative consequences that don’t stay “in the family”. And the children matter, no matter what.
And note: many homeless campers are often a product of legalizing drugs.
Plus, super common: we in the community suffer more crime, as many addicts commit other crimes for money to buy drugs.
Om at 9:44 am:
Sigh… Thank you. I totally agree. Libertarianism is a shallow, selfish delusional belief system.
…
Jeff Cox earlier — on why the initial concept of legalization was marketed as ok:
“1. Many of the people using the drugs are not breaking other laws and are no threat to anyone but themselves and their families; … ”
…
That “and their families” part is a huge, non-trivial, destructive reality. With sooo many negative consequences that don’t stay “in the family”. And the children matter, no matter what.
And note: many homeless campers are often a product of legalizing drugs.
Plus, also non-trivial: We in the community absolutely suffer more crime, as many addicts commit other crimes for money to buy drugs.
Marlene:
Correction, at least it seems regarding Fentanyl; the dealers/suppliers seem to be insensitive about the immediate lethality of their product.
Libertarians beware.
I hate when my comments get repeat-posted. I’m not sure how that happens.
Om,on lethality of fentanyl: dealers/suppliers don’t much care.
Yes, so true!
Some cities have begun charging such dealers with murder.
But Austin — or its county, Travis — just let a dealer/murderer guy off, reducing the crime to a minor misdeanor. Not even jail time!!
Soros smiled.
Cartels have diversified more since Trump closed the borders.
Yes, eg: avocados, as Niketas wrote. (I wish they had to label it as cartel produce,… Heh.)
Other diversification I know …but my memory fails, right now.
I think what I’d read about was related to frauding our gov programs, Minneapolis-style stuff.
Like infestations, they will not be removed easily. There are many ways to get money, here.
I do wonder if Mexico avocados should be avoided now. Dang!
How are they making money on that crop?
Sloppy & thus dangerous farming methods, as someone alluded?
Or taking over the farms by force? Ie, stealing farms?
I guess they have control of the avocado fields, part of their diversity strategy
I think the retreat from long term opiate treatment, as mandated by regulations and other facilitations like the legal legerdemain that eric holder pushed when he worked for covington and burling
we know the eetas came from mexican special forces, so there is a promotional track,
the president of Mexico seems to have made herself scarce,
spanish tv doesn’t seem to associate their promotions of the corridos including some dedicated to el mencho himself, with the chaos we see on the screens
@Marlene:How are they making money on that crop?
The article I linked above has a very terse description, a more detailed one is here.
Tl; dr version it’s mostly extortion at every step of the value chain from the establishment of a farm to packing and shipping the crops north, a little bit like VAT. “Nice avocado farm you got here, pity if anything happened to it. Hate to see your trucks get stolen or your workers beaten up.”
There’s lots more, there’s been stories on this as far as back as 2018.
Forget the drug cartels, now I’m worried about the avocado cartels. Holy guacamole!
Marlene and om,
“That “and their families” part is a huge, non-trivial, destructive reality. With sooo many negative consequences that don’t stay “in the family”. And the children matter, no matter what.”
“[A]nd their families” suffer as the result of any bad decision they make. Alcoholism badly affects drinkers and their families. Should we ban alcoholic beverages, too? (I vaguely remember that we tried that at some point. How’d that work out, anyway?) Overeating badly affects eaters and their families. Should we ban food, too? Overspending badly affects shoppers and their families. Should we ban shopping, too?
Like I said, at some point you have to trust people to make decisions for themselves and their families. You obviously don’t. Your “And the children matter, no matter what” comment is very revealing. You’d have Child Protective Services coming in every week.
“And note: many homeless campers are often a product of legalizing drugs.”
And many are not.
“Plus, also non-trivial: We in the community absolutely suffer more crime, as many addicts commit other crimes for money to buy drugs.”
Those other crimes are already crimes. Law enforcement just doesn’t pay attention to most of those crimes like burglary and auto theft. Spend more effort investigating and prosecuting such crimes than we do now. Give them much tougher penalties than we do now. Create a certainty of punishment. Those crimes will go down.
Using drug possession as a proxy for other crimes is dishonest and, in the end, ineffective. I have known a lot of people who use marijuana on a regular basis. Not one of them has burglarized a house, stolen a car, or mugged someone. You would make criminals of these people who have never harmed anyone else.
People have been using mind-altering substances since before history. The Egyptian priestesses of Isis (the goddess, not the Islamist group). The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Gallic and Celtic warriors fighting the Romans. You’re not going to stop it. You can educate people, you can target for foreign suppliers. You can treat the addiction. That’s about it.
Sorry to take so long to respond. I must have forgotten about this thread after waiting so long in line at the pharmacy because I needed to buy Sudafed. What was it I saying about when government tries to protect people from themselves is when the real infringements on liberty occur … ?
om,
“It sucks to be the family member of a drug addict, for a libertarian can’t bother, not his problem.”
That’s right. It’s not my problem. Everyone has their own problems to deal with. I don’t want government jumping to “solve” every one of them. It would make taxes go through the roof, and the loss of liberty and privacy would be unacceptable.
And you seem waaaaaaaaaay too interested in the lives of others.
“It sucks to be a libertarian who imagines that a drug dealer/supplier will voluntarily pay any, much less more, taxes on whatever he is selling.”
You do realize that there are recreational drug stores in existence now? Right now. As in, I’ve seen them firsthand. Licensed, tax-paying, and everything. Not the kind of places I would shop, but whatever floats your boat. Doesn’t affect me. Except when I go to football games and have to inhale the smoke from the guys who sit in front of me smoking doobies. Not fun.
“It sucks to be a libertarian who thinks that a drug dealer/supplier has any scruples about the health effects of his “products” on the buyer. Except maybe that the product is not immediately deadly or not sufficiently addictive to the buyer.”
You must be horrified by gambling. Because everything you just said applies to gambling. I bet you want to ban that, too. Wouldn’t affect me; gambling’s not my thing. But I fail to see how banning an activity the vast majority can do safely just because a tiny minority can’t handle it makes sense.
“It sucks to be a libertarian who thinks that the dealer/supplier has any concern that their product may be bought by people of limited (children) or impaired mental capacity.”
Though they often use children as lookouts, smart dealers prefer to deal with neither as customers. Because neither is discrete and could expose their operation. Additionally, children can die from using these drugs. Their deaths attract unwanted attention to the dealers and their suppliers. These dealers don’t last long. One way or another, such dealings are brought to a stop relatively quickly.
Don,
Exactly!
Marlrene,
Austin so many square miles surrounded by reality!
Marlene,
I was born and grew up in Austin.
HC68,
“Of course, all three premises are false.”
Not at all. Quite the contrary, actually.
1. The people using the drugs harm their families, and themselves, and thus harm everyone, since that harm does not and cannot stay contained to those people. The larger harm from specific instances may dilute quickly, but multiplied by millions of users, it becomes hugely significant. To say nothing of the harm the money flow into criminal enterprises does.”
Actually, the harm to users and their families does usually stay limited to users and their families. Which is not good, no doubt. But, as I told Marlene and om earlier, what applies to recreational drugs can be applied to alcoholism, gambling, and other supposed vices. Should we ban those, too? Lots of things can have negative effects on families, especially if taken to extremes. You can’t ban all of them. At some point, you must trust people to make the best decisions they can for themselves and their families. Because your “cure” for the times when they don’t is worse than the disease. There are people who actually want to make Sudafed prescription only. Seriously. They are happy to horribly inconvenience the hundreds of millions who need and use Sudafed and further burden our healthcare system because of the relative few who abuse it.
As for money flowing into criminal organizations from the purchase of drugs, I sure hope you don’t like avocados. Because if you buy avocados, some of that money might be going to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. (I can’t get over that name.)
2. Yeah, in theory legalization of drugs can choke off the illegal crime, and you can tax the crap out of it at the same time. That theory works if you are a complete economic and social naif. It doesn’t work in reality because if you tax the crap out of the stuff, the illegal supply becomes cheaper in comparison. The criminals don’t have to undercut the legal supplier by very much, and the infrastructure to do so is already in place. So if you want to cut off the money flow to the crooks, you have to refrain from taxing the drugs very much so people will buy the legal stuff. So, in practice, no new big flow of money.
Which is why liquor stores have been such failures, right? Because you can get liquor much more cheaply on the streets. The alcohol might blind you, but it’s cheap.
It’s called the “excise police”. Look into it. They specialize in policing liquor stores, restaurants that serve alcohol, beer distributors, casinos, bingo games, etc. There’s no point in licensing such outlets if operating without those licenses is not shut down.
So we already have the infrastructure for enforcement and are using it for enforcement.
“3. Government absolutely can protect people from each other, though, at least in some ways, and in fact that is the reason it has to exist in the first place. Drug use does not simply and only affect the individual user.”
No, it can affect their families, too, as I have seen firsthand. But lots of things can negatively affect families, too – alcoholism, gambling, overeating, overshopping, smoking. You want to ban all of those, too?
“Plus of course the entirely predictable (though many libertarians were surprised by it when it happened) effect that legalization increases use. Whether we like it or hate it, having something be made legal carries a social imprint of acceptance and approval, and there is a swath of people who will start using who did not when it was illegal because it was illegal.”
Right. And everybody knows that adultery is legal, therefore it must be ok, right? And everybody knows that abortion is legal, therefore …
Some people understand the idea that just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s right. And just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s wrong (see, eg, speeding). And some people dont.
“I’ve by now seen many libertarians who supported the drug legalization in Oregon, and/or the legalization of marijuana, admitting that they just never foresaw it causing people who didn’t use it to start using, or the other social negatives that followed on. Some of them have admitted that they were wrong to support it.”
And how much did they pursue enforcement of the law against illegal dealers on the back end (as opposed to legal dealers)? Oregon isn’t exactly known for its strong law enforcement. Quite the opposite. As I understand it, downtown Portland has been practically destroyed by the refusal to police Antifa and BLM. Plus, Salem and Multnomah County (Portland) have long been among the most corrupt places in the country. For example, the entire deal with the disappearance of the Martin family in 1958 was covered up by state and local officials because where their car was pushed into the Columbia River near The Dalles was right across the river from a brothel in which these state and local officials had a financial interest, and neither they nor the organized crime boss who ran it wanted to call attention to it. The car was found only last year. By a private investigator.
Given a record like that, I’d rather see evidence from a jurisdiction with more vigorous and less corrupt law enforcement than Oregon.
“I’m happy to see that awareness on their part, but honestly, how naive can an adult human being be?
“(Obviously the answer is ‘very naive’. I’ll admit to some pretty naive beliefs myself when I was younger.)”
Almost half the voters in 2024 voted for Kamala Harris. Zohran Mamdani won Mayor of New York City. Abigail Spannberger won Governor of Virginia.
“Libertarian often (not always, but often) is another word for naif.”
I’m no libertarian. Not everyone who supports drug legalization is a libertarian. As a victim of multiple property crimes of the types often committed by druggies, I’m ruthless on crime. I want a sealed border, trade tariffs, and a defense and foreign policy that acts in America’s interests, not those of some post-national cabal. But I also recognize patterns. And I’ve seen the prohibition on recreational drugs go places it was never supposed to go (see, eg, Sudafed, OxyContin). And I’ve seen how government efforts to protect people from themselves are always overbroad and a needless intrusion on and burden to innocent people.
Sophistry from Jeff, again. Gambling, adultery, child labor, murder, prostitution, prohibition, all brought in to support illicit “recreational” drugs.
Sucks to be so desperate a libertoonian.
om,
Reading comprehension is not your strong suit, huh?
Jeff:
Jeffy, earlier you said that innocent people weren’t your problem. You do know what the words “always” and “innocent” mean?
Typical libertoonian sophistry.
Jeff Cox,
“It’s called the “excise police”. Look into it. They specialize in policing liquor stores, restaurants that serve alcohol, beer distributors, casinos, bingo games, etc. There’s no point in licensing such outlets if operating without those licenses is not shut down.
So we already have the infrastructure for enforcement and are using it for enforcement.”
Yes, the alcohol industry has better oversight and policing than the younger cannabis industry.
Maybe because pot is more “fun” & has a false reputation of less impact than alcohol, people act like getting street pot is safer.
The stores are required to test & limit the amount of THC in their products, aren’t they? Unlike black market sales.
So it’s not like alcohol, which has had quite a settled and trusted system for decades.
I think another big difference is the skill & equipment needed to grow & sell pot, vs alcohol. I could grow pot, if I wanted. Sellable alcohol would be much harder.
Your belief that the harm is mostly contained in the family is so naive.
If the impacted all lived as hermits,
… But we don’t.
I don’t understand why some adults assert that, because “vices” such as alcohol & gambling are legal, then any other recreational, psyche-affecting thing should be, too.
An “anything goes” policy is dystopian at best, and gives power hungry people even more control over society.
Compare it to public schools. Meant to dumb down & indoctrinate developing brains for a purpose.
Recalling Mr. Sailer referred to libertarianism as ‘applied autism’.
om,
Like I said earlier, reading comprehension is not your strong suit, is it?
Art Deco,
I might be a conduct libertarian, but nothing more.
Marlene,
“ So it’s not like alcohol, which has had quite a settled and trusted system for decades.
I think another big difference is the skill & equipment needed to grow & sell pot, vs alcohol. I could grow pot, if I wanted. Sellable alcohol would be much harder.”
Really? Beer has been brewed for at least 5,000 years. That’s just its relatively recorded history. Archaeology indicates that beer may have been brewed for at least 13,000 years. I know more than a few people who brew their own beer. Not a big step up to selling it, except for the government permits.
“ Your belief that the harm is mostly contained in the family is so naive.
If the impacted all lived as hermits,
… But we don’t.”
No, I don’t. But the other harm committed outside themselves and their families is already criminalized and can be addressed by criminal law. Further restrictions are counterproductive because they will always be overbroad.
Let me put it in terms you might be able to understand:
There are a LOT of people out here like me who deeply resent the inconveniences imposed on us and hoops we must jump through simply to buy Sudafed to treat colds, all because some people use Sudafed to make meth. Making meth is already illegal. Selling meth is already illegal. Using meth is already illegal. But that’s not enough. No, we have to wait for the pharmacy to open, stand in line, show ID, sign for it, all just to treat a cold. And some prosecutors want even more restrictions. They want to make Sudafed prescription only.
Absolutely not. Even the current restrictions are simply wrong. Morally wrong. We never asked for it. We never agreed to it. You’ve negatively impacted hundreds of millions of innocent people simply to stop a few that you could already stop with existing laws. All to stop a product whose harm can be largely contained, with what escapes that containment addressed by current laws.
It’s never enough with you people. The only difference between you and the leftist social justice warriors is whose ox is being gored.
@Jeff Cox:It’s never enough with you people. The only difference between you and the leftist social justice warriors is whose ox is being gored.
“There oughta be a law” cuts across party lines, certainly. But the distinction between baby and bathwater is worth observing, and so is the parable of Chesterton’s Gate. Some laws exist because sad experience has shown their necessity; the damage done by some freedoms is more miserable than the loss of those freedoms.
There was complete drug legalization in this country at one time. The people of that time, after living the consequences, rejected it and began to impose laws. Those laws begat other problems true, but there’s only ever trade-offs and choices of evils.
Niketas Choniantes,
It was called “Prohibition”. Remind me how that worked out for us.
It was called “Prohibition”. Remind me how that worked out for us.
==
Alcohol related deaths declined by half.
Jeffy is outraged that his Sudafed, which at best makes his head cold symptoms a bit more tolerable is restricted because dealers/suppliers of meth use it for their manifest evil.
Quite revealing, it is, after all his BS, about inconvience to Jeffy. Bow down to Jeffy, Lord over all.
Jeffy, libertoonian narcisist
supreme.
@Jeff Cox:Niketas Choniantes,
It was called “Prohibition”. Remind me how that worked out for us.
Opiates were legal and and unrestricted before 1875. Remind me how that worked out for us. Historical experience cuts both ways.
It’s never enough with you people. The only difference between you and the leftist social justice warriors is whose ox is being gored.
==
I’ll speak for myself Spicoli. I’d like to see the segments of the Penal Law of New York dealing with the drug trade consist of a few ancillary offenses (e.g. sale of prescriptions) and a catch-all offense “provision of street drugs” which lists the proscribed substances and standard quanta of each . Each substance would have three standard quanta – possessed, sold, or possessed with intent to sell. This would allow you to calculate the ‘units’ of ‘street drugs’ in the subject’s cache. The sentence would be a function of those units and would approach asymptotically a twenty year maximum. The only substantive elaboration on the drug laws I’ve ever favored was the occasional addition of an item to the list of proscribed substances as there have been innovations over the years. (MDMA did not exist when I was in high school).
==
State and federal regulation of pharmacies and prescription authority involves a separate set of issues and should be handled by agencies other than specialized bureaux within the police forces.
Off of Burnett Rd
Absolutely not. Even the current restrictions are simply wrong. Morally wrong. We never asked for it. We never agreed to it.
==
Which ‘we’ to what? Laws proscribing possession and sale of various stupefacients have been in the U.S. Code since 1914 and could be found in state codes prior to that. Where is this groundswell in favor of repeal that state legislators are ignoring?
I do find the restrictions on Sudafed to be annoying. I buy it in combination with guaifenesin (Mucinex D or equivalent). It’s fairly expensive when we both get colds. Surely this is not a cost-effective way to get enough Sudafed to make meth, and I have no idea how to do it anyhow.
I also find the restrictive packaging and product display methods that retailers have imposed on a common items to reduce theft and to stay in business to be inconvenient and annoying.
People should be free to steal, eh, Jeffy?
Mucinex-type OTCs seem to work for me for the infrequent colds that get me. After decades I have given up on Sudafed.
After becoming licensed as a food-handler (for church functions) I’ve become consistent about hand washing and attribute hand hygiene to very few colds/flu in the last 20 years.
Your results may vary.
If I get a really bad cold, I need the Sudafed. If it’s minor, the guaifenesin-only version will do. I wash hands, and I use saline nasal irrigation. Both help a lot. But every once in a while a hum-dinger virus sneaks by the defenses.
Popcorn anyone?