Mexico is heading towards its most violent election ever, with 30 candidates murdered, 77 threatened

If you read this article you'll see that much of Mexico's government is controlled by criminal organizations and the cartels. Because of that, I doubt we will ever see any improvement regarding the amounts of drugs and humans being smuggled into this country. In fact, when the criminals and cartels start taking over the governments of northern Mexico, the smuggling of drugs and people will probably get worse. The smart move would be for us to get ahead of this now and strengthen our border to the max and put our border security first.

 

I’d go a step further and cut off all American tourism to Mexico until they get their act straightened up. Going to war with the Cartels is simply a matter of time and assisting the Mexican government once they’re inclined to get serious about it is much more preferable than us having to do it ourselves after it’s too late.

At the end of the day, their incompetence, corruption and apathy are facilitating our illegal migration crisis which carries with it a humanitarian crisis, drug crisis, and a national security issue we can’t even accurately quantify. We are in our rights to demand anything we want from them.

Unfortunately the ***** in the Democratic Party love 100k dead Americans every year, kidnapped American tourists, and millions of traumatized and abused migrants trekking through thousands of miles of dangerous territory that sees many of them dead.

 

It's hard to imagine that the cartels make much of their income from tourism. I think that punishes the wrong people.

 

I don’t think they do, my point was to incentivize their government to fight the cartel, and tourism is more aligned with government income I think than cartel. Hurt the government as leverage to go after the cartel. The alternative is we would have to do it ourselves and that should be a method of last resort

 

If the cartels are running the asylum then we have failed state right on our border just like the Israelis have.

 

Going to war with all cartels would require imo radical actions on both sides of the border. Why do so many Asian countries have incredibly Draconian penalties when it comes to drug abuse? I think they remember the opium wars and didnt see any alternative than executing their drug addicts.

If the US wants to go into all out war with the Mexican cartels pointing the finger at Mexico wont be enough. They must have laws against drug abuse, which will also declare war on their own citizens who use drugs. Not as harsh as China in the 19th century necessarily, maybe a bit more into giving the people a choice between rehab or drastic prison sentences, but with consequence and maybe second but no third chances. As long as these offenses are not adressed as a matter of national security, its nothing more but a populist demand that "Mexico has to clean out the cartels". These cartels are too powerful and too much for the Mexican state to handle and everyone knows it.

There need to be presidents on both sides to go into an all out war with the cartels (right now there neither the US nor Mexico have one), on both sides you need forces willing to lead that war even if its unpopular in some parts of their own population and both sides need to lable drug abuse, trafficking, any form of collaboration with the cartels as an act of treason.

As I doubt anyone would do that, I think the only realist option you have is to control the drug flow by making deals with the drug cartels which consists of more reasonable drug lords, make deals what your authorities will turn a blind eye to and what not and make sure that side wins the war.

Cutting down the tourism overall may not help in that way, as it is one alternative less for honest people to work. Cut if down by warnings etc. for the region of lunatics you wanna wipe from the map. Reward drug cartels which wanna make their money quietly which respects their own locals and the tourism as a source of income, cut it off with warnings etc. for regions which are ruled by people who just shakedown their own local populations, thus seeing tourists just as s source of quick income due to kidnappings etc.

As long as you dont lead a real all out war on drugs - and that will be unpopular - the best option you have is to control at least the drug trade if you cannot stop it.

 

Could backfire. Lower the power of the legit guys further so the cartel has even more relative power

 

Nah. Time to have open borders and legalized regulated drugs. That would decimate the cartels’ power.

 

They tried that in Oregon and now the voters are regretting their decision.

 

Not really though. You tax and over-regulate the hell out of something, especially when it is literally a weed, you still have black markets. Voters have no idea if policy is working or not anyway.

 

So you think open borders and legal drugs are the answer?

 

It would certainly neuter the cartels. As to whether it would be a net benefit overall, well, details would matter. Fighting drugs on the supply side doesn’t work, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight demand for it like we did with tobacco.

Open borders. I wouldn’t say completely uncontrolled, but if the person is not a known criminal and is here to work and start a new life, it’s fine. We just have to be careful about aligning incentives properly. No handouts that promote bad behavior.

 

this is what happens when elected leaders have absolute immunity

 

agree, Drug money funds gangs and terrorists, end the war on drugs

this video was made by pro-prohibitionists, but it admits the truth, their war is funding these bad people

 

Hi Steve...look....I'm not American so forgive the intrusion.....I realise this is very definitely an American issue but was also thinking of it as a market issue as well....all things being equal it seems that the Mexicans are merely responding to a US demand for narcotics which Mexico is responding to. Thus, it seems to me that the real problem is the demand side; the US requiring narcotics not Mexico et al fulfilling it. I'm not sure building walls will hinder the supply, maybe for a few hours or days or so but it will certainly not dent the underlying demand. Other than creating another revenue stream for the defence contractors I'm not sure what a wall achieves? I'm pretty sure the likes of Palmer Lucky et al are going to make a crap ton of money out of this and why not!! The guy and his team are clever lads so...if there's money on offer, sure go for it. I think his team will probably come up with a very good cost effective stop gap solution....the real issue though does not go away.....what do you propose to do about the demand side....what do you do about US and it's constant demand for cheaper more potent narcotics?? What do you propose to do about all the tourism to Kennsington Avenue for example?? In my limited perspective the issue is within America not Mexico. Maybe one should look to solving the underlying domestic issues which, if successful, may then start to mitigate your international issues?
Anyway...sorry I'm butting in....the only reason I mentioned this was because in the UK last weekend we had a situation in Cornwall where a number of addicts died from an "unidentified" but potent narcotic which in my view maybe....just maybe something being laced with Fentanyl..... which is one of the major exports of Mexico.

 

@Steve N - Hi Steve, just a further thought on this. In the summer of 2023 the UK had it's first death associated with the use of xylazine. Obviously the use of xylazine and the resulting deaths are commonplace in the US and unfortunately it was only a matter of time before it got here and into the wider continental European market. It's use in the UK is now increasing exponentially thus as demand increases so will it's supply, although thankfully to date deaths are still relatively uncommon. Regarding your thoughts on a wall though, we have something better...we have a sodding great big moat....the English Channel....the closest point from Continental Europe to England is about 20 miles. This is 20 miles of the most densely used shipping lanes in the world with the highest radar traffic management and naval (British and French navies) surveillance in the world, however, ultimately it means squat. I suppose wherever there is a demand there will always be a supply irrespective of obstacles.

 

Honestly, I think this is the answer. Cartels would be absolutely wrecked if that happened. What is going on right is the same phenomenon that we saw during the prohibition era in America. Budweiser isn't exactly known for assassinations today.

 

I think it is.

 

Sure..... Let's just let every poor unskilled person from south of the Texas border just come to the USA with nothing to offer but labor.

 

That seems like a pretty minor issue compared to the collapse of massive drug cartels influencing politics, human trafficking, violence, etc etc. Hell, if you fix that problem, there will likely be far less people even wanting to come north. Fixing the problems in their homeland will help fix the problems in ours. And the collapsing of cartels will also help destroy the massive drug problem here. Sure, there will always be some that abuse drugs, just like there are alcoholics. But there will be far less pressure coming from cartels and drug dealers to get people hooked, as the profits will have dried up.

In short, you can't just treat the symptom, which is what border control is doing. You have to cure the disease.

 

....what is the disease though? Is it the supply or the demand? The Cartels are merely quasi-corporate entities acting in a market place. They work like all other businesses on the basis of a supply procured to satisfy a demand; they conducting business like all other high worth businesses in the US they have production, they employ supply chains they outlets and they have structure and they lobby. Is the disease is the demand for stronger and stronger narcotics. Is the disease simply people of all ages, people of all classes, people of all backgrounds within the US that get caught in a downward cycle...what's cure? What's the disease.....

...the DEA stated...

 

exactly,

the abuse of drugs and alcohol is there legal or not, just one makes criminals of those that did not abuse