Economist Prescribes Solution to Drug Violence in Mexico

Read here.

To sum up, the Economist's three-step solution (oversimplified, of course, but this is a summary):

1. Stepping up properly targeted aid to police reforms in Mexico

2. Ban on assault weapons (Though they admit this one's unlikely)

3. Drug (particularly pot) legalization

I broadly support it, but I'd like to hear discussion.

EDIT: Figured I'd make an additional comment about point 1 for those who don't go through the article. The US is currently giving aid to Mexico for police reforms, but the Economist is arguing that the aid is the wrong kind. It's largely paramilitary-type aid, like Colombia would use, instead of aid for retraining police, intelligence-gathering, etc. So I'm going to add the phrase "properly targeted" to point 1.

edited 17th Oct '10 8:47:19 PM by Clevomon

I've certainly heard worse proposals.

For who? Is the US supposed to be doing this?

Yeah. I probably shoulda mentioned that, shouldn't I have? ^^

I laugh at the assault ban and oppose it entirely until I can see the actual proposed legislation and judge whether or not it's worth more than use as toilet paper. I'm okay with legalization of pot. I don't care about Mexican police officers but I haven't looked into the problem of whether or not the US is offering the proper kind of aid.

Sounds fairly reasonable to me. Also, why do you guys dislike the ban on assault weapons? That seems like they should just ban all weapons in the first place regardless of whether there was a drug problem. I don't know the Mexican constitution very well but unless they have the American-style clause for guns, why should civilians be allowed to have such powerful weapons?

The article mentioned that the US should be the one to ban assault weapons.

Well, yeah, because most of the weapons used by those cartels are assault weapons bought in the US.

You know, it's the weirdest thing. The criminal syndicates in Australia still have plenty of guns even though they're illegal.

It's like career criminals don't care about it being illegal or anything.

Put simply, what the hell sort of idiot economist goes "Well, banning the sale of drugs is a waste of the government's effort, but exactly the same sort of thing with arbitrarily defined guns is an awesome idea"?

Oh wait, I know the answer to that: a normative one.

See, this is why I rail against normative economics. It is so good at rotting people's brains that it can make people forget things they learned in your introductory classes. Such as that guns and drugs are both tradeable commodities subject to the same principles of economics.

edited 18th Oct '10 4:00:01 AM by TibetanFox

Tibetan Fox,

First, if it had been a particular economist, I would have named him. I meant the British publication.

Second, of course it wouldn't get rid of assault weapons going to those cartels completely. Don't think I've forgotten that for a second. But it would make it more difficult for them to get to the cartels. They'll still get some, sure, but not the number they're getting right now. Besides that, civilians in the US have just about no use for them, so there's no point to selling them except to criminals. One of those is never going to be necessary for self-defense for a typical citizen - a handgun or shotgun will do just fine. Just like we don't let civilians buy grenade launchers and tanks, why on earth should people have a masquerade of legitimacy when buying assault weapons?

edited 18th Oct '10 4:19:27 AM by Clevomon

Thats odd, because here in the UK whilst there is a lot of knife crime our ban on pistols and the like seems to have done okay.

I thought this was a thread about Mexican drug violence, not gun control. Keep it on topic.

For my part, I assert that there is absolutely no way to stem drug cartel violence in the long term that does not involve reducing demand as a first necessary step. U.S. consumption is the primary cause and motivator of drug violence. If we don't stop our junkies from shooting up, we can't stop criminals from selling drugs to them.

Legalization is a necessary first step to this. All other methods we've tried have failed.

The article mentioned that the US should be the one to ban assault weapons.

Two words: Second Amendment.

Some more words: Heller vs District of Columbia.

Even more words: Mc Donald vs Chicago

Supreme Court precedent and the Constitution itself forbids such an idea.

Likewise criminals don't care about things like that. Ever heard of the black market?

By the way, legalization of pot alone won't have much affect. As another Economist article mentioned, California pot is estimated to be like 2% of the cartels profits.

Of course, it can't hurt.

Fighteer, the article suggested a gun ban in the US. I think it's them having a bug up their ass about weapons.

It's worth discussing in the context of stopping drugs, but you'll notice that you just set off Major Tom, which won't end well.

Anyway, the solution to violence is to stop the causes of the violence. Banning weapons patently will not work. It never works; the criminals just find ways to get them anyway.

'K. Tom, don't make this about guns.

I think legalization might help. It depends on whether or not the weed is still grown in Mexico since they've got all the stuff ready to go and less labor laws than the US which won't see too much growth. Some third world country might start growing it en mass though.

^ Why not? It's one of the three points raised per the topic.

Making it legal to produce, distribute, and sell eliminates the need for criminals to provide those channels. Legitimate businessmen don't need to kill each other in the streets.

Now, the cartels already wield so much power that unrooting them even with legalization will be quite a chore. But cutting them off from their source of income is the first necessary step.

^ Because, Tom, you have a very good track record of derailing threads that concern your narrowly libertarian, social conservative mindset. We'd greatly appreciate it if you didn't treat these things like you're reading off of a list of neocon talking points. It insults our intelligence.

edited 18th Oct '10 7:42:43 AM by Fighteer

How about legalising pretty much everything but like meth.

Seems that would be fairly good at undercutting their profits. And have the lovely side effect of clearing up various other issues both at home and abroad.

At the risk of being an annoyance, the reason why everyone laughs at “assault” weapons bans is because real military weapons have been basically illegal since 1934. The old National Firearms Act covers things like heavy machineguns, grenades, mortars, and other stuff that's actually used by soldiers. In contrast, newer laws are written by people who don't understand guns, so they mostly end up covering unimportant æsthetic features like “tactical grips” and “barrel shrouds.”

Although I personally am in favor of legalization, just for the sake of argument, I point you to a counter-argument to this on the Colbert Report: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/361085/october-05-2010/gang-busters---john-burnett

To quote:

"Well, yes, that's a very popular notion, and there's a lot of parlor talk about if you legalize marijuana in the US, what would happen to the cartels, for which marijuana is their main cash crop. ...I think that presumes that some of these gangsters are going to, because they're not making as much money on marijuana, are going to go open taquerias or something. Remember, in 1933, when they repealed Prohibition in the United States, the gangsters didn't go open a bunch of hot dog stands. They moved to gambling, to labor racketeering, and into narcotics, and so I think you should keep that in mind when you try to think of simple solutions like that."

Well legalisation is only a single prong of the methods to attack the problem at hand. I misread the article and thought the assault weapon ban was for Mexico rather than USA. If it's about illegal weapons entering Mexico, the problem is border control rather than asking America for some magical weapons ban.

Legalisation of the drugs eliminates some of their profit base. They'll move onto other crimes but that does not mean that it is still harder for them to do their dirty work. If they have less methods of raising cash, police can be less corrupt and more trustworthy in taking down criminal empires.

I don't think the concept is to eliminate crime entirely as it is likely impossible but rather to reduce the level of violence to something more reasonable.

My issue with suggesting that the solution to fixing Mexico's drug violence is changes in US law is that it, once more, enables Mexico's blaming all its problems on its big northern neighbor. Mexico is very prone to doing that — sometimes with justification, but often with no good justification whatsoever.

Eh, at the same time, for all sorts of reasons, the two countries do have a lot of impact on each other, and the US doesn't always tend to take as much responsibility for the results of its actions as it should. I don't mind blame if there's a sound reason for it.