More on the GOP invasion of Mexico

I'd love to lock them all up.

For you fans of obscure sci-fi, there was a novel called Venus on the Half Shell written by Philip Jose Farmer under the pseudonym Kilgore Trout. If that name sounds familiar to Kurt Vonnegut fans, Kilgore Trout was one of the fictional characters than ran through Vonnegut's novels and short stories. Jose Farmer laced the novel with numerous jokes and references to other sci-fi novels. In one segment of the novel, the hero and his robot heroine land on a planet where virtually everything you do is illegal. Eventually, all the population is imprisoned. Maybe we could just turn the U.S. into one big prison complex.

The state of Oregon decriminalized possession of small quantities of most recreational drugs, including meth, a few years ago with the "promise" that funds saved would be directed to mental health support. So far the results have been nothing short of disastrous. Police stopped responding to any reported drug activity and the promised mental health services have - predictably - failed to materialize. Add to that the pandemic and economic crises, on top of a lack of affordable housing, and we have tents, campers and RVs everywhere - including my own street. I'd love to lock them all up. And no, I'm not a Trumper, far far to the other side.

Imagine a country where people have reasonable access to affordable housing as an alternative to being sent to prison.

Prisons are very expensive to operate. In the USA, corporations bring in over $10 billion of revenue.

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/correctional-facilities-industry/#:~:text=Correctional%20Facilities%20in%20the%20US...

Motels are much less expensive to operate. Decent, basic housing where people take care of themselves even less so.

I’m not talking about building big, high rise social housing warehouses that concentrate disadvantaged people into dysfunctional dystopias. I’m talking about requiring developers to to “mix in” non-market-price housing into every development.

When I was growing up, communities had mixtures of family income levels. Now it seems that there are rich communities and poor communities. In rich communities, the substance use goes on behind closed doors with high priced liquors and sanitary drugs and “Betty Ford clinics”. In poor communities it is cheap booze and dirty needles and going to jail. And the poor get blamed.

I used to work in a correctional and later in a forensic psychiatric facility. Locking people up only enrols them in a “university of crime” where they become more educated into the ways of crime.

I beg to differ. Opioids are different. A total menace to society. Particularly Fentanyl. When one shipment can kill the whole population of a country you know we have big problems. Fentanyl can be substituted in many other drugs wreaking even greater havoc. I understand demand behavior drives the bus here, but these wicked substances threaten to wipe out innocent people as well. If you believe that we have special forces in Ukraine by the current administration don’t think for a minute it won’t happen south of the border during the next administration. The DEA could never succeed playing by the old rules especially when US citizens fueled the demand. But Cartels being designated as Terrorist Organizations could change the game by rewriting the rules.

So you want to continue the WAR ON DRUGS policy. The one that hasn't worked for the past 50 years. The only "menace to society" is the pseudo-puritan attitude whereby one group of elitists pretend to dictate what substances other people can use to relax by. Fentanyl wouldn't be killing so many people if it came in standardized doses and could be acquired in a setting similar to a pharmacy or even a liquor store. And the only thing that's been accomplished by locking up users and traffickers is the jail population increases and everyone learns how to be a better criminal while other users and traffickers take their places.

The only thing "wicked" about these substances is that Big Pharma and Big Alcohol want them banned because they eat into their profits.

The DEA shouldn't even exist, and I'm real sorry for what happened to Kiki Camarena, but he had no business even being in Mexico, much less trying to bust narcos here.

Start designating narcos as terrorists and I guarantee you they'll make sure there are lots more Kiki Camarenas. Is that what you want?

I beg to differ. Opioids are different. A total menace to society. Particularly Fentanyl. When one shipment can kill the whole population of a country you know we have big problems. Fentanyl can be substituted in many other drugs wreaking even greater havoc. I understand demand behavior drives the bus here, but these wicked substances threaten to wipe out innocent people as well. If you believe that we have special forces in Ukraine by the current administration don’t think for a minute it won’t happen south of the border during the next administration. The DEA could never succeed playing by the old rules especially when US citizens fueled the demand. But Cartels being designated as Terrorist Organizations could change the game by rewriting the rules.

You sound like you are just a couple Fox News segments away from "BLM activists are putting sentient fentanyl in your kids' Halloween candy!!!"

Fact #1: People need to deaden the pain of being alive.
Fact #2: Some people are going to do that with drugs.
Fact #3: Denying Facts #1 & #2 make Facts #1 & #2 worse.

While it might satisfy your moral indignation, bombing cartels would undoubtedly result in thousands, probably tens of thousands, of 'collateral damages'. I wonder if you would feel the same moral righteousness and satisfaction if the Mexican government bombed large sections of El Paso to stem the flow of illegal guns into the country?

You play pretty fast and loose with other people's lives.

I beg to differ. Opioids are different. A total menace to society. Particularly Fentanyl.

I wonder how many people recognize the irony of China exporting opioids to the West given the West’s imposition of opiates on China.

Western Imperial powers imported tons, yes tons, of opium into China. When the Chinese asked them to stop, opium being illegal in China, imperial powers used military force to impose opium importation.

By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550 t)), approximately equivalent to global production of opium for the decade surrounding the year 2000.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China

Read that again,

By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550 t)), approximately equivalent to global production of opium for the decade surrounding the year 2000.

In one year in the 1800s, imperial powers were pushing into China as much opium as was produced worldwide in 10 years in this century.

I’m no fan of fentanyl. On day on my morning walk I had the situation of saving a person’s life after fentanyl poisoning. It is not a surprise where I live to hear of everyday people carrying a freely dispensed naloxone kit for saving lives.

Thousands of people have been killed by fentanyl poisoning in my Canadian province where it is recognized as a health emergency.

The public face of the emergency in the early years was medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall.

“Prohibition and criminalization and stigma have not made life better for many people. They have not stopped people using drugs, they've just made the drugs a whole lot more dangerous,'' he said.

“I think until we can either come up with a mechanism of changing people's characters on a huge scale so they're not interested in using mind-altering substances — and I obviously don't think we're going to be able to do that — or else we create a regulated supply that is safer."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/overdose-statistics-anniversary-1.6810030