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Thingish Things

The Killing Fields

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Apr• 10•11

Mass Grave in Mexico

If there has been a national conversation about radically suppressing marijuana usage in this country, I haven’t heard it. I followed the medicinal marijuana debates in the last election cycle, but I’m not aware of any concerted effort to urge Americans to “put down the pipe.”

That’s unfortunate, because every day we are seeing the effects of American pot smoking on our Mexican cousins — kidnappings, beheadings, and political assassinations.  Mass graves are now being uncovered, no different in effect from the ones we saw in the killing fields of Cambodia, just miles from the border.

This is all over drugs.  Drugs routes to America.  And although it includes cocaine, methamphetamines, and designer drugs like ecstasy, it mostly about old-fashioned cannabis sativa.

Some Americans won’t stop smoking pot for anything.  They are either addicts or too young to understand the peripheral consequences of their actions. But lots of Americans who are neither young nor addicts presumably still smoke the stuff.  Can’t they put it down for a while, or for godssake grow the stuff in their basements?

What American pot smokers are doing to Mexico is unconscionable. This needs to become a national issue – here in the U.S. Innocent victims buried in the Mexican desert deserve at least that.

 

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4 Comments

  1. Your Friend says:

    As always, your heart is in the right place on this, Billy. The killing in Mexico is a catastrophe. But, no mention of legalization? The U.S. government recently estimated that marijuana is a $35B cash crop in this country. That makes it the largest cash crop in the nation by a substantial margin. I’ve never heard a single good argument against legalization, perhaps you can buck that trend. As you know, I put the pipe down decades ago but I still firmly believe in legalization. When was the last time you heard of some guy getting high and beating his wife? Guys get drunk and beat their wives all the time. Most of those guys should get a pot prescription and chill the f*ck out. Then there’s the idea of jobs and taxes, both of which would be a net gain following legalization. Didn’t William F. Buckley support legalization? Can’t you pick up that banner? Isn’t it kind of a libertarian idea? Mexico could then start a legal industry and try to export to us, rather than killing each other over a black market that we refuse to make white. We learned little from porhibition.

    http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/marijuanacalifornias-largest-cash-crop/blog-61001/

  2. Billy says:

    My only problem with that is the slippery slope argument. I’m generally libertarian, but where does legalization end? What about cocaine? or prescription drugs? That, to me, is the danger zone, a la China circa 1900 with opium.

  3. Your Friend says:

    Cocaine use has been on the decline for decades because Big Pharma can make better designer drugs. I don’t have the same concerns about a slippery slope — legalize pot, nothing else. Big Phamra can’t improve on that gem of nature the way a good grower can. But they can improve just about any other manufactured drug that you can think of, and they will continue to do so. Americans love to buy drugs, that’s all there is too it. They spent almost $200B in 2010. That’s a lot of drugs. Now if you want a real slippery slope, how will you restrain drug sales and use when Americans can design and print drugs in the privacy of their own homes?

    http://www.explainingthefuture.com/3dprinting.html

  4. […] posted an item a couple of weeks back about drug violence in Mexico and the responsibility of pot-smoking Americans to do […]

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