Another drugs massacre in a Mexican village: If our politicians would stop being stupid about drugs, many deaths could be avoided
Business as usual in the insane world of drugs, and drugs related crimes:
VILLA AHUMADA, Mexico — A massacre here two weeks ago has turned this once sleepy town into a ghostly emblem of the drug violence that has swept Mexico over the last year and a half, gutting local police forces, terrifying citizens and making it almost impossible for the authorities to assert themselves.
On the night of May 17, dozens of men with assault rifles rolled into town in several trucks and shot up the place. They killed the police chief, two officers and three civilians. Then they carried off about 10 people, witnesses said. Only one has been found, dead and wrapped in a carpet in Ciudad Juárez.
Indeed, nothing unusual about this: Just another bit of mayhem - most of which would never happen if all recreational drugs were legal. I’ve been talking about this subject matter, on and off, for years now and, as far as I can tell, nothing much has changed in the way most countries and lawmakers deal with the subject. It’s still conceived as a vote loser to be less than ‘tough’ on these issues.
I wonder if that is still true. It might have been the case for most of of the post world war two decades that the majority of people considered drugs and drugs users as evil - and even more to the point, as alien from them and the lives these regular voters were living. Nowadays, I’m not sure the majority of people in the Western world still feel that way. Drugs and drugs use have become more common. There’s nothing much exotic or alien about these things.
I think it’s mainly the politicians and some special interests groups who are this obsessed with seeing drugs as something you should wage war on. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people these days would say they wished their governments would just try to deal sensibly with these issues instead of talking in these impracticable and unworkable ‘crusade’ terms - if people were asked to give an opinion on these matters, which they are not, of course. When it comes to certain issues our governments are anything but democratic but automatically adopt a ‘Daddy knows best’ stance.
Which truly is a crying shame. So many people all around the world are enslaved, raped, tortured and killed, so that others, mostly Western folks, can snort a little coke over the weekend, or whenever they feel they need a little buzz, to relieve the endless boredom of being rich and well-fed, well-housed and overly secure.
Yes, full disclosure here: I don’t like drugs and I find especially recreational cocaine users despicable. They don’t give a damn about the misery their habit causes to millions of people all over the world. They just want to get high - never mind how many Mexican villages get wiped out in the process of bringing the coke to their suburban dealer. Despicable is probably too kind a word to describe these loathsome, self-indulgent fucks - but this is not about them.
This is about reality. Drugs are real and will be with us as long as there are people who can pay for them - forever, in other words. So, the only thing I would ask our politicians is to deal with facts instead of chimeras. What’s more, I think most people would prefer them to do this - but, as I’ve also often said, I don’t think that will happen in a hurry. The Don Quixotes of this world are too fond of their windmills, and too obsessed with image to ever want to face harsh realities.
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