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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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There’s going to come a point where Mexico, and increasingly other parts of Latin and Central America, follow in El Salvador’s footsteps in terms of how they deal with the Narcos and gangs.
Is there though? The difference in Mexico is the sheer amount of power and money that the cartels possess. These aren't just gangs like MS-13. They are full on paramilitary organizations with billions of dollars in capital that stretches through just as many legal business interests as illegal ones, connections to the highest levels of government, and most importantly the kind of social control over the public consciousness that borders on collective psychosis due to the sheer degree of constant heinous violence.
I really wonder if we have gone past the point of no return with this issue where the only solution is open warfare with the cartels. I have spent A LOT of time thinking about this issue over the years working on the legal & illegal side of the trade. I know it seems insane, but I truly believe it may get to that point.
In my younger years I was 100% on-board with the legalization of all drugs. Now after seeing the the damage that was caused by the legal opioid crisis, and the even greater damage that is likely to be caused by the fentanyl scourge...I am not so sure. The greed motive from profiteering off human suffering is simply too great. Mix that with regulatory capture and legal government corruption in the form of lobbying and you have a truly terrifying recipe for disaster. I am just not sure what the solution is anymore, but the damage and the violence is getting worse. Something needs to change. Maybe that starts with popular uprisings as you said, but the kind of prolonged violence that will be necessary to accomplish that end is hard to imagine.
From the outside looking in it seems that open war is the only thing that would stop the cartels, the bigger question being even if you did fight that war what do you plug the power vacuum with?
That's the million dollar question, 'cause it's like cutting off one of Hydra's heads but there's still 8 left to fill the hole.
But I gotta give it to some of the local sheriffs, judges and farmers who put their lives on the line to do what no one else will. I hope they win in the end.
Yeah, I really don't have a sufficient answer for that question either....
One thing I do believe is that the only effective way to combat the really dangerous and addictive drugs (fentanyl & meth mostly) is to increase the social safety nets that give people a no questions asked way to exit that life. People hate this reality in the United States because as someone very wise once told me, "people don't like seeing other people get free shit", especially if they view those people as weak-willed criminals. The problem with that thinking is it is significantly more expensive economically to allow the cycle of abuse to continue rather than effectively subsidizing their way out of it as soon as possible.
The reason we have these problems on such a profound scale in the United States is precisely because of the fact that we live in a society that is overcome with closeted hopelessness. No access to universal healthcare, higher education, or a sense of community that doesn't revolve around either work or fundamentalist religion. I could go on for days about this issue, it's causes, and potential solutions. But ultimately what it boils down to is that it is the symptom of a profoundly sick society that for mutliple generations has prefered to sweep the problem under the rug, while simultaneously trying to punish its way out rather than dealing with the root causes. Until we are willing to try something new the cartels will only get stronger and more savvy, while the drugs get more sophisticated and addictive.