Brigitte García, 27, is the latest politician to be killed amid ongoing gang violence.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/04gzp
“ García focused on improving the quality of drinking water, installing sewers, and boosting local tourism through beaches.[5][6][7] She also indicated that she planned to develop agriculture and the fishing industry in the region.” (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_García )
This is so tragic. She was young and focussing on positive change by the sound of it. A very troubled country but that’s drugs for you.
The US needs to legalize all drugs and regulate them. Stop funding drug cartels! Literally!
This gave me the mental image of the USA doing an easter egg hunt, and every egg they open they go, “damnit, another drug cartel!”
Drugs being illegal is literally the only reason cartels have a business model.
You should research drug cartel and CIA history. Fun stuff. Also military special forces and the cartel.
There is one simple way to stop this. End the war on drugs. Legalize it!
Mexican cartels moved into industry, agriculture, and human trafficking. Avocados, limes, and construction, for example.
You planning on legalizing those next? You can’t legislate violent thugs away, you could legalize their entire enterprise and they’ll still have a place because the state ceded the monopoly of violence to them.
Yes, they have diversified. However, they initially moved into legal business to invest and launder the money from their primary source of income, drugs. So let´s start weakening them by taking that away.
Not sure how legalizing it would “take it away”, though? I mean, if it was legalized it would still need to be produced by someone, right? And these people have the experience, the infrastructure, etc…
That works for governments that have ability to enforce things. It’s a bit complicated in central and south America.
A huge point of legalizing is to take away a large percentage of gangs’ income by making legitimate businesses replace their supply chain over time.
Obviously criminals are still going to be deep in that as well, especially since they already have a lot of the supply already in place, but people are more inclined to work with police if they aren’t at risk for being hassled by them for their drug use and/or business with said drugs.
It’s basically death by a thousand cuts (over time) for criminal enterprises.
Also, if there’s no reason to be scared of the cops or the justice system (that’s rich!), you’re also more likely to cooperate with police if your legitimate drug business is being squeezed or compromised by criminals.
This should’ve already happened, of course, because now the problem really is the amount of money criminals have made off of the illegal drug trade, rivaling many nations. That money is being laundered and injected into legitimate businesses and investments, solidifying criminals’ leverage over the economy.