The Threat from Mexico

Part 2

In part 1, I tackled the issue of the Arizona immigration law from the perspective of worker illegal immigration and how Arizona went about solving the problem using the same failed tactics that the federal government used to initiate the problems at the beginning. Part 2 will be taking on the issue of the Mexican Drug Cartels that have been the leading cause of violence in Mexico and in border towns across the US and how Arizona can alleviate these problems in the state.


To first understand what brought the rise of the cartels, we have to look at the origins of the beginnings of the Drug War. Before the turn of the 19th century, we did not have any illegal drugs in the US. This started changing in the early 1910s, when newspapers started using sensationalized headlines such as “Negro Cocaine Fiends” and “Cocainized Niggers”. This led to hysteria among the white populace, and they pushed for prohibition, leading to the Harrison Act of 1914. The same things started happening with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, only they started attacking those of Hispanic descent. So, as we can see, drug prohibition began out of sensationalized stories that removed all facts in the debate.

The Mexican Cartels are criminal gangs that have no care for life among their ranks. We know this by the extreme amount of violence they perpetrate against each other and the civilian population. In one instance, a cartel took a rival, skinned his face, and stitched it to a soccer ball. Kidnappings and murders along the border towns in the US have risen exponentially as the pressure on the cartels from the Mexican government has been on the rise. Corruption among the ranks of the Federali ( Mexican Federal Police) and the Mexican military has hindered the government's advances against the cartels. And all of these problems stem from one thing: The immense amounts of money the cartels are capable of collecting from the illegal drug trade. Joaquin Guzman Loera is the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Forbes Magazine listed his net worth at over $1 billion in 2009. The magazine reports that his daily earnings are at least $1 million. These statistics give a good indication about how much money is currently available in the illegal drug trade.

These cartels are constantly at war with each other over the lucrative smuggling lanes into the US. This war is similar to the wars fought by organized crime in the US during Prohibition. The prohibition of alcohol brought the rise of many unsavory characters, such as Benny Siegel, Alphonse Capone, The Purple Gang, and the Five Families, and brought them into an industry that was once full of upstanding citizens. This is what has happened in Mexico today. And the results are spilling over into the US border states, such as Arizona. Once Prohibition in the US ended, violence attributed to the illegal liquor industry vanished. This would happen if the US Federal government would follow suit on all recreational drugs.

Seeing the federal government currently does not have any plans to legalize drugs, Arizona has one way to solve this problem. The state legislature must nullify the federal laws pertaining to the Drug War and legalize all drugs. This is the only action that can end the violence pertaining the cartels in the state. By bringing these products, products the populace already has access to and access that is used, to vendors that are legitimate and can settle claims in civil courts, the violence will all but be eliminated.

This action is also the only moral action that could exist. We are seeing people who voluntarily do something that effects their bodies having to deal with unsavory people that care not of other's livelihoods. Prohibition also forces many addicts into hiding due to fear of prosecution if they do come forward for help. By legalizing these drugs, we will see a drop in violent crimes such as robbery to pay for these addicts' fixes.

If Arizona is honest about alleviating there problems with Mexico, they will have to do the only logical and moral actions. They must lobby the federal government to end the disastrous War on Drugs, legalize all recreational drugs, slowly eliminate the mandates and welfare programs that illegals apparently abuse, and raise the quotas for the lower level immigration programs to make it easier for Hispanic immigrants to enter the country legally. If the federal government refuses to follow through on these actions, as I suspect they will, then the state of Arizona has no other choice than to nullify the laws that pertain to these areas and create their own, moral legislation.