Mexican Gov't Shuts Down Zetas' Secret Cell Network 300
Miniaturized stealth submarines purpose-built for smuggling are an impressive example of how much technological ingenuity is poured into evading the edicts of contemporary drug prohibition. Even more impressive to me, though, is news of the communications network that was just shut down by Mexican authorities, which covered much of northern Mexico. The system is attributed to the Zetas drug cartel, and consisted of equipment in four Mexican border states. "The military confiscated more than 1,400 radios, 2,600 cell phones and computer equipment during the operation, as well as power supplies including solar panels, according the Defense Department," says the article. Too bad — a solar-powered, visually unobtrusive, encrypted cell network sounds like something I'd like to sign up for. NPR also has a story.
Re:Next up. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Next up. (Score:5, Informative)
There are plenty of non-potheads who want to lift prohibition, for very sound reasons, not the least of which is halting the flow of money to the coffers of ruthless criminal organizations.
It would also create jobs, increase tax revenue, and increase safety to drug users (regulated businesses produce higher quality non-laced drugs).
Oh, this would also reduce the overcrowding of our prisons, thus reducing taxpayer expenditures thereupon, while freeing up law enforcement to focus on protecting us from more harmful crimes.
There is also that silly notion that freedom is a core American value. There must still be a few patriots who remember this.
It is a win all around, and many people are intelligent enough to see this.
But, as you rightly point out, it is an uphill battle because many powerful organizations have a vested interest in keeping many drugs illegal.
Re:Next up. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Next up. (Score:5, Informative)
Alcohol prohibition was never about money. It was about the moral uptight getting their way.
Perhaps, but it did serve a purpose.
Ken Burns [pbs.org] recent documentary on Prohibition, and the reasons for the movement that eventually got the amendment passed.
The amount of Alcohol consumed in the US was utterly staggering prior to prohibition.
By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year – three times as much as we drink today
Public drunkenness was rampant. We can't comprehend the amount of alcohol that flowed in that era, because people simply don't believe you can drink that much and get anything done, which, of course, was precisely the problem.
There was very little medical science and even less education available at that time to control this epidemic, and moral indignation was just about the only tool available. After the civil war, things got much worse, and the anti slavery movement turned its sights on alcohol.
Re:There wouldn't be any of this (Score:5, Informative)
We tolerate this now from drunks, why not tolerate stoners too? Hell, the stoners I've known have been quieter and more peaceful on the balance than the drunks, and they've often known they were impaired and declined to drive, versus the drunks who insist they're just tipsy and then back over lawn ornaments...
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Stealth submarines, solar powered call communications networks, encrypted communications. They are equipped like a damn government.
Their founders, and a nontrivial number of their more serious members, aren't just equipped like a government...
Back in the late '90s, the Gulf cartel wanted to cull some of their more irritating competitors. Sensibly enough, they hired a number of Grupo Aeromóvil de Fuerzas Especiales guys with counterinsurgency, communications, and assorted other handy special forces skills(a somewhat embarrassing number of whom were trained on Uncle Sam's dime at the School of the Americas, in an attempt to improve Mexico's anti-drug capabilities. Oops.)
They've suffered some rather violent togetherness issues with the Gulf cartel more recently and their founders suffered pretty dramatic attrition; but their enthusiasm for military specialists from various Latin American states, and putting their professional skills to flagrantly bloody use continues to the present...
Re:There wouldn't be any of this (Score:5, Informative)
I'm curious if the effect would be even larger with full legalization, although as the article notes, part of the reason marijuana use causes less issues with driving may be that people are more likely to use it at home and thus have no need to drive. That might not be the case if weed was legalized completely, but then again it would be entirely possible to legalize it without allowing the sort of public use and consumption at businesses that we allow with alcohol.
Re:Next up. (Score:5, Informative)
I can see right where the problem was: sanitation. Through most of the past couple thousand years, almost everything you drank had to have some alcohol in it, or it would kill you. Strangely, we started to drink a lot less alcohol once the tap water became safe.
Oh, and any decent beer has just under an ounce of alcohol in it, so we are talking 3 beers here. A bit high by today's standards, but then we have other forms of entertainment and pain relief now (and safe drinking water).
Re:There wouldn't be any of this (Score:0, Informative)
Hookahs aren't used to smoke pot. You're thinking of bongs. There's a big difference.