WTF is up with violence in Mexico?

[Ranb]

So who is financing the violence in Mexico other than the people buying the drugs?

Ranb

 

[Eddie Dane]

What is scary is evidence that the Drug Cartels in Mexico are following the lead of the Bootleggers in the early 30's and are starting to 'diversify" into non Drug areas of criminal activities.because they feel the Drug Bonanza will not last forever.

This is my main fear about drug legalisation.
If the easy money is gone. The organisations will still be there.
What will they do for profit?

The higher ups could buy themselves into the legal economy and go legit.
The non-millionaire lower echelons will look for other ways to make cash and I suspect that it will hit the middle classes much harder then the drug trade ever has.
Think extortion and kidnapping.

ETA: I still think drugs should be legalised.

 

[stup_id]

This is my main fear about drug legalisation.
If the easy money is gone. The organisations will still be there.
What will they do for profit?

The higher ups could buy themselves into the legal economy and go legit.
The non-millionaire lower echelons will look for other ways to make cash and I suspect that it will hit the middle classes much harder then the drug trade ever has.
Think extortion and kidnapping.

This is already happening, in fact, in Monterrey, I've been sadly closedly related to those kind of events. Since I'm an MD and had lot of contact with important doctors from the local Hospitals, i've been firsthand witness of extortion and kindnapping of renowned plastic surgeons for instance.

As a matter of fact, a friend of my brother just got exhorted right after graduating, and his girlfriend received calls from people asking for money threatening to kidnap her brother

 

[McHrozni]

The higher ups could buy themselves into the legal economy and go legit.
The non-millionaire lower echelons will look for other ways to make cash and I suspect that it will hit the middle classes much harder then the drug trade ever has.
Think extortion and kidnapping.

Now that you mention it, I saw it mentioned somewhere, some time ago, that the surge in violence in Mexico was caused or at least preceded by declining drug revenues from US.

McHrozni

 

[dudalb]

This is already happening, in fact, in Monterrey, I've been sadly closedly related to those kind of events. Since I'm an MD and had lot of contact with important doctors from the local Hospitals, i've been firsthand witness of extortion and kindnapping of renowned plastic surgeons for instance.

As a matter of fact, a friend of my brother just got exhorted right after graduating, and his girlfriend received calls from people asking for money threatening to kidnap her brother

And I am sure they are using their power to "muscle in " on legit businesses. They do seem to be following the Business Model of a Certain Italian American Fraternal Organization......

 

[dudalb]

BTW it's the threat of the violence spilling over in the US that is driving a lot of the anti Immigration movement in the US. It's a case of a legitimate concern being used by demogogues for their own ends.

 

[Lucian]

Inspired by this thread. which I didn't want to derail with this question.

What's up with the epidemic of violence in Mexico? Or South America in general.
I know that the drug war plays a big part, but apart from that I have read many accounts of horrific violence and many women disappearing, only to turn up dead.

What the hell is causing people to commit such acts in such numbers?

Is it culture? A power vacuum? What?

Don't say it's poverty. I've been to desperately poor places and didn't feel threatened at all.
My wife's uncle does charity work in many of the world's hell-holes and the only places where he has feared for his life were in South America. Nobody chased him through the slums of Calcutta with a Machete, but in Venezuela he had to arm himself to keep somewhat safe.

Just to be clear, Mexico is in North America.

 

[Aquila]

Inspired by this thread. which I didn't want to derail with this question.

What's up with the epidemic of violence in Mexico? Or South America in general.

I know that the drug war plays a big part, but apart from that I have read many accounts of horrific violence and many women disappearing, only to turn up dead.

What the hell is causing people to commit such acts in such numbers?

Is it culture? A power vacuum? What?

Don't say it's poverty. I've been to desperately poor places and didn't feel threatened at all.
My wife's uncle does charity work in many of the world's hell-holes and the only places where he has feared for his life were in South America. Nobody chased him through the slums of Calcutta with a Machete, but in Venezuela he had to arm himself to keep somewhat safe.

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

Why is America pandering to the Mexican drug lords? Why do we have a continued damand for marijuana? It's because, IMO, we are refusing to recognize the damage that it is doing to young people. Legalizing marijuana won't make the drug lords go away - they will simply fight for rights among themselves. America has to stop its habit through eduction. Colleges have to stop turning a blind eye to students who smoke weed. They have to deny scholarships, close the Medical Marijuana clinics within walking distance from their campuses, stop college psychologists from talking up the harmless effects of pot.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

... drug legalisation.
If the easy money is gone. The organisations will still be there.
What will they do for profit?

IANAC, but I think a big difference between drugs and other kinds of crime is that with drugs you have the ultimate source of revenues (junkies) actively trying to get their money to the criminals, i.e. buy drugs. With other kinds of crime, the victims aren't trying to give the criminals money in the same way i.e. there's less of a quid-pro-quo.

I think legalising drugs would go a long way towards drying up funds for the criminals.

brain damage from drugs

True, but you can get brain damage from alcohol or cigarettes (stroke) too. These things are legal. I think that when you bring something into the open, it makes it easier to focus on harm mitigation, but IANAS/CP.

 

[dtugg]

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

lol. Are you serious?

 

[Eddie Dane]

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

Why is America pandering to the Mexican drug lords? Why do we have a continued damand for marijuana? It's because, IMO, we are refusing to recognize the damage that it is doing to young people. Legalizing marijuana won't make the drug lords go away - they will simply fight for rights among themselves. America has to stop its habit through eduction. Colleges have to stop turning a blind eye to students who smoke weed. They have to deny scholarships, close the Medical Marijuana clinics within walking distance from their campuses, stop college psychologists from talking up the harmless effects of pot.

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't want to create the impression that I support Cannabis legalisation.

I support the legalisation of all ALL DRUGS.
From sugar and thee via coffee and cannabis, all the way up to heroin, cocaine and crack.

 

[stup_id]

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

Why is America pandering to the Mexican drug lords? Why do we have a continued damand for marijuana? It's because, IMO, we are refusing to recognize the damage that it is doing to young people. Legalizing marijuana won't make the drug lords go away - they will simply fight for rights among themselves. America has to stop its habit through eduction. Colleges have to stop turning a blind eye to students who smoke weed. They have to deny scholarships, close the Medical Marijuana clinics within walking distance from their campuses, stop college psychologists from talking up the harmless effects of pot.

This can't be denied is an important issue, but not the main one, many studies have been done in order to determine the relative risk of brain damage done by smoking marihuana, in fact multidnary tests, taking into account major live events, and certain polimorfism of specific genes, have ruled out that there is an increased relative risk of developing psychotic disorders with EARLY marijuana use in already genetically predisposed patients (I can elaborate further if you want, I had the luck to take that particular Neuroscience class in my Master with one of the innovative researchers in the area ).

But this calls for exactly the opposite, it calls for a strongly regulated market, since the risk radically diminish as the age increases, and in adults there's no statistically significant difference in the risk of psychotic disorders triggered by marijuana.

So having it legal, would facilitate certain aspects of enforcing only its adult use.

By the way, you should check out the increased relative risk numbers for Cancer, Accident, Depression and other diseases associated with Alcohol and Tobacco.

 

[GeeMack]

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

Why is America pandering to the Mexican drug lords? Why do we have a continued damand for marijuana? It's because, IMO, we are refusing to recognize the damage that it is doing to young people. Legalizing marijuana won't make the drug lords go away - they will simply fight for rights among themselves. America has to stop its habit through eduction. Colleges have to stop turning a blind eye to students who smoke weed. They have to deny scholarships, close the Medical Marijuana clinics within walking distance from their campuses, stop college psychologists from talking up the harmless effects of pot.

​

Must be interesting living with such irrational fears. How often do you watch Reefer Madness? Obviously it's off topic for this thread, but you should start a thread on this. Use that fear filled rant you posted above as the opening post. Could be good for a lot of laughs.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think you ust hit the nail

THIS, I'm Mexican, but I'm admitedly working my way out of here to do research at Spain (hopefully forever...), and I ever noticed this was the main issue.

During the whole period of history Mexico has existed there's always been a HUGE inequality of wealth, there's practically no middle class (numerically speaking compared with the whole population), and the main channels of expression and communication are all owned, censored and regulated by the priviledged people. I do hate sounding like a classic Left Wing socialist activist, but leaving aside ideologies, this is particularly true in Mexico.

There's been a vast amount of wealth for a dozen of important families, who'd been playing in distracting everyone else from what was really happening, even the government is devoted to bring them the most of profit they can make (see "Ley Televisa" or the privatization of Phone Services in the 90's)

Turns out that this mix of disregarding REAL development in the country (like for instance, setting fair competitive standards in communications just to name one thing) and letting a whole bunch of people in poverty is blowing on their face with Drug Lords filling the void of power themselves created (willingly or not).

There also used to be an unequal distribution of firearms. Now that they are more abundant, more people are in on the violence.

I've been traveling intermittently throughout Mexico and Central America for a couple decades. Back in the 70s you could count on your car getting broken into, but except for avoiding the police, an American tourist rarely saw any violence. The locals, not so much. American money supported some military oppression in rural areas.

But as time went on, I heard more and more rumors of armed robberies. Don't take the night bus from Guadalajara to Mexico City, "Did you hear that Roger (famous gringo Posada de Roger) was shot in the neck in an extortion shakedown because he wouldn't pay protection money?" and so on.

It's hard to know how to take such stories. Such rumors are overly common and one can usually safely travel without any real inconvenience. Central Park, NY, isn't exactly a bastion of safety. But you'd be perfectly safe there as long as you knew the rules. I've never had anything really bad happen south of the border except in Nicaragua when the 'Contras' were on their murdering rampage and Somoza was living in his cement bunker there.

But with the epidemic of murders going on in Mexico right now, I'd say it's like things were when beheadings were occurring in Guatemala and nuns were being murdered in El Salvador. Maybe it's time to travel somewhere else for a while.

But to put it in perspective, I think you might want to consider the time in history when you wouldn't have wanted to be a tourist in the South in the 50s and 60s. And perhaps a visit to Rwanda or Somalia is still not on the itinerary at the moment. This is an historically bad time in Mexico. South America wasn't that bad a couple years ago when I was in Peru and Ecuador. There were the usual rumors of rampant crime and I traveled there alone and had no trouble whatsoever. (That is if you don't count the frightening bus ride I went on from Ica Peru to Arequipa. ) There was the typical warnings like hiking alone on the Ecuador/PERU-Colombia boarder region wasn't the smartest thing to do right then.

Colombian crime is supposed to be bad, yet I have a Colombian friend who says it isn't as bad as the news makes it out. That's been my experience so I tend to believe him. Still, I wouldn't go anywhere it was profitable to kidnap tourists. I think anytime you have that income inequality and you get armed men choosing some criminal means of rapid riches you have a dangerous situation.

It seems to me the murder rate in Mexico right now is one of those horrible bubbles in history when a country or a region goes through incredible turmoil because the conditions just boiled over. If I had to say what changed, because the inequality in income and the hopelessness of much of the population seeing no way their situation was going to change really isn't a new development, I'd say access to firearms was the final ingredient that led to the current conditions.

 

[BenBurch]

lol. Are you serious?

It is very politically correct in social work to attribute harm from any drug, even when it is not the causative agent, but is simply self-medication for an underlying problem.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I for starters, would be OK with UN or even US intervention, but the hard part is to assure that the main problems are adressed....

Too bad it is unlikely the US would ever address the exchange of guns for drugs (via drug profits) that is our contribution to the tragedy.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

So who is financing the violence in Mexico other than the people buying the drugs?

Ranb

US Gun manufacturers are certainly in on the profits.

Since I suppose I'll be asked to support this obvious fact...

Mexican Crime, American Guns

Study of ATF Trace Data Says Three Of Four Guns Used in Mexican Violence Come From US Border States

...as many as three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico and recovered and capable of being traced can be traced to gun stores just across the border in the U.S. The numbers bolster complaints by Mexican officials that the country's unprecedented bloodshed – 28,000 people have died in drug-cartel violence since 2006 – is being fueled both by the U.S. appetite for drugs, and by American weapons....

The study, based on Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) data and prepared by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, shows that three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing were sold in the four U.S. states that border Mexico.

According to the report, from 2006 through 2009, 19,000 guns used in crimes in Mexico were traced to an original sale at a US gun dealer, and the bulk of the guns came from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Texas supplied four in ten of those weapons, and the other three border states provided an additional one third.

Firearms used to be rarely owned among the general population in Mexico in the 70s. Only the military and the police had guns.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

ETA: I still think drugs should be legalised.

Clearly.

Unfortunately it is hard to put the gun genie back in the bottle. OTOH, it wasn't fair that only the rich had access to firepower support of their positions either. So for now, it is worse. The general population is the victim of two groups vying for riches and power.


So sad.

 

[Eddie Dane]

US Gun manufacturers are certainly in on the profits.

Since I suppose I'll be asked to support this obvious fact...

Mexican Crime, American Guns

Firearms used to be rarely owned among the general population in Mexico in the 70s. Only the military and the police had guns.

Jeebus!

Can a Mexican national just waltz into a US gun store and buy artillery?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I've recently seen two young people diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder, directly linked to chronic marijuana use.

IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.

Why is America pandering to the Mexican drug lords? Why do we have a continued damand for marijuana? It's because, IMO, we are refusing to recognize the damage that it is doing to young people. Legalizing marijuana won't make the drug lords go away - they will simply fight for rights among themselves. America has to stop its habit through eduction. Colleges have to stop turning a blind eye to students who smoke weed. They have to deny scholarships, close the Medical Marijuana clinics within walking distance from their campuses, stop college psychologists from talking up the harmless effects of pot.

Wow. I haven't heard this nonsense for quite some time. You do know the whole history of classifying pot as a narcotic was a political ploy and never based on the drug actually harming anyone don't you?