{"id":1139,"date":"2012-01-30T15:33:27","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T20:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/the-relatives-of-those-people-dont-care-who-is-winning-the-drug-war-carlos-fuentes.html"},"modified":"2012-01-30T15:33:27","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T20:33:27","slug":"the-relatives-of-those-people-dont-care-who-is-winning-the-drug-war-carlos-fuentes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/the-relatives-of-those-people-dont-care-who-is-winning-the-drug-war-carlos-fuentes.html","title":{"rendered":"the relatives of those people don’t care who is winning (the drug war) —Carlos Fuentes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A writer of fiction tells the truth about the failed war on drugs. We’re way past the beginning and middle of this story: time to end it.
\nWhich makes this a very bad time
\n
\nto build a private prison that depends on the war on drugs.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anita Singh wrote for the Telegraph today,
\n
\nCarlos Fuentes: legalise drugs to save Mexico<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nFuentes, Mexico’s greatest writer and a former diplomat, addressed
\nthe contemporary problems of Latin American — in particular,
\nMexico’s drug problem.<\/p>\n

\nHe said: “The drug traffickers are in Mexico, they send the
\ndrugs to the US and once they get across the border what happens? We
\ndon’t know who consumes them. We can’t prosecute, we can’t defend.
\nIt’s a very difficult situation for us Mexicans. The governments of
\nthe US and Mexico have to fight drug trafficking together.”<\/p>\n

\nFuentes believes that decriminalising drugs is the only way to end
\nthe violence that in the past five years has claimed nearly 50,000
\nlives of gang members, security forces and innocent bystanders.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\n“It is a confrontation. Sometimes we win, sometimes they win.
\nBut there are 50,000 killed and
\n
\nthe relatives of those people<\/a>
\ndon’t care who is winning.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nobody is winning except the profiteers in arms and
\n
\n<\/a>
\npesticides, such as
\nMonsanto.<\/a>
\nAnd even mighty MON is losing to
\nBoliviana negra<\/a>.
\nAlcohol prohibition produced Al Capone and other gangsters;
\nthe failed War on Drugs produced drug gangs and ever more
\nvicious militarization of police forces,
\nright up to the Mexican failed “solution” of calling out the Army
\ninto the streets.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nWe’re all losing through lack of money for education and militarization of our own police.
\nWe can’t afford this costly failed experiment.
\nThe real solution is the same today as in 1933:
\n
\nlegalize, regulate, and tax.<\/a>
\nThat will also drop the U.S. prison population way down,
\nsaving a lot of money that can be used for education.
\nIt’s going to happen eventually, so building more prisons that will end up being closed is
\n
\na bad idea.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer of fiction tells the truth about the failed war on drugs. We’re way past the beginning and middle of this story: time to end it. Which makes this a very bad time to build a private prison that depends on the war on drugs. Anita Singh wrote for the Telegraph today, Carlos Fuentes: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,14,19,1381,72,20,178],"tags":[3121,3118,77,3120,8730,2650,1296,2705,75,79,2651,60,82,3119],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-economy","category-history","category-immigration","category-incarceration","category-law","category-vlcia","tag-al-capone","tag-carlos-fuentes","tag-drugs","tag-failed","tag-incarceration","tag-legalize","tag-mexico","tag-monsanto","tag-prison","tag-prohibition","tag-regulate","tag-tax","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-writer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}