[Bret L]

Marijuana Legalization—Could It Help Stop The Mexodus?

By Brenda Walker

"If the tea leaves are to be believed, we are closer than ever before to legalization of marijuana in California. That should bring a smackdown of Mexican gangsters who have brought their violent organized crime to America and who vitally facilitate the “Mexodus”—the unprecedented multi-year phenomenon of the Mexican elite dumping its lower class on the U.S. welfare system, largely through illegal immigration.

The end of pot prohibition will have the same effect as the cessation
of alcohol prohibition in 1933—the loss of mega-profits. When Mexican
cartels no longer measure their profits with a truck scale, they will
lose a lot of interest.

Friends of the smokable weed are even now collecting signatures for a
legalization ballot initiative to be placed before the voters in 2010.
(In an earlier initiative, Californians approved medical marijuana in
1996.) In addition, Assembly member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has
introduced a bill (AB 390) last February, held a hearing, and is
planning to push the legislation in January.

One of Ammiano's top selling points for legalization: the money.

Here in overspent California, state government is desperate to vacuum
up any available cash. One stunning example: the extra 10 percent now
withheld from paychecks as a no-interest loan to Sacramento.) So the
tax-crazed gnomes in government perk up when some big suit says "New
revenue source."

And there is indeed serious money to be made from taxing pot, although
it won't be a magic bullet:

"Could marijuana be the answer to the economic misery facing
California?...Pot is, after all, California's biggest cash crop,
responsible for $14 billion a year in sales, dwarfing the state's
second largest agricultural commodity—milk and cream—which brings in
$7.3 billion a year, according to the most recent USDA statistics. The
state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3
billion a year in much needed revenue, offsetting some of the billions
of dollars in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the
recently approved state budget. "[Can Marijuana Help Rescue
California's Economy? By Alison Stateman, Time magazine, March 13,
2009]

Californians are ready and willing. A Field Poll last spring found 56
percent of state voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledges it's time for a debate.
(No surprise: the 1970 documentary Pumping Iron shows him cheerfully
smoking a joint, and he later admitted that he inhaled.) The
legalization question has been put before gubernatorial hopefuls.

However, drug policy remains one of the most stubbornly irrational
areas in all of American government. Marijuana is illegal, while the
more dangerous substances alcohol and tobacco are not. But alcohol has
been implicated in around 40 percent of traffic fatalities in recent
years. Immoderate drinking is connected with cirrhosis of the liver,
birth defects, stroke and cancer. And tobacco is a highly addictive
drug, killing 440,000 yearly, making it the leading cause of
preventable death.

In contrast, marijuana, which has never killed anyone, has been deemed
an evil weed and the devil's harvest. Decades of overwrought anti-pot
propaganda make a 180-degree policy reversal even more difficult. I'm
convinced that many a young boomer in the 60s and 70s was pushed
further in an anti-establishment direction by the obvious lies they
heard in high school about so-called reefer madness. "Question
authority" remains a popular bumper sticker for good reason.

There's a group of police officers speaking out against the failed
drug policy: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). A brief talk
by retired detective Howard Wooldridge outlines the situation: despite
half a trillion dollars being spent by government, drugs are cheaper
and readily available: [Watch].

It’s a trade-off, of course. Legalization could in some ways
substitute additional pressures on public health for the problem of
drug crime and the Mexican criminal influx. But that would be better
than the chaos we have now.

The invasion of this country by foreign organized crime is extreme and
not discussed enough: "Mexico's drug cartels are now the main
suppliers in at least 230 U.S. cities, and dominate 70 percent of
America's illegal drug market," according to CBS (Exclusive: Mexican
Drug Cartels in Atlanta, October 21, 2009). It's estimated that
Mexican cartels derive around 60 percent of revenue from marijuana
sales in the US.

We should review the chilling warnings of President Bush's Mexico team
upon their exit, that the country was in danger of "rapid and sudden
collapse" from the pressure of powerful drug cartels. Former drug czar
Barry McCaffrey has cautioned that Mexico could become a narco state
within five years. A failed state scenario next door would clearly
have dangerous implications for our own national security.

Drug money has financed a massive criminal infrastructure, both
organizational and physical. Look at the numbers of drug-smuggling
tunnels that cross the border.

"In the words of the county sheriff, Nogales is becoming ‘the drug-
tunnel capital of the world.’

“Since 1990, the US Border Patrol has found 109 tunnels along the
border with Mexico, all in California and Arizona. Sixty-five—or 60
percent—have been found in Nogales, with 16 of those discovered in the
past nine months....

“The tunnels are often crude—dug by hand or shovel. But they can also
be sophisticated operations. One 83-foot long tunnel discovered in
June was equipped with lighting and a ventilation hose. Another,
discovered in 2003, had rails and a trolley system and ran 300 feet to
a hillside house. A third ran to a church atop a bluff about a half
mile from the border.” [Tunneling Under Nogales: Arizona Border Town
Flush with Drug Tunnels, ABC News, August 23, 2009]

This infrastructure is also employed to smuggle illegals as a
profitable diversification. By themselves, illegal aliens, typically
unskilled, just don’t earn the money to finance the smuggling system.

Note also, of course, that an al Qaeda operative could easily ring up
a cartel and arrange to have a suitcase or larger nuke to be carried
across through one of those roomy tunnels.

Some elite Mexicans like the current ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan,
think US legalization would be good for Mexico too. Not that there's
anything wrong with that. [U.S. Pot Legalization Should Be Discussed:
Mexican Ambassador]

Market changes already underway give a hint of how things might go if
marijuana was legalized n California. Mexicans are now losing out to
American growers who understand what the local buyers want and
therefore concentrate on quality.

"ARCATA, Calif.—Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop
marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for
powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests
and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot
growers in the United States and Mexico.

“Illicit pot production in the United States has been increasing
steadily for decades. But recent changes in state laws that allow the
use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S.
growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance
of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as Acapulco Gold
the standard for quality." [Cartels Face an Economic Battle, By Steve
Fainaru and William Booth, Washington Post, October 7, 2009]

If weed were legal and was sold with little stickers saying "Grown
legally in the USA with no environmental destruction" it would be the
top seller, no question. Nobody really wants to buy a product grown by
hostile invaders who are poisoning our treasured national parks like
Sequoia and Yosemite in the process. People would rather be assured
that their bud was grown by some organic hippie in Mendocino, not a
murdering thug. (See my article Mexican Gangsters Converting America's
National Parks Into Gigantic Marijuana Patches.)

In fact, the government could market the legal, taxed marijuana in
just that way—"certified American eco-weed, kind to woodland creatures
and trees. "

Legalization is no panacea. Alcohol can be purchased in grocery
stores, yet moonshine is still produced in its historic home and
beyond, albeit in marginal quantities. (One recent example: North
Carolina brothers charged with operating moonshine still, Virginian-
Pilot, November 10, 2009). Prescription drugs are available by
definition, yet their growing illegal sales indicate a major abuse
problem.

However, after alcohol prohibition was ended, the huge profits were
removed and mobsters had to rejigger their crime portfolios. If
marijuana is legalized, the Mexicans may increase their marketing of
meth and other hard drugs.

But taking away the billions of dollars they make on pot should cut
them back considerably.

And we could always legalize hard drugs too...

Plus, legalization of marijuana would restore a degree of honesty to
drug policy.

We have nothing to lose but our hypocrisy—and the financial backbone
of the Mexodus."

http://www.vdare.com/walker/091111_mexodus.htm

[Boon[_2_]]

Not a single mention that a sizable chunk of marijuana comes in from
Canada these days? What ****ty journalism.

[Bret L]

On Nov 12, 7:51*am, Boon wrote:
Not a single mention that a sizable chunk of marijuana comes in from
Canada these days? What ****ty journalism.

What DOES NOT come in from Canada is a sizable influx of undesireable
individuals who commit crime and breed like rats. The dope itself is a
secondary issue.

[Boon[_2_]]

On Nov 12, 12:15*pm, Bret L wrote:
On Nov 12, 7:51*am, Boon wrote:

Not a single mention that a sizable chunk of marijuana comes in from
Canada these days? What ****ty journalism.

*What DOES NOT come in from Canada is a sizable influx of undesireable
individuals who commit crime and breed like rats. The dope itself is a
secondary issue.

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

[hophead]

In article 74e806d3-e0aa-44fc-bf96-686e2e0b61a9
@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

[George M. Middius[_4_]]

Boon said:

Not a single mention that a sizable chunk of marijuana comes in from
Canada these days? What ****ty journalism.

*What DOES NOT come in from Canada is a sizable influx of undesireable
individuals who commit crime and breed like rats. The dope itself is a
secondary issue.

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

I'm sure Brattie was referring to street crime, which is, as we all know,
largely the fault of bleeding-heart liberals who go soft on criminals. It's
only the "conservatives" who are to blame for letting terrorism happen, but
Brattie believes it was actually Clinton's fault, if not Jimmy Carter's.

[George M. Middius[_4_]]

hophead said:

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

The failed plots to attack Seattle and L.A. were planned by terrorists who
came through Canada, though.

[hophead]

In article ,
says...

The failed plots to attack Seattle and L.A. were planned by terrorists who
came through Canada, though.

Yes that's true: Ironically, in the case of Ahmed Ressam, he entered
Canada via the US before returning to attempt his bombing of the L.A.
Airport. When he arrived in North America in February 1999 after his
"terrorist training", it was on a flight from Seoul to Los Angelas. From
there he flew to Montreal and eventually made his way to the west coast
where he brought his plans to fruition.

Of course, Canadian government beauracracy did manage to screw things up
nicely when Ressam was in Montreal: around that time French authorities
notified them of several suspected Algerian terrorists in the Montreal
area (including Ressam). In typical fashion, it was 6 months before the
information was actually processed and acted on and by then Ressam was
in Vancouver.

It's not certain that they would have caught him of course: he was
travelling under an assumed identity. But still, it would be nice if
things moved just a wee bit faster when dealing with lunatics planning
to blow up airports and the like.

[Boon[_2_]]

On Nov 12, 11:10*pm, hophead wrote:
In article 74e806d3-e0aa-44fc-bf96-686e2e0b61a9
@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

I've never seen that refuted before, but then again I haven't heard it
discussed in a long time. What's your source?

[MiNe 109]

In article
,
Boon wrote:

On Nov 12, 11:10*pm, hophead wrote:
In article 74e806d3-e0aa-44fc-bf96-686e2e0b61a9
@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

I've never seen that refuted before, but then again I haven't heard it
discussed in a long time. What's your source?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Apr8.html

Canadian officials are vexed that 3 1/2 years later, they have not
dispelled the groundless claim that Canada was a route for the Sept. 11
hijackers. Frank McKenna, the new ambassador to the United States, calls
it an "urban myth" and has been trying to beat it down in television
interviews and letters to the editor...

"It's something that won't go away," Bill Graham, Canada's defense
minister, said of the apocryphal claim in an interview Monday. "We're
very resentful . . . because not one suspect had been in Canada. All had
been in the U.S., training in the U.S., with valid U.S. visas."

--

Stephen

[Boon[_2_]]

On Nov 14, 8:42*am, MiNe 109 wrote:
In article
,

*Boon wrote:
On Nov 12, 11:10*pm, hophead wrote:
In article 74e806d3-e0aa-44fc-bf96-686e2e0b61a9
@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

I've never seen that refuted before, but then again I haven't heard it
discussed in a long time. What's your source?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Apr8.html

Canadian officials are vexed that 3 1/2 years later, they have not
dispelled the groundless claim that Canada was a route for the Sept. 11
hijackers. Frank McKenna, the new ambassador to the United States, calls
it an "urban myth" and has been trying to beat it down in television
interviews and letters to the editor...

"It's something that won't go away," Bill Graham, Canada's defense
minister, said of the apocryphal claim in an interview Monday. "We're
very resentful . . . because not one suspect had been in Canada. All had
been in the U.S., training in the U.S., with valid U.S. visas."

Michael Moore's responsible for that one.

Still, I have a friend who is Iranian, and whenever he goes home to
visit his family he always travels through Canada instead of Mexico.
He says it's much easier to come back into the US through Canada as
well. Bratzi's beef about the southern border is based upon his hatred
of brown people, period.

[MiNe 109]

In article
,
Boon wrote:

On Nov 14, 8:42*am, MiNe 109 wrote:
In article
,

*Boon wrote:
On Nov 12, 11:10*pm, hophead wrote:
In article 74e806d3-e0aa-44fc-bf96-686e2e0b61a9
@d21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com, says...

How many of the 9/11 hijackers came in through Canada? All but two,
wasn't it?

Actually, none of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada. That's a myth
that's been propagated by some who should know better, but it's
completely false.

I've never seen that refuted before, but then again I haven't heard it
discussed in a long time. What's your source?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Apr8.html

Canadian officials are vexed that 3 1/2 years later, they have not
dispelled the groundless claim that Canada was a route for the Sept. 11
hijackers. Frank McKenna, the new ambassador to the United States, calls
it an "urban myth" and has been trying to beat it down in television
interviews and letters to the editor...

"It's something that won't go away," Bill Graham, Canada's defense
minister, said of the apocryphal claim in an interview Monday. "We're
very resentful . . . because not one suspect had been in Canada. All had
been in the U.S., training in the U.S., with valid U.S. visas."

Michael Moore's responsible for that one.

I'm just surprised Bill Graham had time to be an ambassador, what with
running an music empire and being dead by 2005.

Still, I have a friend who is Iranian, and whenever he goes home to
visit his family he always travels through Canada instead of Mexico.
He says it's much easier to come back into the US through Canada as
well. Bratzi's beef about the southern border is based upon his hatred
of brown people, period.

Of course, like the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo never happened.

Stephen

[hophead]

In article 056b3956-31ff-4392-91cc-2a1a73bdd731
@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com, says...

Still, I have a friend who is Iranian, and whenever he goes home to
visit his family he always travels through Canada instead of Mexico.
He says it's much easier to come back into the US through Canada as
well.

I don't doubt that at all. And for sure, the potential for terrorists to
use the Canadian border as entry to the US is real. However, the
particular bit of misinformation regarding the 9-11 hijackers irks me
for some reason.

I don't blame you for thinking it was the case because it's been
reported that way many times. But this appears to be something along the
lines of the republican's tendency to fabricate some piece of bull****
out of thin air (death panels in the health bill for example), and now
the onus is on the other party to refute the bull**** as though it had
any merit to begin with.

And finally, for what it's worth I agree with you regarding Bratzi.

[hophead]

In article , smcelroy2
@POPaustin.rr.com says...

I'm just surprised Bill Graham had time to be an ambassador, what with
running an music empire and being dead by 2005.

Yeah, he's been a pretty busy guy especially considering he's dead and
all. Although that does give him the appropriate credentials for the
Canadian Senate should he ever get appointed.

[Boon[_2_]]

On Nov 14, 11:43*am, hophead wrote:
In article 056b3956-31ff-4392-91cc-2a1a73bdd731
@a32g2000yqm.googlegroups.com, says...

Still, I have a friend who is Iranian, and whenever he goes home to
visit his family he always travels through Canada instead of Mexico.
He says it's much easier to come back into the US through Canada as
well.

I don't doubt that at all. And for sure, the potential for terrorists to
use the Canadian border as entry to the US is real. However, the
particular bit of misinformation regarding the 9-11 hijackers irks me
for some reason.

That's fair enough.


I don't blame you for thinking it was the case because it's been
reported that way many times. But this appears to be something along the
lines of the republican's tendency to fabricate some piece of bull****
out of thin air (death panels in the health bill for example), and now
the onus is on the other party to refute the bull**** as though it had
any merit to begin with.

I certainly don't follow Michael Moore's word as gospel, but it seems
kind of ballsy to put that fact in a movie and not have some source,
even if it is incorrect. It came from somewhere. The stuff Glenn Beck,
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh say is often fabricated-on-the-fly
(such as Hannity's comment about Obama saying that insurance people
are "bad people"). The liberals are far from innocent in these
propaganda wars, but in my experience the people who say Michael Moore
lies usually can't come up with anything substantive, even when it is
obviously agit-prop. They're just indignant.


And finally, for what it's worth I agree with you regarding Bratzi.

It's hard not to, isn't it?

At any rate, thanks for the correction!