A Thought to Ponder: The Political Destruction of Mexico

As I state in my header, I write about rights. Among those rights (as consenting adults only) is the right to use mind-altering, possibly addictive, possibly dangerous drugs. Alcohol is the premier example of such a drug and it is legal to adults.

I want all of the presently illegal drugs to have the same status as alcohol and tobacco. Use it at your own risk. Do not violate the rights of others. You shouldn't be arrested for using, but you should be for violating the rights of others. (Statistically, alcohol is the drug that the mere use of it is most likely to cause rights-violating behavior.) I bash the government as an anti-rightist institution for making illegal behavior that is intrinsically honest and peaceful.

In other writings of mine I have listed many of the benefits of the re-legalization of the presently illegal drugs. Those drugs were once perfectly legal and there was no criminal justice problems associated with their use. I have also listed many of the detriments to legalization. Mostly, that would be the collapse of the "Prison-Industrial" complex and the loss of many government jobs and contracts to people whose very existence perpetuates the violation of the rights of otherwise honest, drug-using people, of which there are millions in the U.S.

One detriment that I didn't think of was the possible complete collapse of the Mexican economy. I have just finished reading Elizabeth Lowell's novel, The Wrong Hostage. I highly recommend it. It is a well-written, fast-paced story.

In it, her protagonist explains that the billions of U.S. dollars that flow into Mexico from the drug trade is necessary to that nation's economy and that if it were suddenly cut off, Mexico would implode economically, and become a "failed nation", like Afghanistan, only it is our immediate neighbor to the South, sharing over 1,000 miles of border with us. (If you think the illegal immigration problem is bad now, imagine what it might become under such a scenario, as well as revolution and civil war.)

The hero, in The Wrong Hostage, goes on to explain that the reason the U.S. doesn't actually want to stop the drug trade is fear of such a thing happening and the possible "aftershock" effects on the United States.

That could be true, the economic collapse of Mexico I mean, if, somehow, the U.S. Congress took their heads out of where the sun doesn't shine and gave us, "the people", back our full and complete adult inalienable rights.

In that event the government could always use billions of the dollars now wasted on the so-called "war on drugs" (90 years of failure and counting) to help Mexico until it could get back on its feet and develop new means of supporting itself.

Of the millions and millions of Americans who do use one or more of the presetly illegal drugs, the vast majority are honest, non-violent citizens. The violence related to the drug trade has been caused by their illegality and the fact that the proceeds cannot be legally protected. The illegality of drugs is also the reason that they are extremely expensive relative to their production and distribution.

I still believe that the net benefits of re-legalization would outweigh the net detriments, especially in the long run, even with the possible Mexican problem factored in. I am old-fashioned. I believe that all adults should be free to live their lives as they choose, regardless of the outcome, just so long as they do not violate the rights of others. That is what used to be called "inalienable rights."