The AP article identified a "highly touted" government program, run out of the Justice Department, that was supposed to be cutting off that flow of drug cash to Mexican drug gangs. Unfortunately, the AP investigation found that the program was able to block only $3 million worth of the drug profit flow on an estimated total of $25 billion. Thus, for every single dollar this program stopped from flowing back to Mexico, over $8,300 got through. Over the past ten years, only $16 million have been blocked or about $1.6 million a year on average. This is pathetic even for the Federal government and the political class. Although there are laws against working with the Mexican drug cartels, only three fines have been levied under these laws the past four years, totalling less than $53,000 (against a base of $25 BILLION).
The article goes on to explain the problem that this lack of performance results causes:
- First of all, $25 billion of wealth leaves the country every year that cannot be spent on expanding the United States economy.
- The drug cartels use the money to expand their operations in cooperation with Mexican farmers who grow more marijuana and Columbians who bring in more of their cocaine.
- The money can be used to bribe Mexican officials and law enforcement personnel along with U.S. border Patrol agents in order to keep the money flowing back to Mexico.
- The money is used for purchasing weapons and hiring assassins to kill rival gang members or honest cops and judges.
- Since about 10% of the Mexican economy is based on drug cartel operations, the chance that the Mexican government will crack down on the money flow is probably next to nothing.
Two thoughts come to mind in this situation. First, somebody needs to be fired. If any other area of the real world, if you had a success rate of 1 in 8,300 you would have been fired long ago. I would question whether the taxpayer dollars being used to budget and operate this program is more than the money that is recovered and blocked. If so, than either fix the program or shut it down and contribute to reducing the deficit. Not only should Justice Department personnel be held accountable, but as explained in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government," those politicians sitting on the Congressional committees and subcommittees responsible for this Justice Department disaster need to be removed from their committee posts as stipulated by Step 34.
Second, this is just another example where the country needs to do a complete review of it's current drug strategy and policies. It is not working. Drugs come into this country virtually unrestricted and the resulting drug profits are sent back to Mexico and elsewhere virtually untouched. U.S. citizens get hooked, many go to prison which drains taxpayer dollars into prison expansion and operations, the economy leaks out $25 billion a year and the political class is not held accountable. Whatever we are doing today is not working. Thus, Step 26 in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" should be implemented in order to find a way out of this mess. As reported in other posts in this blog, other countries have successfully decriminalized drug possession and placed more of an emphasis on treatment to great success. Those examples of progress in this area need to be considered in this country via Step 26.
We are missing the solution of solving the drug plague in this country by a whole lot more than "this much." We are missing it by about 8300 to 1 and that is no way to run a government or to spend taxpayer dollars.Visit our website at www.loathemygovernment.com to order an autographed copy of the book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government -Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom and Destroying The American Political Class" and to sign up for the cause. The book is also available online at Amazon and Barnes And Noble.
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2 comments:
I'm surprised at the restraint shown by not bringing up legalization.
Anyway, the "$25 billion of wealth" is money that would not exist if programs to prevent its departure actually worked. The implication here seems to be that if that $25 billion was actually nabbed, it could be put toward expanding the US economy.
It could not, though.
The typical response to an article like this about the nitty-gritty details of the drug trade is "But couldn't this be solved just by locking up the dealers and druggies?"
How would you answer?
Anonymous:
Thanks for reading and commenting. Let me try to respond:
1) Regarding legalization, my restraint in not bringing it up is that I wanted to focus on the failed Justice Dept. program in this post, not the broader issue of drug use and abuse. I do believe that this country needs a thorough and adult conversation on legaliaitn and/or decriminalizaiton of drugs since what we are doing now is obviously not working. Many other countries have had success in this area with either legalization or decriminilization, reducing drug abuse and the associated violence.
2) I am a little unclear why you think that keeping the $25 billion in this country rather than supporting the drug cartels would not have a beneficial impact on our economy. $25 billion spent by the cartels in Mexico for guns, bribes, etc. originally came out of this country.
3) Regarding the strategy of "locking up the dealers and druggies," we have been trying to solve the problem by doing just this since Nixon. Drug usage has not gone down while the cost of incarceration has skyrocketed. I say it is time to try a more compassionate approach such as focusing on the of treating addicts and their addiciton rather than locking them up and making them criminals. I do not see how the current approach has reduced the plague of addiction, the flow of money to criminal enterprises, and the impact to society since the lost "war on Drugs" began.
Take care,
Bruno
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