[lbo-talk] drug war news

[Carrol Cox]

On 5/21/2011 11:51 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sandy Harris"<sandyinchina at gmail.com>
>
> On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 1:13 AM,<123hop at comcast.net>  wrote:
>
>    
>> Funny how none of this happened before NAFTA. But when the Mexican farmer could no longer make a living selling crops -- because subsidized U.S. corn put him out of business....well, now there's a drug problem.
>>      
> No. It is much older than that. Mexican weed and Columbian cocaine
> were both being smuggled into the US in large amounts in the 60s, and
> for all I know earlier.
>
> -------------
>
> Of course it was there earlier. But a fair proportion of people could make a decent living without participating in the drug trade; now, for many, it's the only means of survival. And that is post NAFTA.
>    
I doubt that had anything  in particular to do with it. This implies 
that drug dealers would not have been available had it not been for 
farmers driven off the land. That's simply not true. NAFTA was and is 
destructive in a number of fundamental ways. Why try to add petty crime 
to its list of sins?

The War on Drugs, internationally and within the U.S., is fundamental here.

Carrol