<table width="600" align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2"><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/16/former-cops-the-drug-cartels-are-winning/" target="_blank"><b>Former Cops: The Drug Cartels Are Winning</b></a><br>
</font></font></td></tr><tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2">STEPHEN C. WEBSTER - The Raw Story</font></font></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr><tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2"><i>Everybody knows the War on Drugs has done almost no good,
but has caused vast and continuing harm to the country. However,
hypocrisy and greed are so powerful that we seem unable to turn away
even as the evidence piles up detailing what we have done. We just don't
seem to be able to organize our society around life-affirming
principles. Even honest Republican law enforcement people get it. Terry
Nelson, whose three-decades in law e!
nforcement saw him serving the U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of
Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs Service say this, with which I
completely agree -- as anyone dealing with facts must similarly
conclude:<br>
<br>
"If you legalize it, you take the violence and the obscene profits out
of [drugs]," he added. "Legalization does not help your drug problem, it
helps your crime problem. Over the years in this war, we've made no
progress. Legalization, education and treatment is the best way." </i></font></font></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr>
<tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2">"[Look] at Phoenix, Arizona," Neill Franklin, a
former undercover police officer in Maryland, told Raw Story recently.
"That is the number two kidnapping capital in the world. A couple years
back they were averaging one drug-related kidnapping every day. We do
already have these [cartels] in the United States, but you just don't
hear about them very often. And when we do, it's not the 'undocumented
workers' as people are often led to believe, it's the result of our drug
policies."<br>
<br>
Suggesting Phoenix has the second most number of kidnappings out of any
city in the world is not new: for instance, that very claim was
immediately disputed after Sen. John McCain said it in 2010. However, a
review of kidnapping statistics by a team of judges and criminologists
earlier this year nearly doubled the official 2008 numbers, lending at
least some credibility to the statement.<br>
<br>
No matter what statistic it is that's examined, be it the kidnapping
ranking of Phoenix, shootings in El Paso, marijuana arrests in
Brownsville or the number of new gang members in San Diego, the reality
of today's America is that drug violence has become a pervasive and
pressing threat to most citizens.<br>
<br>
"We have got to fix this problem, or else it's going to get a lot worse
for us here at home," explained Terry Nelson, whose three-decades in law
enforcement saw him serving the U.S. Border Patrol, the Department of
Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs Service. "We talk a lot about the
40,000 people who've died in the last five years in Mexico's drug war,
but we don't talk a lot about Central and South America. The drug deaths
down there per 100,000 are just as great as Mexico. Guatemala, El
Salvador ... These countries are just wiped out by drug cartels, and
it's not even in the news."<br>
<br>
Just last week, people on both sides of the border were shocked when
authorities discovered a chilling scene where two bodies were hanging
from a bridge, mutilated beyond recognition, next to a handwritten
poster warning to avoid publishing about the cartels on social media or
blogs. The situation has become so extreme that today more Mexican
youths die from murder than vehicle accidents.<br>
<br>
But what does this mean for American citizens? In short: the drug
cartels have won, but it doesn't have to be this way.<br>
<br>
Both Nelson and Franklin are members of the non-profit advocacy group
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which aims to win the hearts and
minds of law enforcement and conservative lawmakers, who've largely
stood in the way of any significant changes to the nation's drug
policies.<br>
<br>
Franklin, LEAP's director whose time as an undercover officer came amid
the height of the cocaine craze in the 1980s, explained that what used
to be a large bust to him -- a kilo or two of cocaine -- is now little
more than a few handfuls of powder. "They're bringing it in with giant
shipping containers now," he said. "Boats. 18-wheelers. Submarines
even."<br>
<br>
"These are businessmen," Nelson said. "These are people who own shopping
malls and service businesses. By all appearances, these appear to be
legitimate businessmen. Their money is in the banks. Law enforcement and
busts have just become the cost of doing business for them. There's
really no stopping them anymore."<br>
<br>
Nelson also said that even in Colombia, where U.S. authorities have
spent billions strengthening the Colombian military, going so far as to
send U.S. troops and drone aircraft to patrol for smugglers, it has not
deterred the cocaine producers, and the costs to the U.S. taxpayer have
skyrocketed, to little effect.<br>
<br>
Both men agreed that the dramatic escalation in the sheer volume of drug
shipments is indicative of a growing business savvy among the cartels,
which the Department of Justice says are now the major distributors of
illicit substances in every large U.S. population center.<br>
<br>
"As you're trying to find out who all these people are in these
networks, we felt like we were being effective in interrupting the drug
supply," Franklin said. "But a significant seizure today is a
container-load, we're talking tons of cocaine, tons of heroin. And when
we intercept those today, the streets don't even hiccup. The
availability doesn't change. The cartels build their losses into what
they ship. They know, percentage-wise, how much to write off."<br>
<br>
For any business that exists outside the law, the consequences for
mistakes are much greater than in the private sector: and for the
lower-level cartel members, or their opponents, that consequence is
often death.<br>
<br>
"The worst thing I saw quite often in South America is people being
stuffed into barrels and soaked with diesel fuel, then set on fire,"
Nelson said. "That's got to be the worst kind of death, even worse than
all the beheading we've seen in Mexico lately."<br>
<br>
"We still have violence associated to the cartels in our country,"
Franklin added. "Most of it is probably on members of the cartels
themselves. When their workers don't do what they're supposed to do,
they suffer the consequences."<br>
<br>
Nelson, a life-long Republican, said that he believes many conservative
lawmakers are beginning to come around to their view of drug policy as
counter-productive to the overall goals of the drug war. "They're just
waiting for when it becomes politically viable to take action," he said.
"I hope that happens. It needs to."<br>
<br>
"If you legalize it, you take the violence and the obscene profits out
of [drugs]," he added. "Legalization does not help your drug problem, it
helps your crime problem. Over the years in this war, we've made no
progress. Legalization, education and treatment is the best way." </font></font></td></tr></tbody></table><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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