Drugs on the movies

The media has an effect on our decisions, we tend to do stuff that is portrayed in movies and TV shows. For example if a person watches Fast and Furious he might imitate what the racers in the movie do and will speed. So when a movie shows lots of violence and drug use, it might make some people think that using drugs is cool and might use them. I separate movies with drug content into two different categories: Drug trafficking movies and movies of people who smoke marijuana (usually are comedies).

Some examples of drug trafficking movies are Blow and Maria Full of Grace. Blow is about an American who starts out selling marijuana to reach his idea of the “American dream” but gets sent to jail where he meets a Colombian insider who connects him with Pablo Escobar and starts dealing cocaine. This movie portrays the glamorous lives that drug lords have; however, it doesn’t last forever. Maria Full of Grace is a movie about a girl that decides to smuggle cocaine into the United States by swallowing it and using her stomach as a carrier. The movie goes through all of what she has to do to not get caught, but at the end her friend who was also smuggling cocaine died when the cocaine spilled in her stomach.

Some examples of comedies are Knocked Up and Pineapple Express. Knocked up is about a pothead who impregnates a woman at a party while they were both drunk, she looks for him and tries to include him in most of the decisions about the baby. She finds out he smokes marijuana and has no job, the whole nine months are a hilarious adventure. Pineapple express is about a pothead who witnessed a murder and his drug supplier; they both go on an adventure when they are chased in order for them to not talk about the murder. These movies are hilarious, but may give people the idea that smoking marijuana is fun.

There are many more movies that contain drug content and sadly some of them might give viewers the wrong idea about using or selling drugs.

A Reflection and Analysis of the Blog

Throughout the whole month I kept updating this blog which main focus was to find the best solution about the war on drugs. My initial hypothesis was along the lines of this article, which talks about legalizing all drugs in order to end the drug wars, which consequently would end the homicides of innocent people. Another upside was that if drugs were legalized the government could tax them and make millions of dollars out of it, which could be used to improve health care and education. However as I kept researching I realized I was wrong! The solution is not to give into the criminals who produce and smuggle the drugs, the solution is to not go out and fight them. What I mean is that the best thing is to end the war on drugs, but since marijuana is the most used illicit drug and has no deadly effects on the body it can be legalized and regulated.

So my new solution is to legalize marijuana, and as we all know this has been a topic of discussion for over more than three decades. One of the initiatives was filed by Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee. Lee helped push a tax on the city’s medical marijuana that was supported by more than 80% of the votes. He says that marijuana can be taxed and sold just like alcohol and cigarettes are that is something that I completely agree with.

Just to make this clear I don’t smoke marijuana or have ever tried it. And the reason why I believe this solution will work is because both sides end up winning, one side gets their drug legalized and the other side knows that it is only marijuana which won’t create major problems in society.

There are some groups that support marijuana legalization such as NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), whose mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use of marijuana by adults is no longer subject to penalty. This was also one of my major concerns and it is that many people get ridiculously long jail sentences because of possession of marijuana. Since 1990 nearly 5.9 million people have been arrested on marijuana charges. 88% of the charges were just for simple possession of marijuana and the remaining 12% of charges were categorized as dealing or manufacturing. But if it is legalized people won’t have to worry about it and their lives won’t be ruined by having done time. A chocking fact a found was that in 2000 marijuana arrests exceeded the combined number of arrests for violent crimes, including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Another group that is in favor of the legalization of marijuana is LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). One of the things that caught my attention the most about their website was that they have a picture of Al Capone and of Pablo Escobar, with the saying “same problem…same solution.” LEAP is made up of members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who speak about the failures of the existing drug policies. They say that the policies have failed to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs. Now I think about this group and I think is very ironic that the people who are supposed to be enforcing the prohibition, are actually against it. But then again I agree with them and the fact that even policemen believe marijuana should be legalized just makes me feel more confident about my solution.

Another group which supports my solution is DrugSense. But unlike LEAP and NORML, DrugSense’ goal is to provide accurate information about the drug policy in order to raise awareness of the extreme damage being caused to the United States and the world by our current flawed and failed "War on Drugs." They aim to inform the public of the existence of rational alternatives to the drug war, and to help organize citizens to bring about needed reforms. This group is great because it relates to the second part of my solution, which is to end the war on drugs.

Lastly I found what could be use as a “mold” to follow which is Amsterdam once marijuana is legalized. In Holland is technically against the law to possess marijuana, but it doesn’t matter since this law is not enforced. There are many coffee shops were people can go and buy a personal amount of marijuana and smoke it. As long as a person doesn’t smoke in public the police don’t do anything, but since people know that they have the freedom to smoke in cafés, they don’t risk being caught outside smoking. I believe that if we follow this example there would not be a need for war on drugs and people can enjoy smoking marijuana without going to excesses.

Lastly I found a list of politicians and famous people who smoke or smoked marijuana and it didn’t affect them at all. As far as politicians go the ones in favor of legalizing marijuana are from California, such as Jim Gray a superior court judge. And as for famous people the main person who demonstrated that marijuana didn’t even affect his performance when he was competing during the Olympics. Michael Phelps after winning 14 gold medals was caught smoking out of a pipe, and then he had to apologize. But if you ask me I don’t see why he had to apologize, he proves that marijuana doesn’t affect us in our physique or mentality the only thing it does is gives the person a feeling of euphoria and temporary care free feeling. And as for more politicians the head of state Barrack Obama, admitted that had smoked marijuana and so did Bill Clinton. There is a complete list of about 200 celebrities who smoke marijuana in this website.

During this month I grew as a person and as a thinker, I learned that my hypothesis is not always right and that sometimes I am not well informed when I create hypothesis which means that there is room for error. I believe my biggest growth was that I had to admit that I was completely wrong, but I did not agree with just leaving the situation as it is, no, I came up with a new solution that has proof of working in other places of the world and that it is backed up by many organizations and public personalities.

Annotated Links

Before starting this blog I knew some stuff about the drug war and the effects of drugs and based on that knowledge I created a hypothesis. In order to become more knowledgeable about this topic I had to research it and by doing this I came across various websites that were very informational and helped me make my arguments stronger, also it helped me view the other side of the issue.

Since marijuana is the most used illicit drug in the world I had to get information about it. This website gives a lot of information about marijuana that is very easy to read and understand. It talks about what marijuana is, how it affects us, the dangers of using it, how is used, and the impact it has on our minds and bodies. This site even discusses about marijuana used for medicinal purposes which is something that many people don’t think about.

Since my initial hypothesis was that every single drug should be legalized found, I searched for a website that shared my same beliefs and this website was one of the most helpful ones that I found. This is probably one of the most useful links, because it talks about the number of people who have died from drug related situations and gives the solution to legalize everything. It’s great because it not only gives ideas, but it uses numbers and facts to back up their arguments. The numbers it gives are not only based on the numbers of deaths, but also in the amount of money the government can make if drugs are legalized and taxed.

Even though we all know about YouTube and how we can watch funny videos, I used it to find information. Not many people use this site when researching but I found it to be very helpful. There are many videos in this site that are very useful, and sometimes when you don’t feel like reading you can just watch a video and learn something new. As you have seen some of my posts have a video or at the bottom you can find a series of videos related to Pablo Escobar, all of those videos come from YouTube.

This website is great because it has a lot of articles about the Mexican Drug war. It gives an estimate of how many people have died in Mexico since President Calderon declared war on drugs, and an up to date list of articles that talk about the drug war. These articles which are more than a hundred are helpful because they are more in depth and vivid; they describe each incident that happens in Mexico, from what a senator said to a killing of more than ten people in a single incident.

As I needed to understand both sides of the issue I needed a site that would argue the pros and cons of the legalization of drugs. This site was perfect for what I needed. It is a very long essay but is easy to read and it gives many good reasons of why it should be legalized, from safety to economic reasons. However, it also gives good reasons of why is a bad idea to legalize them, such as health issues. It goes really in depth especially in the economic sense.

Lastly, the site that affected my position towards this topic is http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/05/world/main610293.shtml. This is an article from 2004 that talks about how the Colombian government was rethinking the law it passed ten years before regarding the legalization of a personal amount of cocaine and marijuana. This article talks about the effects that the legalization had on the country, which is why it affected my view drastically.

If you feel like you want to read more in depth about this topic, feel free to follow any of the listed links, which are the ones that I found most helpful.

Drug use in Vietnam

Yesterday I was in my anthropology class and we were talking about the effects that the Vietnam War had on the Hmong society. The thing that caught my attention was that the professor said that during the war, the United States had a problem with soldiers getting addicted to heroin, since that region was a major producer of opium which is used to make heroin. I thought it was interesting and decided to make a post about it, to show even the people who enforce the law can also fall the temptation of drugs.

I found that in 1971two senators reported that about 15% of the US soldiers serving in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. In order to cope with the problem the armed forces gave soldiers two options, one was that if a soldier was found with illicit drugs they went to court martial and then they were given dishonorable discharge; the second option was to voluntarily seek help and they were offered amnesty and treatment. The problem was so huge that more than 1000 soldiers were being sent back to the United States each DAY. President Nixon was worried that there were going to be so many drug addicts coming in, that he didn’t know what to do. Dr. Jaffe from the University of Chicago came up with a plan, which Nixon put into effect in less than six weeks. The plan suggested drug tests of the soldiers, and if traces of drug use were found instead of giving them court martial they were to be given treatment.

If this doesn’t surprise you, then I don’t know what will.

On some of my previous posts I said that instead of sentencing people to jail for using drugs, they should be given treatment or sent to rehabilitation centers; well, as you can see a professor from the University of Chicago feels the same way and I am pretty sure many of you believe that treatment is a better way to deal with drug abuse.

So what if nothing is done about the Drug Problem?

For the last month or so I have been blogging about if drugs should be legalized or if they should remain illegal but the war on drugs should seize. However, there is also the possibility that nothing will change, and drugs will continue to be illegal while the government fights against drug lords. This means that the number of lives that are being lost because of the drug war will continue increasing. 20 years ago the alarming number of casualties happened in Colombia, but since 2006 more than ten thousand people have lost their lives in Mexico. This will also mean that the numbers of people who use drugs won’t decrease, a research study showed that about 1 in 5 people had used drugs at least once, and 46% of the people between ages 18 and 21 admitted to have use them. I found this article, which supports my vision of what will happen in the future if drugs are still illegal. It predicts that by 2020 the number of drug addicts will double, it also points out that the reason why older people use drugs is because of emotional problems such as the deaths of friends and relatives. One last thing is the issue of sentencing people who were found with possession of illicit drugs. In this site there are sentences of people who were found with an illicit drug. Most of the people were sentenced to more than a year or two in jail and then to at least 2 years of probation, some even got monetary fined. If this continues, jails are going to be full of drug users who are arrested for small possessions of illicit drugs and sentenced to long periods of time.

To sum it all up, if this problem is not resolved there will be more deaths caused by the drug war, more drug addicts, and more people in jail.

Rehabilitation: The way to save the lives of Addicts

Some drugs such as marijuana are not as addictive as other drugs such as cocaine. However, many people say that marijuana is not addicting at all and they say they can stop smoking at any time; nonetheless they still use it because of the feeling of high that marijuana gives. On the other hand we know for a fact that cocaine is addictive, once you try it is almost impossible not to get addicted.

To stop the use and production of drugs the government declared war on drugs, however that does not help the people who already use it. The ideal is for all people to stop using drugs, but that won’t happen because people who are addicted to drugs will suffer from withdrawal and it will be difficult for them to stop. The way to help drug addicts is by taking them to a rehabilitation center; where doctors and specialists try to get people off the addiction, make them functional and valuable for society again. Even though there is an extensive amount of data about the effectiveness of the treatments used at rehabilitation centers, many people believe that the methods use don’t work. People believe that because they have unrealistic expectations and want to be cured quickly; but since an addiction is a chronic disorder, the ultimate goal is to never use drugs again which often requires sustained and repeated treatment episodes.

I believe that if instead of sentencing people for possession or consumption of drugs, they were sent to rehabilitation centers more lives would be saved, in the sense that once they leave rehabilitation they can go back to society unlike right now that when a person gets out of jail they go back to selling and using drugs.

Deaths and Health problems caused by Drug abuse:

I have focused in a previous post on the deaths caused by the war on drugs and everything related to the drug cartels, but today I am analyzing the other end of the issue, the deaths and health issues of actually consuming drugs.

Marijuana:

Marijuana causes moods swings, hallucinations and affects a person’s coordination, it also affects the lungs causing cough, wheezing and frequent colds. As a person uses more marijuana it becomes psychologically dependent on it.

Cocaine:

Cocaine stimulates the central nervous system and gives a rush of strength and power, with a high lasting as long as thirty minutes. Cocaine use has serious health effects; even first time teen users can stop breathing or have fatal heart attacks. If cocaine is snorted, then a hole can create in the lining of the nose. It is one of the strongest drugs so is highly addictive, so addictive that after the first use the person can become physically and psychologically dependent making it tough for the user to quit.

Amphetamines:

This drug is actually in a sense different, because it is legal if used for a medical purpose. Amphetamines can only be obtained by prescription but still people especially teens find a way to get it. Amphetamines make people feel alert and energized, but they cause headaches, sleeplessness and blurred vision. They can also cause hallucinations and paranoia. Amphetamines are psychologically addictive and people can experience withdrawal such as mood problems and anxiety.

http://www.teendrugabuse.us/teendruguse.html

Heroin:

I will be brief about heroin since my last post is about heroin. Heroin causes serious health problems, including fatal overdose, spontaneous abortion, and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis when injected with a needle. Chronic users may develop collapsed veins and liver or kidney disease.

Some Statistics of death per year in the US:

Cocaine kills about 2500

Heroin kills about 2000

Marijuana kills none!

Now that there is more information on what some types of drugs do to the users, do you believe is better to legalize them and let these problems and statistics increase? Or keep drugs illegal and let the number of deaths and problems caused by the war on drugs keep increasing?

class links

As I blog about the legalization of drugs I also follow other blogs that I think are very interesting. The three top blogs that I follow are the following:

-http://cheers129.blogspot.com/, by jelly bean: This blog is about the drinking age and if it should be lowered. I follow it because is a debate that has been going on for a while and since I’ll be turning 18 in less than a month I would like the drinking age to be lowered. I believe that the drinking age should be lowered because once you are eighteen you are considered an adult, you can drive, go to war and kill people, smoke cigarettes (which are far worst), vote for president, etc. So why not drink alcohol?

-http://justliveyourlifewithoutwalls.blogspot.com/, by I’m a PC: I follow this post because my whole life I used PCs, but I have always liked MACs since they I think are better. So by following this blog that is written by someone who likes PCs better, I can contrast my opinions with the blogger’s and then hopefully I can come to a conclusion about which computer software is the best.

- http://healthcarehelps.blogspot.com/, by AW: I follow this blog because is interesting. I have always wondered when I person should be “killed”, under what circumstances. I always think that if a person is in a coma or a state where they can’t even move or in unbearable pain, should they be allowed to suffer or is it better to help them move on to the next life.

Theory: May Be the Best Option

As I try to find what would be the best option to end the war on drugs and also find a way to solve the drug problem, I came up with a theory:

The United States cannot win the war on drugs, it is impossible; however, they can end it. As you can see on the chart in http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124225891527617397.html, only 2.3% of people have tried cocaine, 0.1% tried heroin and 0.5% tried methamphetamines; this means that less than 3% of the population has tried drugs yet thousands of people are killed due to the war on drugs. I had an initial idea and that was to legalize all drugs, no exceptions. However I found out that on 1994 in Colombia the use of cocaine for personal was legalized and ten years later the number of people who used cocaine went up 40%; so that is not a good sign.

My idea is to use Amsterdam’s example, which is keeping all drugs illegal, but not enforcing it as much as the United States. As you can read, in Amsterdam they have café shops where marijuana is legally sold, that way people have the freedom to smoke it or eat it in brownies. Technically speaking all drugs will still be illegal, with the exception of Marijuana, which can only be sold in small quantities.

Obviously this solution won’t make everyone happy, but hopefully it will decrease the amount of people that die because of the war on drugs, and sadly the number of hard-drug users will not change much, which is less than 1% of the population. The major side effect is that marijuana use will increase, but hopefully it will be more controlled.

Heroin!

I have talked about Cocaine and Marijuana already and today is

Heroin’s turn. But I decided that is better if you watch a short

video I found in YouTube. In this video you can see many

statistics and effects of heroin. So here is the video:

After watching this video I felt like the idea of legalizing drugs

was probably the worst idea. But if you paid attention,

yes heroin is addictive, but if addicts didn't have to spend so

much money on heroin they would not be homeless. And the

only way for heroin to be A LOT cheaper is if drugs are

legalized. As the video stated heroin mostly comes from

Mexico and Colombia, as does cocaine so is as

responsible for the drug wars as cocaine is. I believe that

if it was legal and rationalized people would not

overdose that much and people could lead somewhat

normal lives. Do you agree with my reasoning or do

you believe that keeping it illegal is better?

Cocaine: What if is legal?

When I tell people that I am writing a blog about if drugs should be legalized I always get asked the same question, “Do you mean legalizing ALL drugs or just marijuana?” The answer to this question is simple, all drugs and why; well because even though marijuana is the most used illicit drug it doesn’t cause as many deaths as it does cocaine and heroin. When I talk about deaths it is not only based on the deaths because directly by consumption, but also the deaths cause by the drug trafficking and all the deaths related to the drug.

Cocaine is obtained from the cocoa plant; it is a central nervous system stimulant, and an appetite suppressant. Cocaine is sold by grams and it is a white powder use mostly by snorting. It can also be made into crack which is a solid form of cocaine that can be smoked. Cocaine is very addictive, so even though its production is illegal in almost every part of the world its demand is really high. Some people start using cocaine because after smoking marijuana or other less addictive drugs, people feel the need to try something “stronger, harder”. Another reason some people get addicted is because of the “cocaine diet”. Cocaine diet is used by people who are desperate to lose weight and the reason why cocaine is used, is because as I said before it is a appetite suppressant so it doesn’t let people eat as much.

Cocaine affects the human body in various ways, but it is one of the most addictive substances in the world, and that is why is illegal, because once a person gets addicted he will do anything to obtain cocaine no matter what it takes even to the point of killing. Because of this addiction you could say that legalizing cocaine is out of the question since it would make it easier for people to acquire it and became potential killers.

The short term effects of cocaine usually makes the user feel euphoric, energetic, talkative, and mentally alert, especially to the sensations of sight, sound, and touch. It can also temporarily decrease the need for food and sleep. The short term physiological effects are constricted blood vessels, dilated pupils, and increase in blood temperature, heart rate and blood pressure. Most of the cocaine-related deaths are often a result of cardiac arrest or seizures followed by respiratory arrest.

Now that we know what cocaine does to our body I believe that cocaine can be compared to tobacco or alcohol because they mostly just affect the user. Yes in some cases cocaine addicts can become violent, but so can drunken people and alcohol is legal.

If cocaine is legalized it is going to be an increase of drug users, but it might be worth it. So this is the dispute, if it is illegal thousands of innocent people die yearly because of drug-trafficking, and hundreds die yearly because of its use. If it is legalized maybe thousands would die from its use and none from the trafficking, since there would be no need for drug lords to use violent methods to sell drugs. But also if is legalized the people that are going to be affected, are going to be the drug abusers, meaning is their fault that they are killing themselves, instead of innocent people getting killed. So do you think it is worth it to legalize cocaine, or do you believe it is too much of a risk?

Analysis Part I: Would Legalizing Drugs save or destroy more lives?

There are many drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, heroin, PCP, crack, ecstasy, ice, which are illegal because these drugs can be addictive, mind-altering, and in some cases lethal. Since these drugs are illegal but also in demand all the time, the making and selling of these products it is very difficult. What makes it more difficult is that governments such as the United States have declared a war on drugs, but this is not working out too well and it’s throwing out too much taxpayers’ money. These are some economic figures to demonstrate how much money goes into drug war. In 2005 there were about 253,300 inmates because of drug offenses which cost the state an estimated $6,245,301,475 per year. Instead of wasting so much money in a cause that the government seems to be losing, a good idea would be to legalize drugs, and that way they can be taxed highly just like with alcohol and tobacco. I agree that there are some cons about legalizing drugs, but there are also pros. So the point of this post is to analyze based on the information I have gathered is to find which would be a better option, legalizing drugs or keeping them illegal.

First of all since drugs are illegal, drug producing countries have lots of violence going on in their territories. Since there is a big difference between how much the drugs sell for in the producing countries and the United States, most drug lords will do anything to get the drugs here. I’ll use heroin no.4 to demonstrate the difference of sell value it has. In producing countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Colombia a kilogram of heroin no.4 was valued at $4,159, $2,405 and $9,992, respectively. But in consuming countries such as the United States the value of a kilogram of heroin no.4 is of $71,200!!! As you can see drug lords can make more than a 1000% more if the sell the drugs here in United States. But it is not that easy for drug organizations. Since drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin are illegal and many countries such as the United States, Mexico and Colombia have declared war on drugs, drug organizations have resorted to violence and inhumane tactics to smuggle drugs into the United States.

After some background information that I just gave you, now I’m going to talk about why people use drugs and the wars that the high demand of drugs have caused throughout the world. And then lastly, I want to get closer to the answer to my main question which is, if legalizing drugs would destroy or save more lives than keeping them illegal and having to deal with the drug wars?

The group that is mostly always associated with drugs is the teenagers. This is because even though there are many adults addicted to drugs, most of them started during their teen years. The main reasons why teenagers use drugs are the following:

Curiosity, teenagers just want to know what it feels like, they want to feel the thrill of doing drugs and once they start and get that feeling of the euphoria, for many it is hard to stop.

Peer pressure, everybody needs to fit in with a group of people, and sometimes teenagers in order to not feel like losers or rejects end up getting into drugs, so they are accepted by their friends.

Stress, in this fast paced world that is so competitive people get stressed and they can’t keep up with it so they resort to drugs in order to try and escape all their problems and responsibilities.

Use by parents, even if the parents tell their children not to use drugs, but they themselves use them, children are more likely to use them as oppose to kids whose parents don’t use drugs.

Loneliness, a person doesn’t feel happy because they are alone, so they use drugs to escape their loneliness.

Some people may think that drug use only affect the people who are “dumb” enough to do it, but the truth is that it alsoaffects society. Some circumstances are when children are abused or neglected by their parents when they are under the influence of the drug; if drug abuser has a job he might steal money or property in order to sell it to buy more drugs; lastly if the user has no money he/she has to resort to stealing, prostitution or even murdering for money in order to get their drugs.

Analysis Part II: Would Legalizing Drugs save or destroy more lives?

The other issue with drugs is the violence. As I said before producing countries look for ways to sell their drugs on American soil, because of this the United States has declared and lead a war on drugs. The problem with the war on drugs is that it kills too many innocent people especially in the producing countries. As presidents do every year they create a list of the top producing and transiting countries in the world. The list included Afghanistan, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, Venezuela and others. This means that these countries are at constant war with drug lords in order to stop the production of drugs which causes hundreds of innocent lives. An example of this was the death of two missionaries who were in Peru when an American airplane that was trying to stop a shipment of drugs, missed and killed them by accident. And like these there are many cases.

There are producing countries in almost all continents, for example in Africa a country that according to President Obama was successfully battling the war on drugs is Nigeria. In the Middle East, the biggest producer of opium in the world, Afghanistan, has its own drug war. According to Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of UN the war on drugs in Afghanistan is being lost, since last year more than 100 million dollars were spent and only 3% of the crops were killed. But he also said that there is an up-side, which is that the boom of opium production might be coming to an end since prices are at the lowest they have been in about two decades.
And the last group of countries is Latin American countries, which include Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela. First of all Venezuela is not a drug producing country, but ever since Chavez became president there have been issues with too much drug being smuggled out of Colombia through Venezuela. The problem is that Chavez is a leftist who hates the United States, and all he does is go against them. According to Chavez Venezuela had begun to hit narco-trafficking hard since the DEA left because the DEA is filled with drug traffickers. According to a Spanish newspaper “El Pais,” a Congressional inquiry had estimated that the transit of illegal cocaine across Venezuelan territory had quadrupled since 2004. This means that if not all the governments work together it will be impossible to end the drug war.

A country that many people wouldn’t think about as having a problem with drugs to the point of having a drug war would be Brazil. But they do have a war and gladly the authorities are doing a good job in stopping the production and selling of drugs, and also intersecting the smuggling of drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and other synthetic drugs that are being sent from Europe.

And lastly the country that is the biggest producer of cocaine, Colombia. What many people don’t know is that in an effort to end the production of cocaine, “El Plan Colombia” was created. This plan promises Colombia financial help to fight the drug lords, since 2000 more than 6 billion dollars have been given to Colombia. Since 2002 Uribe, who some say could is the most successful head of state, has turned the country from a complete war zone dominated by the guerrillas into a safer place, by reducing homicides by 40%, by demobilizing two of the three guerrillas and by increasing the economic growth by six percent in five years. But even though he achieved so much “El Plan Colombia” has not met its purpose. The purpose was to reduce the cocaine production in half but instead it actually increased by 15%.

In Colombia the drug war was brutal, as an example let’s look at Carlos Mario Jiménez. He was one of the bloodiest paramilitary commanders in Colombia's long-running civil war and he confessed to the murder more than 4,000 civilians. He and his followers are responsible for forcing 4.3 million Colombians into internal refugee status, because their whole towns were blown up. And you may think that how do these people obtain better weapons than the armed forces, well the answer is that the US is the supplier, meaning that cartels take advantage of some of the loose laws of some states and smuggle tons of guns into Mexico and then down to all the cartels.

So as you can see there are many problems cause by drugs and also by drug wars, so if you keep drugs illegal then the drug wars will continue, but it they are legalized then drug abuse will increase. This means that there are many cons and pros for each side. For example some pros for legalizing drugs are: the government can tax for the drugs, the deaths caused by the wars will seize, and more employment would be created since there would be a whole “new” industry coming into the world. Some cons are: Drug abuse could kill many people; there would be an increase in crime when addicts need money to buy their drugs and drugs would be too easily accessible.

According to this link there are no pros for the war on drugs. Another option could be to just legalize marijuana since it is the most used illicit drug and generally is not harmful like alcohol, and there have never been any deaths caused by it. Some people disagree with that option because marijuana is a gateway drug which means that once you do weed, it is easier to get oneself to try harder drugs such as cocaine or heroin.

After reading all about drugs and the drug war, which option do you think is the one that would save more lives?

Mexican Drug-War

The Mexican-drug war has caused many lives since it started. According to the Los Angeles Times, 9903 people have died since 2007 due to the war on drugs, just in Mexico. That is more than 5000 dead people per year that have died because drug traffickers must supply the demand of Americans, for the most part, in order for them to get huge amounts of money. The drug war in Mexico has become the worst problem in recent times, due to the drugs groups fighting each other and the government. Since President Calderon declared the war on drugs, he has deployed 45,000 troops and 5,000 police officers to 18 states where drug groups are fighting the authorities in order to gain access to the American market. Also not only is the United States the consumer of the drug groups’ drug, but it is also the supplier of their guns, I don’t mean the government obviously, I mean that since is easier to buy guns here, drug traffickers get guns from the black market and take them to Mexico. In this article you can see the results of the drug war on one city during one week. In Guerrero, Mexico, a city known for the drug conflict, the police found nine mutilated people in 18 plastic bags in the back of a pickup truck; three other people where found murdered in a resort with a note stating “boss of bosses”. In less than 18 hours 13 bodies were found in Guerrero. According to the police decapitated bodies with notes are accredited to La Familia, one of the biggest drug organizations in Mexico.

As you can see the drug war causes many deaths, in this post I talked about 13 deaths in 18 hours in one city, but there are many other places affected such as Colombia, Peru, Nigeria, India, Pakistan. Drugs are harmful to our health, but if they were legalized many lives would be saved due to the fact that drug wars would cease, or maybe it would be worst since maybe more people would become addicted to drugs since they would be more easily accessible.

Marijuana: Most used illegal drug

So in my other blog posts I think I may have come out as if I was in favor of legalizing drugs, however, what I am trying to do is find out if that is the way to make the world a safer place, or if it will make it worst.

So far I have focused on the drug traffic, but what if drugs were legalized, would that make the world safer, or will it be the world’s doom? That is what I am trying to explore throughout my blogs, but in this blog I’m going to focus on the effects of the most used illegal drug on humans, and try to theorize or conclude if people would be able to control themselves if it is legalized.

As many people can tell the most used illegal drug is marijuana. Marijuana which has more than 200 street names such as pot or weed comes from the hemp plant (cannabis). The ingredient that alters the mind is THC. Many people believe that marijuana is harmless and not addictive. This drug is known as a gateway drug, because after people try this drug they are more open about trying other drugs such a crack, cocaine or heroin. Marijuana is not harmless, even though the immediate effects disappear in about two hours, there are studies that show that smoking weed shortens memory, math and verbal skills, reduces hormones such as sperm, makes the smoker prone to chest colds, bronchitis, emphysema, and bronchial asthma, and even cancer.

As you can see marijuana is very dangerous for the smoker’s health, but it doesn’t affect society as a whole. But since its illegal right now is destroying lives in society in the sense that if a person has marijuana on them, they will be sent to jail for years, or if they are pull over and they possess weed, they might try to run away from the police creating a car chase which most of the times ends in car crashes. So in that way it affects society, but once it is legalized it will not be a problem.

There are other drugs in play such as cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, and I will address them in later posts.

http://www.acde.org/common/Marijana.htm

Pablo Escobar: World’s most Notorious Drug Lord

During the 1980’s El Patron, as Escobar was known, run for deputy representative to the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia’s congress and won, he started his career down the right path. But by the end of the decade Escobar became known internationally as a drug lord. His organization was named El cartel de Medellin. Medellin is a city in Colombia where he resided, and was known as a great man. Pablo Escobar created this “Robin Hood” image by helping the poor people of Medellin. He created churches, parks, and houses for poor people who were homeless. Obviously his kindness came at a price for the people who benefited and that is also the reason why he was able to stay a fugitive. The price was that the beneficiaries would help him and they would be look-out for police and people from El Cartel de Cali, the main competition and enemy of Pablo Escobar.

Escobar was also known for killing people for just not liking them, seeing them as a competition for a girl he liked or just random reasons, pretty much being an obstacle to him. He was the a vicious man that always got his way. The reason why his reign lasted so long it was the fear he implemented to the Colombian people and that he had many paid policemen, judges, congressmen and pretty much anybody who was in the law enforcement field. But it wasn’t that they were corrupt, the reason they did it was because Escobar had a policy called “plata o plomo” which literally means money or lead, but it means in Colombian slang, money or die. He was responsible for the death Luis Galan, a candidate for the presidency of Colombia; also he killed all the people who didn’t accept to work for him and also the death of hundreds of reporters who wanted to show the truth about Escobar’s notorious life.

Escobar’s reign affected also the Colombian civilians that were caught in the crossfire between the two Cartels against each other or against the police. All of those people who died, died because of Escobar’s drug trafficking. Luckily for Colombia and the world Escobar was killed or at least died since nobody knows if he was killed or he committed suicide so he wouldn’t be captured, on December 2, 1993.

All of this is still happening in a lesser scale in Colombia, but its increasing in other countries such as Mexico, but it can be stopped if drugs are legalized. Since they won’t have to run from the law it would be similar as the alcohol or tobacco industry.

Side note: In 1989 Forbes Magazine listed Pablo Escobar as the seventh richest man in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_escobar

Legal drugs save lives!

The drug war that has been going on for more than five decades has cost thousands of lives all over the world. When people think about legalizing drugs the first thing that comes up, is that drugs destroy the life of the people that consume it, but rarely they think about the lives that are affected by the war between drug lords and authorities all over the world. The most affected countries by this drug war have been Colombia and Mexico. During the 1980s Pablo Escobar, the most violent of all drug lords, got involved with the cocaine business. His reign caused thousands of Colombian lives, from politicians, policemen to civilians. And now the war on drugs has taken many lives of Mexican citizens during the last few years. So if drugs are illegal, cartels, organizations that smuggle drug, have to find ways no matter how inhumane to get their merchandise to their final destination. I once saw in the news a case where Mexican drug smugglers got a dead baby, took out all his internal organs and then filled his insides with cocaine, then sawed him up. They dressed him and cross the border legally, but since the baby just seem as he was asleep, the border patrol didn’t notice it. Now think about how many times that happens…a lot of times!

That is why if drugs are legalized and controlled, only the people who are stupid enough to buy them, would get affected, instead of the whole society.