College life in Mexico's deadliest city

Breaks your heart? YOU'RE A DEAD??@!#$!

Was there a point you were trying to get across, or are you Michael from "The Office?"

What the hell are you trying to tell me? Can you make more sense please! If you are trying to say something stupid it is best you keep it to yourself. I don't have time for your dumb replies.

The fix is easy: legalise drugs in the United States. All these problems descend from the drug war, ending it will, without any doubt, begin a decline in Mexican criminality so swift that within a year Juarez could actually be a decent place to raise a kid.

Of-course, that's not gonna happen, because Americans are scared that their children are gonna become crack addicts and steal their TV's, because that's what happens on TV. So they're gonna keep being scared, and the Mexicans will keep paying the price for their cowardice. I suppose in a practical sense you really only have two options: either oppose the drug war, or stop caring about the suffering of innocence. Latter's definitely easier.

Now are you a Mexican or a Mexican't?

its not just drugs, toss human trafficking into that as well. and a lot is because they can because there's no law down there

Human trafficking is part of the problem too, true, but I think you'll find that the illegal drug trade is far more profitable at this time, thanks to enforcement efforts by the US and Mexico. Human traffickers are given a much easier time, and the resources which SHOULD be devoted to catching them are instead wasted on catching cocaine smugglers. Human traffickers are the worst scum and need to be stopped as decisively as possible, but that's never going to happen until the war on drugs ends. In my opinion you can take child sex slaves and add them to the list of drug war victims...

Drugs haven't destroyed lives in Mexico, these people were killed by gang violence fueled by drug prohibition. *Government* has killed these people, as voted for by the American public.

When I meant drugs, I really meant "drug money" or gangs fueled by narco-traffic money. Drugs are interchangeable with any other type of illegal contraband. Gangs will always do business on the margins of legality. If drugs are legalized then they will turn to some other form of contraband to fund their activities.

I do not see the war on drugs ending any time soon. The younger generation still needs to grow up and take power before that ever happens.

dude you really have to start using more periods. i got a headache trying to read that lol

you make a very interesting point about the devastation caused not only by illegal drugs, but by corporations using illegal tactics to terrorize the population. I am saddened and sickened by the hypocrisy of the US government in all of this. Globalization, touted as good for the people, has only been good for the corporations; it exploits and destroys communities and lives.

Legalising the killers that are running the drugs would be EXTREMELY beneficial for Mexico. Consider this basic truth: the killers are not being caught. In the border towns of Mexico, the killers OWN the towns, and they fight in the streets with the police like an army. They're completely in charge, and none of them will ever go to prison or be in any way restrained by Mexican or American law.

Now that we've acknowledged that truth, we realise that making their business ILLEGAL has done nothing to stop the killers from profiting and killing. So what has it done? Cannabis and cocaine are just plants, easy to grow, prepare and consume. Their value, their insanely high dollar cost, is based entirely on the difficulties in growing, preparing and consuming when the product is ILLEGAL. Again, the basic truth is in our faces: illegal drugs are valuable drugs. Cannabis wouldn't be worth more than it's weight in gold if not for laws against cannabis.

SO, the laws don't stop the killers from killing, and they don't stop cannabis from being used, and they in fact make cannabis so insanely expensive that the cartels can form their own deadly militias based on their cannabis profit... what's the obvious conclusion here?

My conclusion is: if you legalise drugs, if you let cannabis and cocaine become as cheap as they logically should be, then the cartels will no longer have a profit to make. They will no longer be able to afford armies. They will no longer be able to kill with immunity. If you try and fight them by making cannabis HARDER to get, you make it MORE EXPENSIVE, and criminal profit INCREASES. If you fight them by making cannabis EASIER to get, you make it MUCH CHEAPER, and criminal profit DECREASES.

Legalise. Legalise not only because the state has no right to tell anybody which substances they can and cannot consume, but because it's the only way to save the Mexican border towns from a life of constant struggle, the only way to make black Americans truly free, the only way to decrease illegal immigration into America and the ONLY way to regain some dignity for either nation.

Refusing to buy drugs will help nobody. I say we all sit back, take a deep breath, blaze up a fat spliffy and then think long and hard about narcotic economics... the answers are staring us right in the face.

What part of a government behaving hypocritically is saddening and sickening to you? What did you expect from them? I don't even mean the American government, I mean any government. Democracy is lambs and wolves voting on what's for dinner... why act surprised when you find yourself on the menu?

But we are a much safer place to live and get an education. More than 2000 deaths in that town/city last year. Wow!

It's not really "messed up" though, is it? If we look at it rationally from an economic perspective, it's actually a very clean and mechanical system by which to transfer wealth from poor American and Mexican workers into the hands of rich American and Mexican criminals. It's theft, pure and simple. As with every society at every stage in history, we have three groups: law makers, law takers and law breakers. Each law restrains the takers (law-abiding workers), profits the breakers (drug dealers) and empowers the makers (American and Mexican officials). We're weak because we're moral and don't want to steal or control, and as a result we're fed upon by parasites who'd rather bully and intimidate (with gun or government) than earn an honest wage.

You're not wrong that it's sad, or out of whack, I just disagree that it's messed up. Mess suggests confusion, but this, the Mexico problem... this is nothing more than a business transaction.

Sadly its more than that, we need to help mexico establish a healthy society with limited poverty. I'm cynical to the US doing such a thing and might be biased based on current events as well as the history between the two countries. if such a thing happened, I would prefer if Canada did the job instead since there's so much bad policy between the US and Mexico.

The solution is not that simple.

Mexico has already legalized many substances, including heroin and cocaine, in small amounts for personal consumption.

The one person speaking sense and you get rated down. You couldn't be more right, of-course: genocide is a perfectly functional term to describe the systematic murder of poor Mexicans by state regulation. American drug policy has always been used to attack ethnic minorities, especially black Americans... this violent assault on Mexicans is nothing new and will continue until people are prepared to confront the basic truths of the problem.

@RaceBannon, why should any nation spend resources helping another? The American tax payer surrenders his wage packet in exchange for sub-standard services in their own country... on what moral grounds could a state then redirect that stolen wage to interfere with the affairs of foreign nations? Why should a Canadian's tax dollar be given to a Mexican? By what definition is this violent act of theft moral?

Oh, and hey, what the fuck would America know about healthy societies with limited poverty?

I don't know how you feel about Mexicans personally, and I don't know enough about their history to say this conclusively, but it is my belief that Mexicans are not weak people. Their history and their culture doesn't seem like one which would temper a weak society. It's my belief, based on this faith in the Mexican people, that they would be perfectly capable of developing, industrialising and advancing their own nation without benevolent donations from foreign states. There's absolutely no reason why a free and independent Mexico shouldn't be able to prosper and achieve first-world economic benefits once freed from the cartels... meaning, freed from American drug policy.

Of-course, none of this would ever be allowed to happen under the North American Union, but that's another problem altogether.

Well our example should be the reconstruction of Japan and west germany after world war 2 as well as the money sent to england france for their banks. Pretty much the same idea sans the military bases being left afterwards. If we don't take care of our neighbors well they'll certainly make sure to"take care" of us....

What exactly are you implying? That the Mexicans will attack America if America doesn't "take care" of Mexico for them? America had an obligation to Japan and Germany after the war, but no such obligation to Mexico exists, so either you're doing this out of a misguided and patronising notion of charity, OR you really are scared that Mexico is gonna attack you.

And again, those taxes belong to Americans. Why should American tax dollars be given to other nations? Those taxes are surrendered in exchange for being kept by the state, not so that they can be passed on to foreign powers. That's theft. America has done incredible damage to Mexico with it's drug war, killing thousands of innocent people and destroying whole economies... the ONLY good thing America can do for Mexico now is to end the drug war and step away, so that the people of Mexico might be allowed to recover their strength and dignity.

well I don't fear mexico will attack us, and I agree our intervention has done enough damage already. I was suggesting a purely altruistic action by america to rebuild mexico so that a healthier nation would emerge with little crime. My point is that if we don't do something progressive then the problems mexico has, the mass exodus, the exploitation of undocumented workers by americans will continue and affect the average american in way or another.