NEWS : 22.8.09 - Others pay dearly for our cheap thrills

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Others pay dearly for our cheap thrills

THE PUNCH: David Penberthy | August 22, 2009

ON the present sickening trend, the number of Mexicans killed in the drug-related bloodshed that has paralysed the country since January 2007 will hit 10,000 within the next few weeks, possibly even days.

To put that in perspective, an estimated 3500 people died in the 30-year period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It also eclipses the number of US troops killed in the war in Iraq, which at the latest count stands at 4333.

Australia's sizeable cokehead community -- even the casual users who had a discreet line in the loo last night at some groovy Sydney wine bar -- should give themselves a quiet pat on the back for the role they've played in the death of all these people. And every celebrity who revels in the attention of their pathetic battle with substance abuse and who uses their "brave" decision to go into detox as some kind of fashion statement should also take some of the credit.

What's happening in Mexico is a simple case study in supply and demand. A dignified and sophisticated country has gone totally off the rails because its political class, its police force and sections of its judiciary, through greed or unimaginable fear, have become the vassals of the most despicable criminal gangs on earth.

The most recent descent into lawlessness has been made possible primarily by political corruption and the (literally) mind-blowing violence that is directed towards those who stand up to corruption. Men such as heroic 1994 presidential candidate and anti-cartel crusader Luis Donaldo Colosio, who ended up with a bullet in his skull while campaigning in a town square in Tijuana.

The word brazen does not even go close to capturing the conduct of the drug cartels in the elimination of opposition, be it from rival drug gangs or from politicians or the police. It is easy to see why so many good people in Mexico ignore what is going on around them or become involved in it out of fear for their safety. So many of the people killed had been impoverished street-level people heavied into low-level involvement with the warring cartels. A staggering number of the dead were civilians who had been caught up in shootouts in restaurants, stores, public parks.

A few weeks ago, 16 people were shot dead during a three-hour-long street fight in Acapulco, the jasmine-scented beach resort where middle-aged American folks arrive on cruise ships to drink cocktails out of coconuts. It also has become common for warring cartels to execute not just their opponents but the wives, parents and children of their opponents.

In this freest of free markets, driven largely by the West's insatiable appetite for drugs and its moral ambivalence towards their use, the cartels also have acted like any other strategically minded business by diversifying.

At the international level this has involved challenging long-standing drug distribution monopolies in Colombia and Asia. At the domestic level it has involved exploiting and terrorising the Mexican population.

It's estimated that the drug cartels make more money from people-smuggling than they do from the production and distribution of coke because people are prepared to pay so much money to have a shot at a new life in the US. The heartbreaking character of Mexican people-smuggling is that, again, it so often involves the parents of babies and toddlers who have gone to life-ending lengths to extract their children from the poverty into which they've been born.

One of the most moving speeches I have heard was by Arizona governor John McCain at a News Corporation conference in California, where he expounded on why he was one of the few Republicans who was championing a green card moratorium to let every "illegal" remain in the US. He told how he had witnessed crime scenes in the middle of the Arizona desert where entire families were found baked alive in the back of broken-down vans, huddled together and clutching their rosary beads.

The other rapidly growing arm of these businesses is kidnapping and extortion, where innocent middle-class people who have no involvement whatsoever with the drug trade are picked up at random on the streets and held and usually beaten until the kidnappers receive a ransom. Often when the ransom is paid they are killed anyway as the cartels aredetermined to frame their reputation around notoriety.

In one recent case in Tijuana three kidnapped civilians were burned to death and their bodies were chained to the front of a popular pizza bar.

As someone who has lived in Mexico it pains and puzzles me that the extent of this brutality is largely ignored.

The Mexicans are right in thinking that they are regarded by outsiders as a vaguely comical lot generally seen in caricature.

The few stories from the Mexican drug war that have received attention by our media have been of the Quentin Tarantino meets Gabriel Garcia Marquez variety, such as the raid on a drug house in which a purpose-built pornographic movie studio and a private zoo with an albino lion were found; or the bust in the country's northeast where, along with 20 hit men, dealers and extortionists, police found Mexican beauty queen Laura Zuniga, Miss Sinaloa 2008, who had become a gangster's moll and was found hiding in a truck filled with AK47s.

But these stories provide little context to what is really going on, where every day two or three people, on a bad day a dozen, get knocked off in the battle for market share or the pursuit of profits unrelated to drugs.

One of the few media organisations that has devoted thought and energy to covering this war is The Los Angeles Times. Its website has a section called Mexico Under Siege and I urge anyone who is interested in what is really happening to read it.

The reality is that Mexico is being subjected to a kind of moral and civil breakdown that isn't a world away from what a mob such as the Taliban has inflicted on Afghanistan, albeit for obviously different reasons. And despite Barack Obama's visit to Mexico City and the rhetoric from Hillary Clinton about helping Mexico with law enforcement, the Mexicans are largely fending for themselves in this one-sided battle, the origins of which can be traced to our trendier bars and nightclubs where, unlike on the streets of Tijuana, people are having the time of their lives.
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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25963106-7583,00.html
 
as per that SBS cocaine diaries documentary... the supply/demand scale is a complex, inter-dependent process...

to blame the west entirely would be a big stretch, considering most of the populous within those regions are on it, too.
 
Total bullshit to blame the users, blame the Governments who made drugs illegal because they are the ones who made it possible for criminals to control the drug trade.

Even if it was the users fault (which it isn't) Australian's are among the last you could blame, we hardly do any coke and if no cocaine came into tis country it would have no bearing whatsoever on whats happening in Mexico.
 
drug_mentor said:
Total bullshit to blame the users, blame the Governments who made drugs illegal because they are the ones who made it possible for criminals to control the drug trade.

Even if it was the users fault (which it isn't) Australian's are among the last you could blame, we hardly do any coke and if no cocaine came into tis country it would have no bearing whatsoever on whats happening in Mexico.
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Exactly my thoughts as i read the article, the blood is on the hands of the government. You dont see 1000's of people being killed over the trade of alcohol, why? Because it is legal there for creating jobs and cutting down crime. The article is nothing more than a guilt trip and another way of making drug users look like selfish scum in the eyes of the general public :X
 
Australia's sizeable cokehead community -- even the casual users who had a discreet line in the loo last night at some groovy Sydney wine bar -- should give themselves a quiet pat on the back for the role they've played in the death of all these people
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Sizeable cokehead community? You gotta be kidding me

Let's say 3-6% of our population uses Ecstasy at least once a year, our coke use is a bee's dick of that and barely noticeable on the world market.

America's stupid war on drugs is more responsible for these deaths
 
What a joke. Compared to europe or america we barely have a coke scene, and the real blame should be placed squarly on the governments for prohibition. The same thing, the exact same thing, happened with alcohol in America in the 1920's, how did we not learn from the past?
 
What a joke. From An Onymous Lefty

Casualties of the War on Drugs

22 August, 2009 · 1 Comment

David Penberthy rightly points out the horrific death toll in Mexico linked with the criminal gangs known as “drug cartels”:
On the current, sickening trends, the number of Mexicans killed in the drug-related bloodshed which has paralysed the country since January 2007 will hit 10,000 within the next few weeks, or possibly even days….
The reality is that Mexico is now being subjected to a kind of moral and civil breakdown which isn’t a world away from what a mob like the Taliban has inflicted on Afghanistan, albeit for obviously different reasons.
​
Yup, that “War on Drugs” is really helping save lives, isn’t it?
No… wait. Pardon my misdirected anger. David knows who’s really responsible for the deaths:
How poseurs and clubbers helped kill 10,000 Mexicans
…Australia’s sizeable cokehead community – even the casual users who had a discreet line in the loo last night at some groovy Sydney wine bar – should give themselves a quiet pat on the back for the role they’ve played in the deaths of these people.
​
Like smokers are responsible for widespread bloodshed as a result of their drug addiction. There isn’t and they’re not? Gee, I wonder what’s different about the legal cigarette trade and the criminalised trade in which the drug cartels make their money?
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If someone wants to take this position: how many years of institutional poverty have you, Mr.David Penberthy, perpetuated by buying sweatshop made goods from Asia, South America and Africa?

How many children go to bed hungry over that clock radio on your nightstand, how many babies will be born premature and underweight because their mother doesn't earn enough to eat properly while pregnant- even though she spent a good part of her morning stitching those dress shoes together for you?

You can't blame consumers. However, drug users/drug addicts are the last socially acceptable group to chastise, hate, discriminate against. The same bigoted rage behind racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia- aimed at the only group political correctness doesn't protect.
 
As drug use slowly loses its negative stigma, as has been happening recently, new negative stigmas will have to be attached to maintain public support behind prohibition. Enviromentalism and concern for workers in third world countries are big right now, so they are trying to be used to make drug use "bad" and something you should feel guilty for.

Its very fashionable nowadays to crank out these articles about how the marijunana you smoke is ruining national forests, and that your heroin isn't fair trade. They all ignore the fact this is due to drug prohibition and instead blame consumers. Just good old fashioned social manipulation, same as it ever was.
 
oh sure blame the users and not the law makers

The reality is that Mexico is being subjected to a kind of moral and civil breakdown that isn't a world away from what a mob such as the Taliban has inflicted on Afghanistan, albeit for obviously different reasons
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And what kind of comparison is that? The taliban was majorly antidrug, opium/heroin production didn't boom until we moved in and booted them out of power..
 
Another bullshit article blaming consumers. It's government that is responsible for making war on drugs. Government should let people enjoy their privacy and stop being our mommy and daddy. End prohibition and the black market goes away. Do beer truck drivers have shootouts with the police? Do tobacco companies try to kill off leaders of competing companies?
 
^^ If a guy buys a knife and kills himself with it, did the knife kill him or did he kill himself? The weapon should not be blamed. A cigarette doesn't leap off the table and attack some guy's heart and lungs. A bottle of whiskey doesn't leap off the shelf and attack some guy's liver. The person does it to himself. People have to accept responsibility for their actions.
 
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