Quote:
Originally Posted by Mexdon
I would very much appreciate references to back up this "fact".
The drug Cartels are a MODERN menace and have been around now for about 30 years gaining strength annually but until recently the market for drugs in Mexico was virtually non existant some users yes but not nearly the 3.7 million who use the drug in the USA . The largest consumer of cocaine in the world is the USA and thus Mexico was but one of the conduits for the product that is not produced in Mexico but comes from South American countries. A Google search will provide the references for this fact.
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+1.
As a gringo living in
Central America for many years, I share your perspective:
Central America does not have a drug problem -- the USA has a drug problem and Central America is caught in the middle. For example, here in
Guatemala I have many Guatemalan friends spanning the range of the socioeconomic scale from subsistence level (living not very different than ancient hunter-gathers) to ultra-wealthy. I can't think of a
single one, at any economic level, with a drug problem. In dramatic contrast, I can think of a very long list of American friends, at many different economic levels, with substance abuse problems.
One pattern which makes the gang and the drug problem worse here in CA is that when gang/drug offenders are busted in the USA they have historically been deported back to their home countries. Effectively, they learn a new "trade" in the US and return home with new "skills". Both the drug and gang problems are relatively recent developments in CA and have now reached crisis proportions.
Our (USA) so-called "war on drugs" is a failed policy, but we are opposed to alternatives. For example, the USA recently de-railed an attempt by Guatemala's new President to start a dialog between CA countries about better strategies for dealing with their norther neighbor's drug problem.
Honduras, who chose not to attend this meeting, immediately received a large foreign aid contribution from the US. Most others did not attend as well and I suspect similar donations are pending for them as well.
Given that the war-on-drugs is demonstrably a very expensive policy failure...makes me wonder who is profiting from it...likely the military-industrial complex who our
government now serves more than it's own citizens.
This continued failed strategy has tragic results not only in CA, but world-wide. One of those tragic results is attacks like this one in Belize. Not to minimize this horrible event, but it pales in comparison to the much larger scale tragedies played out here every day.