Mexican drug cartels are responsible for manufacturing and smuggling much of the fentanyl that enters the United States and causes most drug overdose deaths, killing about 150 people a day.
Vance’s repeated calls for aggressive military force, including bombing campaigns targeting…drug cartels in Mexico.
I know that the addicts in question are American, and that the manufacturers aren’t, and that assigning responsibility for domestic problems to voters probably isn’t much of a vote-winner, but I feel that maybe, just maybe, at a certain point, you gotta attach a certain amount of responsibility for drug use to the addicts rather than the foreign manufacturers.
I don’t think that we’re ever going to have a world where addictive, recreational drugs are simply nonexistent. I think that that’s probably a lot more of a dead end in terms of drug policy than people choosing not to use.
We’ve got a pretty potent military. But I don’t think that this is really a problem for which military solutions are all that useful.
Mexican drug cartels are responsible for manufacturing and smuggling much of the fentanyl that enters the United States and causes most drug overdose deaths, killing about 150 people a day.
But we’re just going to ignore the broken healthcare system that CAUSED all those addictions in the 90s, right? Yeah, sure, lets get people hooked on pain killers, and then cut them off cold turkey. They’ll just stop being addicted, right? Right???
Continuing the flood of them over the border hurts upcoming generations too… There’s no winning this without hurting someone. You either control the flow and risk upcoming generations who are also getting hooked on this shit. Or you cold turkey and hurt the generation that created the problem to begin with?
I don’t think there’s a real win here.
Or, you know, you could decriminalize drugs, allow legal recreational sales that can be regulated as with Marijuana or Alcohol, and actually treat (as in clinically treat) addiction like the disease it is.
But then you don’t need bloated police departments dripping with surplus military equipment for that.
No no, I’m talking about today. We already cut off the generation that started the problem cold turkey…but I’ve never seen anything done about it. I don’t see health care trying to take responsibility for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans addicted to it today. There should be a medically overseeing program which helps them reduce their dependancy.
It’s simple supply and demand. I’ve never met an addict who says he enjoys being addicted. You take away the dependancy, you take away the demand. Without the demand for these drugs, the supply doesn’t matter. Like trying to sell disco records in 1988. Instead, he’s campaigning to bomb the shit out of our nearest land neighbor. Everytime I watch these hypothetical military videos, if they cover the subject of “What would happen if the USA went to war with…” and insert any country in the world besides Canada and Mexico, the answer is always the same. “It wouldn’t get far, because the USA is seperated by 2 oceans, with the worlds most equiped military providing funding for naval and arial support. Just making landfall in the USA would be impossible.”
But every one of those videos assumes that the USA isn’t dumb enough to start wars with Canada or Mexico. Granted, I don’t see Mexico as much of a military opponent, I think things could get violent along the southern border. Instead of the usual activity of random people trying to jump the border for freedom, imagine instead the entire nation storming the border with guns. Not even a military. Just a bunch of pissed off folks, who just saw their country get bombed. And I honestly wouldn’t blame them at that point.
But what are republicans going to do? Annex Mexico? Ok, now you just made millions of Mexicans into US citizens. I’M fine with that, but I don’t think trumps base would be.
They really don’t think these things through, do they?
Doesn’t matter how much you bomb Mexico. If there is a demand for drugs there will be a supply. No matter the price. A drug addict will do ANYTHING to get it
Cutting the supply would only work if you’re somehow able to cut almost all supply for 30 years straight, until the currently addicted people die off or sort themselves out
To stop the drugs you need to stop the demand for drugs. Treat addicts instead of arresting them. And oh my god stop prescribing literal Opioids as “treatment”
It’s both actually. Obviously if you make drugs more rare, the price goes up. And when the price goes up, there will always be an amount of people that cannot pay it. The problem is that they’re then usually pushed to do something cheaper, but if the cheaper drugs are less likely to harm people, that can be a win.
Cutting supply isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing. Part of the current problems are actually worse though because the worse drug is being added to a lot of other drugs that already have demand. So in this case it would help a lot more than usually because the dangerous substance isn’t necessarily what the addiction is for.
Drug addiction is a mental health problem. Reducing supply may have some effect in reducing overdoses in the short term, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issue, and it’s likely that new and potentially even more dangerous sources will pop up quickly. And military action is absurdly heavy handed and unless Mexico are on board with it, I can’t see it ending well (and even then).
He’s leaving out the fact that the people smuggling in fentanyl are mostly U.S. citizens. Shockingly, citizens are less likely to be searched and you can smuggle a huge amount of fentanyl in a tiny container. Who is he planning on bombing to stop that?
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/09/1191638114/fentanyl-smuggling-migrants-mexico-border-drugs
It’s still Mexicans, isn’t it?
Yes, but a lot of the current drug epidemic stems from over-prescription of opiates like oxycontin. Another big factor is the absolute garbage availability of social services. If you’re homeless, cold, and in pain, heroin is a great way to feel better for a while. Housing and healthcare would go a long way to keep people away from drugs.
Very few people say “you know, this weekend I think I’ll take up smoking meth”. There’s usually something that puts them in a vulnerable position that makes it seem like a good idea.
