618

The mayor of a Mexican city plagued by drug violence has been murdered less than a week after taking office.

Alejandro Arcos was found dead on Sunday in Chilpancingo, a city of around 280,000 people in the southwestern state of Guerrero. He had been mayor for six days.

Evelyn Salgado, the state governor, said the city was in mourning over a murder that "fills us with indignation". His death came three days after the city government's new secretary, Francisco Tapia, was shot dead.

Authorities have not released details of the investigation, or suspects. However, Guerrero is one of the worst-affected states for drug violence and drug cartels have murdered dozens of politicians across the country.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] clover@slrpnk.net 143 points 1 day ago

If there wasn't such a strong black market for illegal drugs in the US, these cartels wouldn't have this much power/money.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 70 points 1 day ago

Cartels sell more than drugs these days. They learned in the 90s that diversifying into different products gave them more stability against drug enforcement. Avocados have turned into legal profit. Logging in another business. Neither of these things will be affected by someone quitting drugs. Stop building houses and stop eating avocado now.

[-] Mango@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Are you telling me they're doing the same shit as our actual government now? We may as well consider them a country at this rate.

[-] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 14 points 1 day ago

They might be only able to do those other things since they are able to pay an army to terrorize, intimidate and bribe local and state government's into allowing them to exist and set up these protection racquets. It takes a lot of money to be able to be more powerful then a government, I don't think selling avocados or logging could generate that much

[-] Mango@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

Selling anything necessary can generate a lot of you're making sure you can't have competition. That's the whole trick of the protection racket. It's what police do here. They're dressed up more, but do the same.

[-] Delta_V@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Avocados and logging also don't need to worry about getting shut down by the law like the cocaine and heroin business does.

Legalize the coke and dope, and the incentive to resort to violence to avoid criminal penalties goes away.

[-] andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Muh avocado toast!

[-] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago

I think I heard from somewhere that while that might have worked decades ago the cartels have diversified their ‘business’ to the point where drug legalisation wouldn’t kill them. We should still legalise drugs but I doubt they’ll fix the cartel issue.

[-] P00ptart@lemmy.world 8 points 19 hours ago

It wouldn't end them ENTIRELY, as there were ruthless organizations before drugs, too. What it would do is make it much less profitable. Meaning less to kill someone over.

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

So, I don't disagree, but we legalized weed in the civilized parts of the country and it had little effect, I'm not sure I want to legalize cocaine, it's much better at killing people.

[-] Kalkaline@leminal.space 22 points 1 day ago

Portugal set the standard years ago. Legalize it and divert all the money that would go to incarceration to inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation for drug addiction.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

Minor clarification -Technically it was decriminalized, not legalized. Distribution will send you to jail and, after 2 or more possession offenses, you’re forced into a treatment program.

And sadly, things have started to get worse again in Portugal. Lately they’ve been sending fewer people to treatment, and surprise surprise, usage and deaths have gone up.

[-] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I believe Switzerland was the first country to establish centers where drug addicts would receive a controlled dosage for "free." Of course paid for by taxes. The Suisse found out crime decreased, the parks were cleaner and emergency rooms saw fewer overdose patients. Basically a win across the board.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

That happens when much of citizenry can be characterized as "rich blokes who will take coke at some point with no shadow of doubt". When everyone involved knows that, including the voters, it's an easy decision.

However, in many other countries the general population mostly forms their opinion on drugs, weapons and even political freedoms based on fear of what will happen.

They don't look at all this critically, thus don't understand that the worst things happening because of the current state of things they don't know anything about, because information is not and will never be as available as their thought process requires.

That involves said current state of things funding things like cartels, criminal groups in governments involved in drug trade (it's much more profitable when you ban all the competition), creating a vector of control over addicted people. These all have ugly consequences - violence abroad, strong (and rich) mafia groups in governments.

The correct thought process would be comparing abstract mechanisms. In abstract no consumable substance should be illegal, provided the buyer knows its contents and effects.

BTW, in abstract the right policy about weapons ownership would be opt out, not opt in, - mandatory mental examination of every adult citizen, but also mandatory weapons ownership for those who pass it! Perhaps except felons. With other exceptions being a process involving some justification being filed - as in pacifist views, religious reasons, bad atmosphere in family thus inability to keep it secure, something like that. It's not about "good guy with a gun", it's about distributing real power. People who should own weapons are not the same people who want to own weapons generally. Thus mandatory.

[-] dwindling7373@feddit.it 26 points 1 day ago

Little effect in what regard?

I think they're saying that legalizing weed hasnt done anything to reduce Mexican cartel influence or violence.

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 47 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Why would it? It’s the bulkiest, smelliest, lowest cost drug there is. Mexican weed sucked ass too. Moving cocaine or especially ultra high strength opiate analogs is significantly more lucrative.

Making things illegal doesn’t work. Not alcohol, not drugs, not abortion. It needs to be addressed by education. The current just say no abstinence approach leaves people ill prepared for when they encounter drugs. Our relationship with drugs is fucked, currently. Altering our state of consciousness with drugs is a fundamental part of being human.

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

I think legalizing weed didn't make that much of a difference because the whole claim that buying random weed from a random dealer put money in cartel or terrorist pockets was a lie.

Not that there weren't any large weed organizations, they just weren't murdering people at the scale the cartels are or doing it to fund violence.

They'd also rely a lot on temporary workers since trimming was really the only labour intensive step, and then it would be sent out into a distribution network that wasn't so much an organization as it was a collection of independent or small scale distributors. Which in some locations might have been gangs, but I'd guess was mostly normal people looking to make some extra money.

[-] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

We don’t need to legalize. If we decriminalized, then took the money for jailing and funded mandatory treatment, we could do what Portugal did in the early 00’s.

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I'm actually fine with decriminalizing consumption so long as distribution (real distribution, not piddly shit) stays illegal, at least without proper licensing, etc.

I'm not thrilled about it but I'm open so long as cocaine and heroin aren't fully legalized.

[-] Pringles@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago

I am sure. Legalize all of it. Legalize it, regulate it, tax it, use half of the new income for prevention and education, one quarter for medical support for addicts and the rest fills the coffers. You take away the power from the criminal gangs, while at the same time increasing your tax revenue, adding new legal avenues of business and minimizing the health impact considerably.

[-] _wizard@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Still waiting for legal grass.

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Assuming you’re in the US:

It’s called THCa and is the same weed you’ve been smoking your whole life. You can get ounces to your door in the mail 100% legally thanks to a poorly written Farm Bill.

The farm bill only states a certain % of THC is illegal. Well, THC isn’t on the plants in large quantities - that only exists once you heat the cannabis to isomerize it from THCa to THC. It’s not delta 8 or some weird synthetic cannabinoid, weed has always been THCa before it’s heated.

There are dispensaries all over Texas these days selling great weed with this loophole. Texas, of all places.

[-] _wizard@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Good to know. I moved out over a year ago. Going back EOM for a family visit. Hate landing anywhere dry, so I'll probably check these out.

[-] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

California announced they’ll be opening cannabis cafes

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Come do some smoking tourism in BC!

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

As I said, the civilized parts of the country.

this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
618 points (99.7% liked)

World News

38782 readers
2791 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS