I think the only problem with legalizing drugs to solve the problem is that what's causing all the shite is coke and other hard drugs (not weed). A pound of mexican ditch weed is cheap as hell, a pound of coke worth tons. I think soon (ok, might take some years but definitely things are changing) we'll have legalized bud, but I just can't see them legalizing coke and crap that brings the big money. It is so screwed up there tho, very scary. Really, it reminds me a little bit of Iraq in many ways. Just like they used to kill Iraqis to scare people out of being police, seems like the same thing in Mexico. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-police21-2009feb21,0,5260268.story
im about an hour away from juarez. so I get the news a bit earlier. speaking of the police chief quitting, he saved his life. these guys are dead serious when they make a threat. this is what happend to the new juarez police chief who took his place. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/20/New_police_chiefs_head_left_at_station/UPI-47911232502839/
Marijuana is how these cartels get started though. It takes cash to be able to purchase large amounts of coke and heroine for shipment to the US. These guys get started by having grow ops spread all throughout the countryside. They cost next to nothing to get started and anything they can get across the border is essentially pure profit. A couple runs across the border even at like 300 a lb, can get you a nice tidy sum for that first big coke purchase. If one of their guys gets busted at the border they dont care because there are plenty more were he came from and they are sitting on weed in the tons instead of lbs. Legalization would like cutting the achilles heel of the drug cartels. With no new gangs being started and the operating cash gone, they will soon kill each other off until they become manageable again by the Mexican authorities.
Actually, the Mexican gangs made and make their biggest bucks (and get their start from) transporting cocaine from Columbia to the us. Most Colombian cartels (Pablo Escobar, the Cali cartel) used to sell to the Mexicans who would transport it north. The Columbians ony recently have tried to expand because of competition and whatnot (through Hati for example). If you legalized weed tomorrow, its not going to stop one Mexican cartel. California's biggest cash crop is marijuana, they grow more now than ever and it hasn't effected the Mexican gangs. Even in Amsterdam, where weed is legal, there still is a butt load of smuggling of heroin and coke. Most Americans also don't care for Mexican ditchweed, schwag, whatever you call it. The big shipments are controlled by Mexican gangs, but thats because they already control the smuggling for coke, not because they make bank off of it. Basically, the huge majority of weed sold in the US is homegrown. I'll agree that in the 70s and 80s, when heroin and coke first hit - and even in Columbia, the former weed smugglers turned to coke, because there was more profit in it. Nowdays, no significant Mexican gang started with weed and moved to Coke. Whats messed up is that many gangs get their start in running guns from the US to Mexico or the insane problem of kidnapping (which is a wicked problem in Mexico, I believe they even kidnapped a couple weeks ago an 'expert' in preventing kidnapping from a conference just to show they can). If you want to read a sweet book about how the rough history of coke and how the US helped track down and kill Pablo Escobar, read Dan Bowden's book "Killing Pablo" - its the same dude who wrote Blackhawk Down and the way he writes is pretty sweet.
The thing with the marijuana being legal in mexico, it would create jobs for mexicans that aren't crime related, which would be a boost to the economy.