Ex-cop's decapitated head found

[951-Riverside]

MEXICO CITY - The drug war in the southern Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoacán took a gruesome turn Thursday with the discovery of the decapitated head of a police commander who had resigned his post just days earlier in the face of death threats.

``So that you learn to respect,'' read a message scrawled on a red sheet attached to a Guerrero state government building in Acapulco, where passersby in the early morning hours discovered the heads of former police Cmdr. Mario Núñez Magana, 35, of the Municipal Preventive Police, and another man, who was not immediately identified.

Acapulco officials would not confirm news reports that identified the second victim as a police officer.

More than 140 people, including many police officers and commanders, have been killed in the western states of Guerrero and Michoacán this year as the so-called Sinaloa and Gulf cartels struggle for control of methamphetamine production, street drug sales, cocaine shipping points and other elements of a lucrative trade in illicit drugs.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14395282.htm

[SlipperySlope]

1. .

.

[DrBloodmoney]

2. American prohibition: a threat to everyone, everywhere

No black market... no black market criminals... no black market crime

Wake up sheeple

[justice1]

4. I take it you don't live in the heartland? It's not like pot.

[brmdp3123]

5. So this is our fault?

[DrBloodmoney]

10. We are absolutely responsible!

It's our failed prohibitionist public policy that makes the illicit drug trade so lucrative for everyone involved. Those two unfortunate gentlemen would still be alive today, but for the financial incentive for these drug cartels to remove DEA/law enforcement obstacles. John Walters, the ONDCP, and the DEA woke up today with these officers' blood upon their hands.

I take a very pragmatic view at the War on Drugs. People have been finding, consuming, abusing and enjoying mind-altering substances (including alcohol) since time immemorial. No amount of money, morality, or marketing you throw at the public will change that.

Take a good hard look at the 18th amendment, and an even closer look at the 21st. Then examine the time period between them. You will have your every question answered regarding the failures of prohibition.

Criminalizing simple use, abuse and possession is asinine. This is a medical issue. If people need help with drugs, do we think prison or a criminal record will do that? If they commit crimes under the influence, well, then that is something else. Hold them responsible to the letter of the law. Hold users to the same standards as those using alcohol. And for those who think alcohol is harmless or less harmful than any Schedule I narcotic, I would advise you to spend some time at your local VA hospital on the wards. And yes, it is worse than Meth (or crack, or whatever new 'epidemic' that the media/politicos are 'cooking' up for the drug-war-mongering).

As long as we push the free market exchange of drugs underground through prohibition, these criminal enterprises will continue to operate.

Legalize, regulate, tax, and treat.

It's the last thing that the insert derogatory name here(*) who profit from the War on Drugs want to see happen.


(*) : includes drug cartels, anyone selling drugs/alcohol to children, big pharmaceutical corporations, the DEA, your local police department, the urine warriors (drug testing firms), ONDCP, the alcohol/tobacco corporations, and any other group currently lining their pockets from the proceeds of the most successful effort to systematically discriminate against the poor, minorities, and immigrants in American history.

[wordpix]

14. I am with you but these f**$$!ing idiots running the country won't even

allow medical marijuana use.

Hopeless monkey brains.

[DrBloodmoney]

15. The War on Drugs

is far from over. There is no social outrage at this horrific public policy failure.

Unfortunately, so many have swallowed this kool-aid down (even here on DU).

[callous taoboy]

17. I mostly agree, Dr. Blood, but

I just don't know about meth. Granted, alcohol is one of our most problematic intoxicants. Nicotine has been found to be more addictive than heroin. But after seeing several programs about meth it seems to be a real beast, addictive after one hit and a raging monkey on the back of the user. I don't know if I could condone anyone legally producing it, and, yes, law enforcement (particularly in the cutting off of the supply of ephedrine from India) has had an impact on the amount of meth being made available. Whether it will be entirely wiped out remains to be seen.

[DrBloodmoney]

21. yes, but is it any worse than crack, or heroin?

Every couple of years we are told we have a new drug 'epidemic.' This one just happens to be a bit more sensational because the primary users are white. The same alarmist rhetoric was pervasive in the 80's about crack. You don't hear too much about it these days, but folks are still out there using, dealing, and funding the criminal element.

How about taking the production out of the trailer park and into a corporate lab with government oversight and regulation. Of course, it's not an ideal situation, but, let's step into reality: People will use meth, or crack, or heroin. Give them clean drugs, clean needles, and clean them up when they're done using it (just like we do with alcohol).

[LeighAnn]

26. Worse than crack because it doesn't incapacitate

Crack pretty much incapacitates, doesn't it? I mean, most people who are smoking crack are not likely to be raring to go out and operate heavy machinery shortly thereafter, are they? I don't know, I haven't seen many crack users in action, but they didn't seem like a very productive bunch.

Tweakers, on the other hand, always want to be taking things apart, they don't ever stop talking, then they're bound to crash out and sleep for days on end, and wake up eating you out of house and home (Cheers, Aunt Patti!)

Not a reason to lock anybody up, IMO. The danger comes with the meth cooking, hazardous fumes around children and what-not. I also don't see how people could possibly take care of a child under the influence of crystal meth. But the word on the street is that treatment isn't readily available for meth users, who rarely have insurance. There should be programs to get mothers and children away from meth without criminalizing the situation, but I doubt such programs exist in abundance.

A high society is a free society, I have never met a meth user that wouldn't rather be doing coke.

http://www.skeletonpeople.com

[BeyondGeography]

6. Mexican justice, a threat to secure borders everywhere

It's not just a bullshit economy they're running away from, it's a next-to-non-existent criminal justice system as well.

[Bridget Burke]

16. That just proves that the immigrants coming from Mexico are right!

They are very smart to separate themselves from such a corrupt government. I join with you in welcoming them to the USA.

[saigon68]

28. We are welcoming the swim team are you?

[MrPrax]

3. The cartels are obviously

being protected and while I normally don't like cops, I do feel sorry poor guys (140!) who have been sold out by their own people.

[WhiteTara]

7. meth, the stupid drug

I hope this drug is stopped at the border every time. The scourge this drug has on our society is huge. Families are destroyed, children are abandoned, ridiculous crimes are committed all because this drug really does eat your brain. The epidemic(if that is what you call it) is so bad around here, in a country with less than 20,000 people, we have over 400 children who have to be put in foster care every year, and the number is growing.

[saigon68]

8. Darwin Principle

[WhiteTara]

11. my little niece got caught in it for a short while

almost destroyed her life and would have bankrupted her mother if she had gone to trial. But I really think this is the drug of the hopeless. There is so little for people in this country right now and the constant terra terra terra is overwhelming.

[callous taoboy]

18. Would you condone meth's legalization?

This is the tough one for me.

[benEzra]

20. I suspect that if the softer drugs were legalized,

far fewer people would end up using meth. Just like banning beer and wine in 1919 pushed many beer and wine drinkers toward distilled high-proof liquors (easier to store and smuggle, higher profits for dealers, etc.), the banning of the less harmful drugs like the cannabinoids pushes people toward the harder drugs, IMHO.

I have no idea what the magnitude of the meth problem in the Netherlands may be, but I suspect it's nowhere near the problem it is in the United States...

[WhiteTara]

22. I am very lassie faire about drugs except for this

even heroin is not as destruction as meth. I have to say, No.

[merh]

9. Shhhhh

the war on drugs was so 80's - 90's - you know, Nancy & Ronnie's time.

We have the war on terra now, no time to worry about that war on drugs. Who cares about the needs of our citizens, Iraqis must have democracy.

[Clovis Sangrail]

12. no problem

we'll just call the people selling drugs terrarists!

[dusmcj]

13. If Fox had balls he'd call in Marshal Law

But of course a corrupt oligarchy at home makes the poor masses want to recapture Aztlan, so you can call that a win-win solution. Of course if Mexico takes over SoCal, then it will no longer be a desirable destination to escape to. Neither party seems to have thought that far ahead...

I think a rippin Mexican military presence on their side of the border, guns pointed homeward, with shoot-to-kill orders for coyotes, traffickers and rogue military and police, along with concerted actions involving demolition charges against trafficking operations throughout Mexico, would have a salutary effect on conditions in both countries. Some of the right bodies found dead, on one side of the border or the other, would generate the "respect" mentioned in the described note.

I doubt anyone in government on either side of the border has the nads to make that happen though, so I guess we'll have to wait for a coup either in the Distrito Federal or the Distrito de Columbia, or else ostensibly illegal activity by citizens on one side of the border or the other for things to change. Chiapas and the Minutemen may seem diametrically opposed, but I suggest that the usual suspects they're contending with are one and the same. (Corrupt politicians on their side of the border.)

[Zynx]

19. Drug Cartels can and have bought the Mexican military

Remember, this is the country that at one point had the *president* on a drug cartel payroll.

[SharonAnn]

23. It's "Martial" Law. Military rule.

[dusmcj]

27. I know, it was a play on words

kind of like corporal punishment, general disorder, major disaster, private blunder.

:)

[Jack_DeLeon]

24. Fuck the war on drugs, it has affected more lives...

than almost any other war in history.

[Blue_Tires]

25. sad

the lawlessness in some parts down there is way out of hand