Seventeen more victims of the marijuana prohibition! By preventing any competition to the cartels the prohibition has enabled them to make $8 - 10 billion a year from selling marijuana in the U.S. It's this income that's allowed them to amass more than half a million men, and it's this income they seek to protect by killing whomever they believe threatens it. Last year the cartels murdered more than 6,000 people, this year they're on track to kill at least 7,000 more. Many of the victims are children, police officers and politicians. We can't sit by and allow these murders to continue! The ONLY way to end these deaths is by eliminating the cash flows that fund the cartels, and as two-thirds of the cartels' incomes come from selling marijuana in the U.S. our only option for ending this needless carnage is to undercut cartel prices, strip them of their customers and eliminate their marijuana incomes. If legalizing marijuana is what’s required to end these murders then that is what we must do! We must demand the right to commercially produce and sell marijuana to adults. We must undercut cartel prices, and we MUST end these brutal murders of so many innocent people!

We have a behavioral health services coalition in Houston TX and would like to know if anyone out there is doing anything to support the treatment community on this. Please email me at cbhshouston@yahoo.com if you have any information or ideas. Thanks,

The Mexican Govt. needs to step up there efforts to thwart crime.Stiffer penalties and punishment for criminals.Why is the U.S.A. always the answer to everyone elses domestic problems?We (the U.S.) need to seal the border to ILLEGAL border crossing and drug smuggling and that in itself will help drastically.

mike05 is sidestepping the issue raised by End the Prohibition: if cheap legal skunkweed were available everywhere nobody would fund the cartels. Stiffer punishment and penalties is just more punishment for taxpayers everywhere, the right-wing big-government solution. But that is the solution dictated by Big 2Wackgo in its desperation to fend off its nemesis cannabis.

This is in responds to End the Prohibition, who I suspect is a cannabis user. At first glance his solution appears to have merit. But I suspect it is a selfish solution with no intent on stopping the carnage that is going on in Mexico. His goal is to convince U.S. citizens to legalize Marijuana not to save Mexican lives. The reality is that making Marijuana legal only makes Marijuana legal! It does nothing to curtail the other negative side-effects that marijuana use has to the mind, body, family unit, society or U.S. productivity. The better solution is the old but proven, Supply and Demand solution. Stop smoking Marijuana and using other illegal drugs and the drug cartels will have nothing to fight or kill each other over. Of course this will make every drug user responsible for the creation of the drug culture by his insatiable desire to use and continue using illicit drugs

Since when has Join Together become a forum for potheads trying to justify the legalization of pot! We need to decrease the demand for drugs that undermine our society and endanger our youth rather than make its availability niversal

Marijuana's availability already is universal. For the past 30 years in a row, over 80% of U.S. high school seniors have said that marijuana is "easy to get" or "fairly easy to get" according to Monitoring the Future surveys. This, despite a multi-billion dollar effort at a drug-free America. The War on Drugs is not only a failure, it is a counter-productive failure that encourages drug use, drug production and drug distribution. Giving a drug addict a criminal record only makes rehabilitation more difficult if not impossible. Since about 100 million Americans have tried marijuana, the "drug culture" IS the "American culture". Maybe its the Frontier Spirit that has always characterized Americans that make us more open to new experiences, including drug experiences. Maybe its simple survival--high school kids who experiment with marijuana are, in general, better adjusted than high school kids who don't. As Wm. F. Buckley once said, the choice is clear--you can have drug use in America and high crime, or you can have drug use in America and diminished crime. Legalization is the sensible option. The choice is up to you.

So much for marijuana being "safe"! If people are being killed because of it, how can it be safe? As for "End the Prohibition", legalizing marijuana is not THE answer. It will create a whole new set of problems for society. Just in case you were unaware... Everyone does NOT smoke pot & everyone is NOT !@#$ed up.

In response to Ken, who identified himself as an RN, shame on you. The drug culture is not the American culture. Maybe it is where you come from. Where did you read that? Even if it is readily available and if 100 million Americans have tried it, it doesn't make it right. It has always (since the 1930's) been illegal. That means "against the law". Just because a lot of people have tried it, does not mean it should be legal. There are many examples of substances that are legal (nicotine, alcohol, prescription drugs, etc) that are killing people every day. What makes you think that legalizing another mind-altering substance would be a sensible option? Think again (when you're not stoned). We need as a society to stop sending mixed messages to our children. As a professional healthcare provider, you should know about that. The issue here as originally stated in this post was that drugs lead to violent crime. Eliminate the supply & the demand will disappear, as will the violence. Many addicts don't even consider treatment until they are mandated by the legal system. As for your comment, "...high school kids who experiment with marijuana are, in general, better adjusted than high school kids who don't", Whose opinion is that, because it certainly has no statistical merit. Hey maybe you should do a study on how well adusted the ones who experimented with heroin & cocaine are too!!

I can't believe some of the comments I have read...seriously Legalizing Marijuana is not the answer. I am a treatment provider and have seen the damage such a drug has caused to teens and families. Illegal Mariuana didn't kill those individuals ruthless people did. If it's not marijuana the cartels are selling it will be something else...legalization of marijuana is not the answer.

Good discussion! In my reading of responses to these articles I've noticed that respondees seem to believe there are "perfect" solutions to drug abuse. That if we would only do this or that particular thing, drug abuse/addiction would be a problem solved. This idea is not borne out in scientific literature on drug abuse/addiction. Rather, this problem is probably better thought of as one to be managed or minimized. Belief in complete solutions to the problem will only hinder progress! Decriminalization of marijuana is one possibility to consider in managing the issue of drug abuse. With complex problems, often complex solutions are required. Thoughtful weighing of pros and cons is indicated, rather than wholesale rejection of alternatives. There is no perfect solution. Lets all do some flexible thinking and come up with some creative solutions, rather than demand all or nothing responses to the problem. Further, when devising these creative solutions, we ought to consider the scientific evidence related to interventions aimed at decreasing demand or supply. I am not aware of much success that has been had reducing overall drug supply. I am also not aware of significant success in reducing overall demand for drugs. Could someone point me in the direction of the evidence supporting a tried and true supply and demand solution, a sealing the border solution, a making drug abusers responsible for the problem solution, etc.?

I checked all of the previous posts and I don't see any suggested perfect solutions to drug abuse. I do see some who are open to the idea of decriminilization/legalization and some who are opposed. How would decriminilizing help to manage or minimize the problem? It would only serve to increase use and open the door to more widespread abuse on both sides of the coin, the user & the supplier, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid, isn't it? How can we determine where we would be today if we didn't try to reduce supply and/or demand? I can take a guess at where we would be. Once again, we are not looking at the topic of discussion here, the relationship between drugs and violence. The law is not killing people, people are.

Did I miss something? What does marijuana have to do with folks seeking drug treatment? Cartels move heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstacy, and other drugs besides marijuana. These folks need help and shooting up treatment programs is an atrocity. It is also an atrocity to blame the criminal status of marijuana for such carnage. Have you no independent thoughts besides how to protest the ban on marijuana at every (non-related) turn?

Lots of ad hominem argument here...I was thinking the cartels made most of their revenue with marijuana sales. If true, doesn't this justify the connection between marijuana and the killings. Some drugs are associated with violent crime, and black markets are as well. It seems the latter has been ignored here. We can have both sources of crime, or one. And I would argue that considering the prohibition of alcohol gives substantial insight into what the country would be like if marijuana were legal. As decriminalization has served to manage or minimize the harm caused by the black market for alcohol, then it seems reasonable that we could manage the use of pot comparably. As far as perfect solutions go, they are solutions that solve all problems rather than one, or a few. There are several examples of these in the posts, though I suppose I didn't make the connection explicit. Sending better messages to kids specifically about drugs, making drug users responsible, or moderating the supply of drugs are very often suggested as solutions to drug abuse in general. In fact they are interventions specific to certain aspects of drug abuse. This is just a complex problem, and I tire of hearing all the black and white, or oversimplified thinking related to it. Also, had a couple of other posts that disappeared. They were generally about research suggesting that drugs don't cause the problems we have, rather, they are deceptive solutions to them (I agree that they exacerbate them). What happened?

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As the manager of a treatment program not far north of the border this raises red flags for me. How long before this type of violence moves accross the border? The cartels are also at war in the US. What security and safety measures will be needed to protect patients and staff in the future. Treatment is costly enough but a similar event in the US could open Pandora's Box.

This example of the cartel violence in Mexico is horrible, and only the tip of the iceberg. I wish that Mike05 was more aware of the countries like Mexico and Colombia which are suffering the violence and conflict of drug wars for America's increasing appetite for drugs, rather than us being "the answer to everyone else's domestic problems". The "war on drugs" has been very expensive, and ineffective at best. I am a recovering alcoholic and addict, and I don't believe that living a life on chemicals is really living. My 26 year old son smokes marijuana several times a month, and I am convinced that it should not be a criminal offense to posess and use it. Many police cheifs are advocates of decriminalizing all illegal substances, treating addiction as the medical problem it is, and cutting the price support out from under the drug cartels and gangsters. I wish the government would, and put the money and staff into scientific prevention and non-coercive treatment.

Very interesting comment: "Many police cheifs are advocates of decriminalizing all illegal substances..." Where is that information from? Let me get this straight, you as a parent 'in recovery' are saying it's ok for your child to use illegal substances? What kind of message is that? Aren't you the least bit concerned that he might end up in trouble? If not with the law, with other substances, or do you believe, "It's not going to happen to my kid"? Whatever happened to parents teaching their kids the difference between right & wrong? And what exactly is "scientific prevention"?