Free trade fuels drug smuggling

[Judi Lynn]

Feb. 11, 2006, 11:43PM
NUEVO LAREDO
Free trade fuels drug smuggling
Traffickers find a perfect cover in legitimate cargo passing through


By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - The five bridges spanning the green waters of the Rio Grande bustle with more than 21,000 cars, trucks and buses every day. This border town — and its American sister city across the river — see more than $100 billion in commerce rumble through every year.

They're known as "Los Dos Laredos," and few dispute the towns are one of the great NAFTA success stories.

But U.S. drug agents say that free trade with Mexico has had an ugly and unintended consequence: Just as legitimate business people have flocked to Nuevo Laredo, so have criminals. And they have quickly turned it into one of the most dangerous and violent towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, agents say.

Last week, gunmen swept into the newsroom of Nuevo Laredo's main newspaper, sprayed it with gunfire and tossed at least one grenade, critically injuring a reporter. Mexican authorities haven't arrested anyone, but say warring drug traffickers are widely suspected.

U.S. drug agents say they aren't surprised the city of 310,000 has become such a coveted outpost for smugglers. They've worried for years that free trade unwittingly fuels trafficking.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3653312.html

[Trillo]

1. It's the little people, not the corporatists.

"Corruption runs deep, deep in Mexico," said Suneson, whose family has owned Marti's, an upscale Nuevo Laredo arts, crafts and jewelry store, for 52 years.
...
Americans buy more than $62 billion in cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines per year, according to a February 2005 report by the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center.

Great, MSM and psyops is at it again. The corrpution is elsewhere, and when it is in the U.S., it's the "little people" creating demand for drugs, not the corporatists waging a War on Drugs which which decrease supply, raise prices for drugs, and result in more corruption!

Idiots!

[MrPrax]

5. Annoying isn't it...

The trade is SO big and so connected, that it does seem bizzare that anyone in the media could possibly believe that the entire trade is ONLY facilitated by dimebag addicts and desperately poor migrants.

If the coke trade was ONLY the demand provided by rock-frenzied skeletors spinning around in the doorways in virtually every major city, then there wouldn't be an international drug trade.

Whe your dealing with this kind of money--then it's the financial institutions, the importers/exporters, the military, the gov't, realtors, car dealers, lawyers, that is keeping it alive.

[obxhead]

2. Just how much of this problem is caused...

by our barbaric drug laws?

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Demand fuels the drug trade

Thay's why we don't see too many sombrero shops.

[bemildred]

4. And the excellent profit margins ... nt

[Spankydem]

6. How many decades has here been a "War on Drugs" ?

maybe someone should say"hey...its not working" ?

[High Plains]

7. Hey it's not working

Groups are working on ending it:

Drug Policy Alliance www.drugpolicy.org

Drug Reform Coordination Network www.stopthedrugwar.org

Commons Sense for Drug Policy www.csdp.org

Psicotropicus (Brazil) www.psicotropicus.org

Argentine Harm Reduction Network [e-mail]

Mama Coca www.mamacoca.org

ENCOD European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policy www.encod.org

among others

[MADem]

8. I thought FEDERAL AIR MARSHALLS were the problem!!!

They just busted a couple of 'em for smuggling coke!!!

[WhiteTara]

9. I have read that this is the reason for the increase

in human trafficking.

[High Plains]

10. No, drug prohibition fuels drug smuggling and related violence

When was the last time you heard of gang wars fought over tequila?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

11. Do not mess with my tequila.

nt

[Barrett808]

12. More "catastrophic success." n/t