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| Image by Manfred Steger, Pixabay |
So there you go, a rare all-party agreement. If I were a conspiracy type, I’d be looking for drug cartel money dressed up as some fancy campaign for a fentanyl czar, because you couldn’t make life much better for a cartel than to be handling the issue of street drugs the way our political leaders do.
A person could spend a long time trying to find anything that makes sense about how we are managing a drug supply grown toxic from a complete absence of regulatory oversight. Believe me, I have. But then I was on a dog walk today in the sunshine and my mind was clear, and I saw the obvious – that our governments are protectionists for the drug cartels.
Oh, they do a good job of hiding it. They shake their fist at “evil predators,” and they definitely throw a ton of money at police enforcement as a distraction. But peek under the surface and all that’s really evident is support for protecting the profits and the market share of the street-drug industry.
A person can’t even really use the term “drugs” anymore to mean anything beyond a substance used by a sad, sick person living unhoused, all because our politicians have fed us such a load of hooey for so long even while everything they were doing was making business better for the cartels.
Most of us take drugs; the only real difference between “us” and those sad, sick people we mistakenly think this “drug” issue is all about is who the seller is. It’s not even about legal versus illegal, because the same drug that is legal in the hands of one seller is illegal in someone else’s hands. (Sex work is very similar that way.)
So how come we’re constantly worked up about “drugs,” then? Because it's the dominant political discourse. Politicians across parties appear to want us to buy our alcohol and cannabis from government, our prescription drugs from Big Pharma, and the rest of our drugs from the cartels.
That’s the only logical conclusion I can come to after a lifetime of watching politicians worry loudly about drug use even while their actions always protected the cartel market share.
I suppose I should say I’m being a bit of a smartass here, to make it clear that that our governments actually being in the pocket of the drug cartels is a ridiculous idea. But is it? How else to explain the relentless commitment to enforcement all these years despite the very obvious and over-and-over-again proof of failure of that one-dimensional strategy?
I suppose I should say I’m being a bit of a smartass here, to make it clear that that our governments actually being in the pocket of the drug cartels is a ridiculous idea. But is it? How else to explain the relentless commitment to enforcement all these years despite the very obvious and over-and-over-again proof of failure of that one-dimensional strategy?
Here’s an interesting fact when thinking about the odds that enforcement can stop the flow of drugs from unregulated sellers: The equivalent of three million 20-foot containers from all over the world come in and out of the Port of Vancouver in a typical year. Ninety-six per cent of them go uninspected.
Next time you hear a politician crowing about some minor fentanyl seizure at the border, think about that. They’ve probably got a drug lord on speed dial thanking them right after the news conference for their continued effort in helping maintain his market share.
If I were a cartel kingpin, I couldn’t imagine a better business strategy than supporting the election of a candidate trumpeting an enforcement approach.
It’s a hopeless strategy that never worked from virtually the first moment we bet the farm on it all those decades ago, and now is practically comical in its proven toothlessness. Yet still it persists, across political party, ideology, “woke” and comatose.
When the thought about cartel protectionism hit me this morning, it was like when I read a column a couple months ago that advised a view of Trump as a con man. Suddenly it all made sense. A person can spend a lot of time thinking why why why in times like these, but then a new perspective comes out of the ether and finally, it’s clear.
Tragically, all of our current political representatives appear to have been corrupted by the drug cartels, and remain committed to helping them maintain their market share. I can’t think of a single politician in power right now, or vying to be, who takes a different line.
That's a crime, or ought to be. Five or six people dying every day in British Columbia, and not a single politician to stand up for them. Got to hand it to the cartel PR types for one heck of a successful backroom campaign.
Next time some politician puts out a fake-weepy news release lamenting all the deaths and promising more money for enforcement, read it for what it is and chalk one up for the cartels. Their market share is safe.
2 comments:
A fair share of contraband profits go to supporting the world's militias. Quite simply there is no better way to raise money for all sorts nefarious ends than being or being closely associated with an import/export man.
It's sickening to see pretty much the whole of the political class, dusting off it's hands, saying how they've tried safe supply and it didn't work, so we're going back to what we used to do, because, hey! that worked so well. Same for housing, inequality and whatever else is on the table whether we like it or not. Were it not so grave, it would be funny to think of all these folks with their bums in the air as they stick their heads into every child's sandbox on the planet.
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