Has anyone been to Colorado recently? The majestic Rocky Mountains are rapidly becoming obscured by a cloud of smoke emanating from bongs, pipes, one-hitters and joints. Talk about a ‘Rocky Mountain high’ ! Colorado has become a magnet for people whose sole interest in life is smoking a joint and getting stoned.
Spending two years as an Intelligence Officer on the Southwest Border I've seen up close and personal the destruction and brutality taking place right across our border in Mexico. The wanton barbarism of those involved in the Mexican drug trade equals if not surpasses anything we have seen from al Qaeda or ISIS. Not just beheadings are taking place but the outright butchering of other human beings, much of it inflicted while the victim is still alive.
The cartels have also shown a complete disregard for our national borders, kidnapping American citizens here in the U.S., and bringing them back into Mexico where they are subsequently tortured and killed. Yes, most of those Americans have involved themselves in the drug trade and face the potential consequences of that choice, but the complete lack of respect for our national borders by the Mexican cartels should trouble every American.
Unfortunately the insatiable appetite Americans have for drugs fuels the violence south of our border. Some say the answer is the answer to legalize drugs in the U.S. Sorry, but if anyone thinks that will stop the violence they're dead wrong. The cartels in Mexico are interested in the accumulation of power. They will continue to kill each other and the occasional American because power and control are what they crave. I doubt too that they'll be willing to 'legally export' their deadly poisons into the U.S. and pay the necessary import fees and taxes. Conforming to the law isn't something they’ve been much concerned about nor inclined to do in the past.
What should be of even more concerned to Americans is whether or not we want a country that's stoned out of its’ mind half the time ? Or for that matter a single state, such as Colorado appears to be now ? There are those proponents of legalized drugs usage who want the Colorado ‘failed’ experiment to spread nationwide. Those that argue that marijuana use isn't any worse than alcohol fail to acknowledge the medical research and evidence that proves otherwise. I won’t list all the health concerns proven to be caused by continued marijuana use, but suffice to say there is a mountain of medical evidence that marijuana is much more harmful to the human body than tobacco or alcohol. (Insert here the obligatory loud chorus of marijuana users who will argue against the factual scientific and medical evidence, since it doesn’t match their arguments.)
But in addition to the destruction of our society through substance abuse, there is clear evidence that the Mexican cartels have provided assistance to some Islamic terrorist groups who are bent on causing death and destruction inside the United States. Not to say that Mexican cartels are necessarily supportive of extremist Islamic causes, they're just businessmen. Businessman who could care less about any threat to the gringos up north. Should groups like ISIS, Hezbollah, or Al Qaeda want to pay them for their assistance in getting terrorists across the border into the U.S., if the price is right the cartels will be happy to oblige.
So does the violence and drug trafficking occurring along our Southwest border impact us in the U.S. ? Does our insatiable appetite for marijuana and other drugs threaten our national security ? The answer to both questions is absolutely ‘yes’ !
Regardless of what goes on in Colorado the ‘War on Drugs’ will continue. But it will continue with the Mexican Cartels having the upper hand, since they have more allies on our side of the border than American law enforcement does. And people will continue to be butchered alive in order to satisfy the American appetite for drugs.