Oh, good. We arrested a bad guy.

The head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has been arrested.

From what I can tell, he’s probably a pretty bad guy who should be put away for a long time.

And yet, when you look at the practical results of this arrest, the overwhelming consensus is that one or both of these two things will happen:

  • His second in command will take over and there will be no discernable impact in the activities of his criminal organization
  • Criminal rivals will attempt to exploit any perceived weaknesses with a massive amount of violence and bloodshed.

So it’s hard for anyone to get too excited about the arrest.

When you reach a point where the net benefit to society of arresting a dangerous, violent criminal is, at best, zero, then perhaps it’s time to admit that you have some seriously broken policy.

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25 Responses to Oh, good. We arrested a bad guy.

  1. Matthew Meyer says:

    Eerily silent…in the Bad Old Days, an arrest like this would see the ONDCP machine kicking into high gear about how we’d finally turned the corner in the War on Drugs…

    • Cannabis says:

      It’s silent because DEA was working with the Sinaloa cartel. “El Chapo” must have outlived his usefulness or DEA made a deal with someone else.

  2. claygooding says:

    The major stockholders of the Sinola cartel have already got a new CEO in place,,or he will be after contract negotiations are complete,,,some problems with perks like bullet proof cars and drones,,,I am sure they will iron them out.

  3. Servetus says:

    Is El Chapo Guzman really the Bad Guy? Should we not consider the criminal acts of the ‘DEA MAN’? …

    (Music accompaniment from the Fugs, CIA Man © 1965)

    ***

    Who plants drugs on you and calls you villain?
    Who can shoot your dog and keep on smilin’?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA man!

    Who can buy the FDA so cheap?
    Change all the research without a squeak?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who can train guerillas by the dozens?
    Send’em out to kill indigenous thousands?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who can get a budget that’s so great?
    Who will someday choke the whole State?
    Who has got the secrets as Service?
    The stuff that makes everyone look so nervous?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who can take the sugar from its sack?
    Pour in the coke and put it back?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who can bug the phones in Nicaragua?
    Out deal all the drug dealers of Chicagua?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who can be so overtly covert?
    Sometimes even covertly overt?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man!

    Who’s the agency well known to God?
    One that’s jailed the kids and stooped to fraud?
    Fucking-a man!
    DEA Man! ….

  4. primus says:

    Could it be quiet because they don’t want to give us a forum? They know what we will say, how many letters to the editor will be printed, blog entries written and articles published all pointing out the logical fallacies of what they say and do. They know that they can’t help but look bad, so better to keep quiet until you have something substantive to report. Is anyone else feeling powerful today?

    • Duncan20903 Buzzy Wuzzy says:

      .
      .

      After a bit of reflection I have to admit that I’m enjoying a vicarious sense of power for the last couple of days. But it’s not attached to anything even remotely Mexican. It was Governor Hickenlooper announcement that he was planning to spend $150 million (give or take) that really gave me a warm fuzzy. Game, set, match unless I miss my guess. Free revenue from people who a politician discounts as having any value to his re-election or other whims is 100% pure political crack. It won’t be long until they’re all jonesing for a taste.

  5. DdC says:

    It’s a point system, same as busting dispensaries and going straight for the client list. One “El Chapo” will turn in hundreds of clients and lieutenants and grunts at a point a piece. That racks up a bundle for DEAth. Cashing in on the “look what a great job we’re doing” spare changing Congress. “El Chapo” alone is only one point, same as the small peddlers.

    “I like your Christ,
    I do not like your Christians.
    Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
    ~ Mahatma Gandhi

    Anti-weed screed in Christian Post reveals ignorance, shocking nobody

    We won’t waste the space on re-printing his laughably logic-free ménage à trois of cigarette/McDonald’s/drunk driving analogies to weed legalization, since Brown himself admits they are nuts.

    At the root of his rant, Brown is fired up that Governor Hickenlooper has announced that he plans to allocate marijuana-related revenues to fund “$45.5 million for youth use prevention, $40.4 million for substance abuse treatment and $12.4 million for public health.”

    Brown’s next bellyache is regarding the governor’s announcement to spend $5.8-million in pot dollars on a public media campaign highlighting the alleged risks of weed smoking, plus an additional $1.9-million on a “Drive High, Get a DUI” statewide blood-limit testing program.

    Kevin Sabet spent years teaching others how to cash in on opening rehab centers and using them to milk the government teet. With marijuana legalization gaining in popularity, he saw the industry as a cash cow and he enlisted a Kennedy to stand by his side.

    “Jesus is ideal and wonderful,
    but you Christians – you are not like him.
    ~ Mahatma Gandhi

    Colorado governor warns other governors of pot legalization
    Legalizing limited amounts of pot for personal use and cultivation has been a great idea, raising millions in tax revenue and creating a newfound sense of freedom for people who choose to use cannabis. But Colorado’s governor feels much, much differently.

    Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told his peers at the National Governors Association that they shouldn’t rush into changing their laws any time soon. Read More >>

    Colorado Pot Market Exceeds Tax Hopes
    Colorado’s legal marijuana market is far exceeding tax expectations, according to a budget proposal released Wednesday by Gov. John Hickenlooper that gives the first official estimate of how much the state expects to make from pot taxes.

    It’s always 4:20 in Denver, at least while Union Station is under construction

    11 Legendary Figures Who Smoked #Pot

    • primus says:

      Hickenlooper looks weak. I predict a strong campaign opposing him in the next election, both from within his own party and from without.

  6. darkcycle says:

    Well, this may be good news from Washington. The “Kill Medical Marijuana” Bill HB2149 has been removed from the Senate hearing schedule. This don’t mean it’s 100% certifiably dead, but live bills don’t get dropped from the schedule without explanation.

  7. War Vet says:

    For the Mexicans and the DEA: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.

    The murder and rape and torture of the innocent means the DEA jobs are secure. If they truly wanted to stop all the drugs, they’d napalm every possible space that can yield a single poppy or pot plant or coca shrub.

    Remember when Rage Against the Machine called the 2006 Mexico War, back in like 97′ or 98′, the ‘Powder War.” . . . it was off their ‘Evil Empire’ album . . . the Greatful Dead with RPG’s and sawed off shotguns. Would the Americans call the Jews fleeing Hitler, illegal immigrants? You know, I’m hardcore about keeping illegals out, but not when there’s this damn south of the border war.

    • primus says:

      Actual fact: during WWII there was a boatload of Jewish refugees which was not allowed to land them in either the US or in Canada. They were forced to return to Germany where most of them were killed by the Nazis. This event was one of the most shameful in our two histories, and betrays just how thin this veneer of civilization really is.

      • War Vet says:

        Makes me ashamed that we didn’t let them stay until the end of the war. Go ahead and put them back on a boat, but not until Hitler is dead–at least.

  8. War Vet says:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/supreme-court-police-searches_n_4854440.html

    Now you can go to jail for refusing to allow a cop to enter if your 3yr old child says its OK for them to enter or if a cop thinks he heard another occupant say its OK.

    • Windy says:

      As I’ve said in many fora, on many different topics, SCOTUS more often rules in favor of government aggression and its unconstitutional actions than it does in favor of the Constitution or the people.

      • primus says:

        That is because SCOTUS is OF the establishment, so their natural bias is toward maintaining the status quo. To look at the situation logically and without bias is too hard for them, because then they would have to question the establishment and the status quo. This would be seen by the establishment as a betrayal, and SCOTUS is like all other herd animals who can’t imagine not being part of the herd. Because the herd might not accept what they say, and subsequently it might affect their membership, they won’t go there.

        What would be required to ‘go there’ would be some courage, wisdom and independent thought, all of which is culled from lawyers through their education and training. Creative, independent-thinking lawyers never become judges, the establishment fears them too much to allow that. The ones who are consistently establishment-centric are the ones selected to be judges, and the most extreme of these, the ones the establishment can count on to do what the system requires, are the ones appointed to SCOTUS. To expect anything other than establishment-friendly decisions from this group is unrealistic.

        • Windy says:

          It gets worse:
          The Big, Bad Freeze
          The Supreme Court just made it easier for the government to take your assets before you even go to trial.
          http://goo.gl/G3X6aD

          Writing for a six-justice majority in Kaley v. United States, thus concluded Justice Elena Kagan that a criminal defendant indicted by a grand jury has essentially no right to challenge the forfeiture of her assets, even if the defendant needs those very assets to pay lawyers to defend her at trial. In an odd ideological lineup, the dissenters were Chief Justice John Roberts and the more liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

      • War Vet says:

        History tells me: We’ll make them Pay. They should have never made me swear an oath to protect my Constitution against all foreign and DOMESTIC threats–nor should they have allowed me to go to college under the GI Bill.

  9. claygooding says:

    Light-up Nation: What Israel can teach America about medical marijuana
    Israel sets a new standard for legal medical marijuana research, production and sales

    http://tinyurl.com/m6l85sz

    Just over six years ago, in the lush Upper Galilee of northern Israel, the nation’s first large-scale harvest of legal medical marijuana was flowering on the roof deck of Tzahi Cohen’s parents’ house, perched on a cliff overlooking the bright-green farming village of Birya.

    Until then, fewer than 100 Israeli patients suffering from a short list of ailments had been allowed to grow the plants for themselves, but this marked the first harvest by a licensed grower.

    The Cohen home soon became a temple in the area for believers in the healing powers of cannabis — a legendary family operation that, in this early golden era, served as a grow house, a pharmacy and a treatment center all in one.

    In “Prescribed Grass,” the 2009 documentary that would open the eyes of Israeli politicians to the vast potential of medical cannabis, a group of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans, suffering from army wounds such as phantom pains and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), are shown sitting around a table at the Cohens’ house.

    There, they help trim the harvest, smoke their medicine
    from a small glass bong and sing the miracles of cannabis. ‘snip’

    Israel is so far ahead of us in research it will take some strong ketchup,,but so far we have them on CBD and epilepsy,,,no mention of them treating anyone using CBD’s anyway.

    • DonDig says:

      .
      What a great read!
      Thanks for that Clay.
      It really points out that all progress really needs in this situation is a willing government, and of course it’s a really big slap in the face for Uncle; had to be said though.

    • DdC says:

      What Israel can teach America about medical marijuana?

      Who do you think taught Israel?
      Americans got them started…

      Former Santa Cruz resident helps lead Israel’s state-run medical marijuana program ecp
      April M. Short gtweekly.com 02 October 2013
      Santa Cruz County Good Times Weekly

      It is Mimi Peleg’s job to teach people how to use pot—she imparts knowledge like how long to inhale smoke or vapor, how to administer sublingual drops, or how to ration out a pot cookie.

      Peleg, an American-born Jew, lived in Santa Cruz from 2004 until 2009, at first working on computers at the UC Santa Cruz campus to make a living. She wrote the book “Everything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups” with the “late, great” Santa Cruz local Robert Anton Wilson in 1995 (the City of Santa Cruz established July 23, 2003 as Robert Anton Wilson Day). When Wilson was dying he turned to the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a Santa Cruz nonprofit that provides cannabis to patients to help mitigate pain and other issues at the end of life. Peleg began working as an administrator for WAMM at that time, and says she learned from WAMM about the compassionate, pain-relieving properties of cannabis.

      While working at WAMM she attended a party with her wife, who worked as a translator for the Santa Cruz organization Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Science (MAPS). There, she met MAPS founder Rick Doblin, who is also Jewish. Together they dreamt of a time when medical cannabis would reach Israel.

      So, when her wife’s American visa expired four years ago, the pair—both Israeli citizens—moved to Israel. At Doblin’s suggestion, Peleg started work at MECHKAR, which was a fledgling program in its first year. (Concurrent with cannabis training, Peleg is also the clinical research associate for MAPS’ ongoing, Israel-based study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD.)

      articles

      Israel’s state-run medical marijuana program
      MAPS’ Medical Marijuana Research
      MAPS Announce Orphan Drug Designation for Cannabis
      Inside the Remote Farm That Supplies WAMM
      Robert Anton Wilson

      Rabbi Ties Jewish Faith to Medical Marijuana
      Orthodox Rabbi Says Medical Marijuana Is Kosher
      On Indications of the Hachish-Vice in the OT
      Just What The Jewish Doctor Ordered?
      Fire is the ultimate purifier

      threads

      Sanjay Gupta
      Using Pot To Save Brains!
      High Times Over for Marijuana Mine
      Time Line: In the Matter of Lyle Craker
      Crop of the Future?

  10. DdC says:

    Big and Little Texas News

    Russian drug czar says:
    marijuana legalization would lead to nuclear meltdowns

    Hemp ‘Eats’ Chernobyl Waste

    Come on Putin, out of the closet. We know you’re in there.
    We also know why you want prohibition to continue…

    Marijuana leads to homosexuality …
    and therefore to AIDS.”
    ~ Carlton Turner
    White House Drug Czar 1986

    U.S. Drug War Destroys Rain Forests

    Don Imus supports Kinky Friedman for Texas Agriculture Commissioner

    “All Mexicans are crazy,
    and this stuff (marijuana) is what makes them crazy.”
    ~ Texas anti-marijuana proponents official records

    Texas senate candidate says
    marijuana advocates have their heads up their asses
    “As this society degrades, I hope they can learn to speak a second language and that language had better be Chinese because if marijuana is your biggest issue then you are screwed and it pains me that you would take your country with you. your views will get this country in a place that liberty will become but a memory.”

    Yes, Mapp truly believes smoking cannabis will lead to China taking over the world.

    • Windy says:

      The stupid, it burns.

      • Crut says:

        I followed the stupid links, and got all the way to his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mappforussenate?ref=stream&hc_location=stream where he wrote:

        The first step that needs to be taken is Decriminalization of Marijuana. It is pointless for us to continue to lock up NON Violent persons who many become a victim of the system and have extreme difficulty obtaining gainful employment because of Felonies on their record. This has to stop.

        Apparently he’s been having a rational discussion, and has already turned around. Maybe his IS a real candidate for government work…

        • B. Snow says:

          OR, Maybe he got some advice from Gov.Perry and realized, using that paragraph then a few sentences or so later say:
          No, ya see – I believe in ‘drug courts’, I mean – we shouldn’t be locking up young people in prison for a joint or two…
          (But, Locking them in a “rehab facility” on the other hand is apparently *Totally* Kosher! Because you know, It’s so NOT “incarceration” – it just looks that way.)

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