Fighting meth a loser's game

According to the DEA, they just made the sixth largest meth bust ever made in the country in Atlanta. Hotlanta has apparently become the distribution point for the drug, which the prohibs finally admit is now largely being made in Mexico and being smuggled in. But here's the money quote and the crux of the problem with trying to "stop" drugs.

He said the Mexican drug organizations, by the sheer volume of their product and their increasingly efficient distribution rings, have pushed the "mom and pop" operations out of business. "They realize meth is a booming business," he said. "They are taking over this business.

This is the fruits of the panic they started over the alleged "meth epidemic." They reduced the small home labs -- at great expense -- only to have the market taken over by organized criminals who present a greater danger than the local methhead who was cooking for himself and few friends.

The local guy was mostly a danger to himself, and his immediate neighbors if his lab blew up, but the new dealers are a danger to everyone. Organized criminals shoot people to protect their terroritory and actively recruit new business. And it's cash on the barrel with an organized dealer so property crime will go up when junkies don't have a friend who will see them through till payday. Thus does a small problem get bigger and infinitely more expensive to fight.

This is why I've come to believe even the "evil" drugs should be legal in order to eliminate the black market. The Mexicans wouldn't be in Atlanta except for the profit margins and legal or illegal, junkies will always find a way to get their fix.