In regard to illegal immigration, the left and the right are at  extreme odds when it comes to how to deal with those crossing over into  the United States. The left wants to subsidize them using taxpayer funds  while the right wants to subsidize the prison industrial complex by  locking them up. Meanwhile, however, those of us not blinded by the  political divide are looking at why they are crossing over in the first place and proposing solutions to fix it that don’t require subsidizing anyone. 

The reality of the situation is that the recent spike in immigrants  coming into the United States from the Southern border are fleeing the  inevitable results of the bipartisan policy carried out by multiple  federal agencies on a global scale. 

The overwhelming majority of  migrants coming from countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are fleeing violence created by the US federal government’s own war on drugs. But how does American policy create violence in Honduras, you ask? 

The answer is simple, supply and demand. Because making something illegal does nothing to curb the demand for  it, the war on drugs acts as fuel to the fire of gang violence and crime  in these South and Central American countries by creating an incentive  for criminals to capitalize on the constant demand. 

Gangs and cartels form to meet this constant demand because they are  the only ones willing to break the law to fill it. The void in demand  created by the war on drugs is filled with society’s worst who have no  qualms about murdering innocents to protect their supply chain and keep  the blood money and illegal drugs flowing. Because the United States has no legal supply of these drugs, cartels  willing to break the law bribe politicians in their own country to grow  them and then smuggle their products into ours. 

As a result, the US is actively incentivizing crime thus fueling a refugee crisis. 

To show just how closely related gang violence and the drug war are,  we can look at the effects that legalization of marijuana in only a few  states has had on gang violence and trafficking throughout the US and  Mexico. A study earlier this year showed that marijuana legalization led to a  drastic drop in violent crime in US states that border Mexico. 

According to the study, Is Legal Pot Crippling Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations? The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on US Crime,  when a state on the Mexican border legalized weed, violent crime fell  by 13% on average. 

According to the study, homicides specifically  related to the drug trade fell by an astonishing 41%. Just seven cartels control the illegal marijuana trade into the US  and even with legalization, they still supply most of the weed consumed  in America. But legalizing pot and allowing it to be grown inside the United  States is crippling the cartels and putting them out of business,  according to the study. 

“These laws allow local farmers to grow marijuana that can then be  sold to dispensaries where it is sold legally,” said economist Evelina  Gavrilova, one of the study’s authors. 

“These growers are in direct  competition with Mexican drug cartels that are smuggling the marijuana  into the US. 

As a result, the cartels get much less business.” Because there is less business for cartels, drug-related violence plummets. “The cartels are in competition with one another,” Gavrilova  explained. “They compete for territory, but it’s also easy to steal  product from the other cartels and sell it themselves, so they fight for  the product. 

They also have to defend their territory and ensure there  are no bystanders, no witnesses to the activities of the cartel. “Whenever there is a medical marijuana law we observe that crime at  the border decreases because suddenly there is a lot less smuggling and a  lot less violence associated with that.” Currently, marijuana is only recreationally legal in just 9 states,  yet the effect of this legalization is felt across the country. 

Imagine  what will happen to the cartels when the other 80 percent of the country  stops kidnapping and caging people for this plant. But marijuana is only the beginning. Other similar studies show that countries like Portugal, who decriminalized all drugs in 2001, have seen drug usage rates sharply decline as well as violent crime. To curb violence in countries south of the border—thereby stifling the massive influx of refugees and solving a major problem—the United States should end the war on drugs—all of them. 

The results of such a move would be immediately evident. It would  even serve to lessen the flow of dangerous synthetic drugs from China  which are used to replace the far safer, but already illegal versions of  other drugs in America. 

To be clear, no one here is advocating that the US end the drug war  and then start promoting drugs. In fact, if government simply spent a  tiny fraction of the money it spends on enforcing the drug war, on  educating children, and health and treatment programs instead, the  results would be incredible. The evidence is there and some states are already considering it. 

Last year, as TFTP reported,  Oregon proposed legislation to decriminalize all drugs, including  heroin, cocaine, meth, and ecstasy—because they can see how throwing  people in cages for these substances only makes things worse. Sadly, however, there are far too many people in high places who  profit from the prohibition of these substances. The crime created by  the drug war is used to justify the need to constantly grow police departments  across the country. The drug war has allowed police departments the  ability to steal property from otherwise innocent people, making  themselves rich in the process. 

The illegal drug trade is also used to warrant spending massive  amounts of money on people and equipment in the government which do  nothing to curb drug use but do everything to oppress citizens. Case in  point: the current opioid crisis’ existence in spite of the largest police state in US history. What’s more, cartels need drugs to be illegal so  they can maintain their monopolies on distribution and cultivation to  enrich themselves while oppressing citizens around them. 

The government needs drugs to be illegal so they can rationalize the ever increasing police state. Big pharma needs drugs to be illegal because many of  these illegal drugs are far safer and far more effective than their  patented chemical compounds and they hate competition. 

And the prison industrial complex  needs drugs to be illegal so they can enjoy the massive taxpayer-funded  windfall they receive from throwing users and small-time dealers in  cages. Unfortunately, neither the left nor the right is able to see this and  take proper action. Until we overcome this massive hurdle of state and  corporate sponsored prohibition, we can expect to see more children  being taken from their parents and thrown in cages and more cartels  which in-turn will keep increasing illegal immigration—adding to the  vicious and inhumane cycle of violence and bureaucracy.