OT: Tijuana for Holiday Bowl?

[MelroseHawkins]

I had this same idea to eradicate hippies over a decade ago, but my plan was to use Phish and Grateful Dead reunion concerts as bait. I like the way you think.

Anyway, what Mexico really needs to do is contract with the company that is building The Wall and have them build one on the north part of Baja California to cut off the peninsula from the rest of Mexico. Then, they need to get some developers in there and start building resorts and ocean front retirement villas down the entire length of the thing. While that is going on, they need to go to Thailand and India and hire every freaking doctor they can sway to move away and build world class hospitals down there. They need to put one decent sized airport on the peninsula with daily flights to Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Boston, SF, Houston, Toronto and Seattle. Revamp the tax code with a 20% flat tax on foreigners and charge people like $500 a month for health insurance and arbitrage the hell out of drug prices since they are so much cheaper in Mexico than the US.

They'd make a damned fortune. The place would have millions of Americans and hundreds of thousands Canadians and Europeans down there and their economic fortunes would turn overnight. It would screw over Arizona and Florida, but so what.

Will you run for president in 2024?

 

[ssckelley]

The problem is the cartels greatly out earn and are more armed than the Mexican military. Who do you think would win that war? What we need to do is focus on reducing demand in the US, legalizing marijuana. 61% of the income that cartels make is tied to MJ alone, estimated at $8.5 billion.

The war on drugs has failed. As long as there is a demand for illegal drugs, there will be a violent supplier. Killing Escobar, getting rid of Noriega, trillions of dollars fighting drugs and crime in South and Central America hasn't changed a damn thing. It's also one of the main causes of the "immigrant problem" that everyone bitches about. We've been doing the same thing for 40 years and it hasn't made a bit of difference. Try something else.

Probably the only solution is to legalize it all and tax the crap out of it. Those cartels would lose money very fast if you could go to the local Walgreens and buy whatever you wanted to get high.

 

[Ree4]

Probably the only solution is to legalize it all and tax the crap out of it. Those cartels would lose money very fast if you could go to the local Walgreens and buy whatever you wanted to get high.

Hopefully some of the tax funds would be used to fund treatment programs and research to help break the vicious cycle of addiction in this country.

 

[ssckelley]

Hopefully some of the tax funds would be used to fund treatment programs and research to help break the vicious cycle of addiction in this country.

This isn't already being done?

 

[Ree4]

This isn't already being done?

Not really, here's a fun little interactive map to look at to see what each state is spending. Iowa for examples spends almost 30 times the amount caused by the wreckage of addiction than it does for actual treatment.

I was also referring to increasing those $ that would be gained from taxing illicit drugs, which I am not necessarily a proponent of. Just the reefer.

Link

 

[ssckelley]

Not really, here's a fun little interactive map to look at to see what each state is spending. Iowa for examples spends almost 30 times the amount locking people up than it does for actual treatment.

I was also referring to increasing those $ that would be gained from taxing illicit drugs, which I am not necessarily a proponent of. Just the reefer.

Link

Crazy, but that doesn't surprise me. That's the other part of my suggestion, the jobs enforcing (or attempting to) illegal drug use.

 

[okeefe4prez]

Not really, here's a fun little interactive map to look at to see what each state is spending. Iowa for examples spends almost 30 times the amount caused by the wreckage of addiction than it does for actual treatment.

I was also referring to increasing those $ that would be gained from taxing illicit drugs, which I am not necessarily a proponent of. Just the reefer.

Link

Not to get political here, but things like meth, crack and heroin should never be legalized. That stuff is all really bad news. Maybe some sort of soft decriminalization for users and figure out a way to get it to people who get hooked on it to lower price for them or something to try to keep them from turning into total degenerate criminals, but that stuff absolutely kills people.