2 stories about Mexicans and drugs

One is stupid. One is horrific.

1. El estúpido. This belongs in the dictionary to illustrate "racial profiling", starring los pendejos del Servicio Forestal.

Ya know how the Forest Service wants us to be their eyes and ears and nose out in the forest? It's the Smokey Bear* thing, "Only you can prevent forest fires." Good deal. My family has a house in a national forest, and I always appreciate watchfulness. But not this kind.

US Forest Service warning linking tortillas and Tecate to armed pot growers called profiling

STEVEN K. PAULSON Associated Press Writer

August 28, 2009 | 3:17 p.m.

DENVER (AP) — A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling, an advocate for Hispanic rights said Friday. . . .

. . . The U.S. Forest Service quickly retracted the warning. . .

. . . Michael Skinner, a law enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, said warning signs of possible drug trafficking include "tortilla packaging, beer cans, Spam, Tuna, Tecate beer cans," and campers who play Spanish music. He said the warning includes people speaking Spanish. . . . [and] this may or may not represent criminal activity, but are indicators, and he urged any campers who encounter long-term campers meeting the profile to "hike out quickly" and call police.

OK. So now Smokey says, "Only you can become a brownshirt." And indulge yourself in racist paranoia and rat out your brown brothers (can I get an 'amen' for the brown-brown irony there?), the ones that you find in the forest.

You know, the ones saying, "Guey, más espam, por favor."

Gimme a break! Sure, the megazillion-dollar-deadly-serious-way-too-successful drug cartels are going to stash a couple campesinos on a Colorado mountain.
With a case of Spam, some cervezas and a copy of Jerry Garcia's wife's book.

Oh yeah, and a boom box to play their reggaeton music.
Real loud.

(note: click on the book,
then click 'Quick American Archives',
see a big list of books of related topics.
Far out, man.)

Excuse me, but I think you can probably grow pot anywhere from Vail to Veracruz, most of which is mountains in Mexico, and the Forest Service wants us to stake out Colorado mountains for them? Huh?

Nope, those drug cartels are way way too organized and industrial for that stuff. They are fatally serious agribusiness with a real lucrative crop.

To catch the people hiding in the forest growing dope, they should be profiling guys named Mountainsong Peace Herb, 50-something, long long grey beard, silly grin, white skin, red eyes. Listening to "Strawberry Fields" on the boombox.
Hey, you could follow him back from Burning Man!
Whoa. It's happening tonight!!!
Y'all should follow everyone home from Burning Man.

2. El horrible. This one from yesterday, on the border where I grew up.
This is how the drug cartels work, on a massive scale. Right out in the open, in your face, gun you down. Import weed by the ton. Et cetera.

Juárez in shock: Attack considered city's worst multiple shooting

By Stephanie Sanchez and Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Posted: 09/04/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT

The brutality of a massacre at Juárez drug rehabilitation center in which 18 people were killed shocked a city already plagued with record-breaking violence.

A motive for the attack was under investigation, but it appeared to be linked to feuding drug trafficking groups.

The sad part:

Chihuahua state public safety secretary Victor Valencia said such drug centers are sometimes fronts for criminal gangs and one narcotics expert said the slayings are unlikely [to] make much of a difference in the overall balance of power in the drug war. [emphasis added]

They lined up 19 "men ranging in age from 17 to 51" against a wall and shot them with AK-47s. It's cartel-on-cartel violence. La Linea vs La Familia. Juarez vs Sinaloa.
Some victims may have been Aztecas gang members. They coincidentally run drug-treatment centers. (Did you know we have gang members in the Army? Oh, that's another story.)

Go ahead, read this story of violence in Juarez. Learn that Sinaloa Familia bring religion into their drug gang cult.
Click here. Look at the raw video footage from the carnage. No audio, only the street sounds of Juarez at night as gurneys load slowly into ambulances.

Death, big and bloody.
It's what's happening on the supply side of our demand for drugs.
Think about it, particularly if you use the kind we can't grow domestically. The high-dollar kind that people in Mexico are fighting a war to supply you with.
Check into the Betty Ford Center.
You probably won't get gunned down there.
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*footnote re Smokey:
He was a real bear cub found after a fire in the national forest where my family has a home. Marketing made him a legend and made babyboomers aware of fire safety in the wilderness. Smokey is buried at his museum 165 miles north of Juarez in Capitan NM.