Citizen Staff Writer
RealFAST ONLINE COMMENTS
Compiled by PAUL SCHWALBACH
pschwalb@tucsoncitizen.com
The story: The U.S. and Mexico must focus resources on stopping drug- and human-trafficking organizations that are behind the escalating violence on the border, U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Tucson, tells the Tucson Citizen Editorial Board.
Your take: Plenty of Grijalva-bashing, with little attention paid to what he actually was saying. Hidden among the insults, the Citizen’s online community attempts a discussion of one of the underlying causes of border violence: drug consumption in the U.S. Some representative comments:
• “Our use of drugs is the basis of the problem. We need to use (our) firepower on these stupid . . . .” mustberight
• “If the U.S. would legalize/tax alldrugs, we could pay off our national debt in less than two weeks! . . . Prohibition still doesn’t work.” cwthe1st
• “So long as America insists that drug use and addiction are ‘moral’ and ‘character’ issues, so long will we see violence associated with the vast sums of money to be made supplying the trade. Money trumps everything in capitalist society.” leftfield
• “The solutions really are simple here. First, end the drug war by decriminalizing. . . . . Tax the crap out of it. . . . This takes the money out of the drug cartels and puts it into our government, and we can then use it to finance rehab and anti-drug-use programs” Wearetribal
• “1) Bring our troops home. 2) Deploy them from Brownsville (Texas) to San Diego. Border secured.” davedog
MOST-VIEWED
LOCAL NEWS STORIES
For Saturday, March 14
1 Grijalva wants new policies to combat smuggling at border.
2 CPS saw no neglect, drug abuse on mother’s part.
3 Tucson man gets 19-year sentence in fatal DUI crash.