IN JANUARY 2023, U.S. federal agents raided the home of a Tucson maintenance worker who had a side hustle hauling packages across the border to Mexico.
They estimate that over the previous two years, the gray-bearded courier had ferried about 7,000 kilos of fentanyl-making chemicals to an operative of the Sinaloa Cartel. That’s 15,432 pounds, sufficient to produce 5.3 billion pills – enough to kill every living soul in the United States several times over. The chemicals had traveled by air from China to Los Angeles, were flown or ground-shipped to Tucson, then driven the last miles to Mexico by the freelance delivery driver.
Even more astonishing is what fed this circuitous route: a few paragraphs buried in a 2016 U.S. trade law supported by major parcel carriers and e-commerce platforms that made it easier for imported goods, including those fentanyl ingredients, to enter the United States.
We decriminalized drugs in some states here in the U.S.
I even voted for it under the understanding that rehab programs were part of the packaged deal.
They weren’t.
My city’s streets rapidly became very dangerous from the influx of users, with a sharp spike in violent crimes and theft. Some of the parks in my town also became danger zones and needle-hazards, which my family and I had to start avoiding.
We re-criminalized them, and it has slowly been returning to how it used to be. I don’t think it’ll ever go back all the way, but there is a noticable difference in quality of life here, and I think I learned my lesson.
You talking about Oregon? The state legislature torpedoed the whole thing from the start and set it up for failure and as a lifelong resident, haven’t noticed any uptick in the homelessness or drug issue since 2021 when the law was implemented. We had these problems of ‘visible’ homeless and drug use leading all the way back to the '08 recession and prior to that had meth cooks scattered all over in the boonies and everyone under 30 popping opioid pills in one form or another.
It’s almost like when someone completely guts a project in order to intentionally make it fail, the project is likely to fail.
For comparison, take a look at the Netherlands, who implemented the idea successfully.