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Around the nation for years, we
have been trying to eradicate drugs from
our lives.
Now we celebrate a major
victory in the war on drugs with the arrest
of Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, the
drug lord of a very powerful Mexican Gulf
drug cartel.
Costilla, nicknamed “El Coss”
was captured Sept.12 in the city of
Tampico. Costilla has been accused in
the U.S. for illegal drug trafficking and
threatening to harm American law
enforcement officials in 1999. The U.S.
State Department offered a reward of $5
million for information about him. Mexico
placed him on the government’s 37 most
–wanted drug traffickers and offered $2
million for his capture. He was found
when a few marines from the Mexican
military followed armed men in a vehicle
and chased them all the way to Tampico
where Costilla was found. Costilla is
considered to be the boss of Mexico’s
third-most powerful criminal gang. This
arrest was the result of an offensive on
drugs mounted by the Mexican
government headed by its president,
Felipe Calderon.
Up until now, the war on drugs
in Mexico has been relatively
unsuccessful so far in ways of stopping
drug violence and the amount of drugs
that are transported throughout Mexico.
Costilla’s capture deals a heavy blow to
the Gulf drug cartel – one of Mexico’s .
most powerful crime and drug trafficking
organizations.
However, let’s not celebrate too
quickly.
The broader problem is the use
of drugs in America. There are still other
organizations and groups out there that
smuggle drugs to the U.S.
“It is impossible to get rid of
these drug lords, because there’s always
someone to take their place,” said eighth
grade teacher, Mr. Trowell, “You can
Sept. 28, 2012
War on drugs suffers major setback, but…
JONG HAK WON
The arrest of Mexican drug lord Jorge Sanchez was a major victory in the war on drugs.
disrupt their activities, but you can’t stop
them permanently.”
As shown in the recent Teen
Truth presentation (page 1), abusive drug
use is rampant in the U.S. It also shows
the horror of drug abuse and what
lifestyle you will lead in the future once
you open the door to this dark world.
Sadly, many have already opened this
door and have lived in this shadowed
area of the world for a long time. The
people who fall victim to this dark place
deteriorate both mentally and physically
as shown in Teen Truth. Abusing drugs
may seem an exciting path to take, but it
eventually ends in misery. These sad
effects demonstrate the ever-increasing
need to crack down on the marketing and
illegal use of drugs.
“The main problem is
recreational and addictive drugs that are
too easy to get addicted to,” Mr. Trowell
continued, “We have an issue with these
recreational and addictive drugs, so the
U.S needs to clean up its act.”
The toll that the anti-drug
campaign is taking on our country is
staggering. As rampant drug use
Google
continues, more money is sapped out of
the government. In 2010 alone, the U.S.
government spent $15 billion in the war
on drugs – or $500 per second.
Furthermore, people are being
thrown in jail for drug abuse than ever
before. But that’s not all of it. In
California, it takes approximately $47,000
to keep an inmate in jail for one year.
Almost one in five people in state prisons
and half of all inmates in federal prisons
are in there for drug abuse. It’s not just an
economic cost either. A total of 55,000
Mexicans and tens of thousands of
Central Americans have lost their lives as
a result of drug-fueled violence.
Unfortunately, it seems hopeless
as every time a drug lord is taken down,
another one rises up. Every time we cut
off a head, another one grows in its
place. The actual usage of drugs by
Americans is the pressing problem and
one that will be hard to solve.
The war on drugs is a tough
problem that needs to be tackled by the
U.S. government. Hopefully, we’ll be able
to properly address this problem in the
future.
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