Covering and Uncovering Flagstaff's Underground Drug Market

It’s not easy for me to hide my sympathy for those convicted of drug crimes. Last week I read about the arrest of “Don Pepe,” a Mexican drug kingpin who allegedly was in charge of transporting 440 pounds of heroin per month into southern California.

My first thought was, “Well, now where will Californians get their heroin?”

But that same day, I read about the murder of a southern Arizona rancher at the hands of drug cartel scouts (http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/89803402.html).

Though I consider myself an inflexible and even theoretically militant supporter of natural human rights – such as the right to purchase, possess, and consume any substance – my admitted preference for indulgent and libertine tendencies causes me to forget how deplorable drug cartels and their associates can be. I guess because I never considered a law enforcement agent to be any less reprehensible than a drug dealer, I would err on the side of sympathizing with the criminal.

But reflecting on the numerous uninvolved, innocent people who die each day in a manner similar to Robert Krentz’s case forced me to reexamine the reality. The same reality that all my principles are based on: everything must eventually be reduced to the individual and the choices made by the individual.

Similarly, the drug cartels must be reduced to the individual. As a collective, it’s only an organization of people providing a service. This is where my judgmental scope has been limited. Because in theory I do support their right to conduct such business. But when it’s broken down to the individuals comprising such an organization as a drug cartel, I should not support their means of conducting business.

In my opinion, would violence and property crimes decrease if our drug laws were reformed (dissolved)? Yes. In my opinion, are drug users and drug traffickers unjustly persecuted? Yes. But nevertheless, they have made a choice to be involved in illicit practices and when they commit acts of violence and murder, they are only choosing further.

I am now in a position where I deem the law to be evil, and I deem the drug cartels to be evil. I’m left with the fairly simple deduction that when two indefensible ideologies clash, choosing evil becomes the mainstream methodology and to seek morally justifiable alternatives is forgotten or ignored.

-Joe M.