Legalize Immigration, Not Drugs

Here are some afterthoughts and notes from a little Internet study on what I posted yesterday, about how former Mexico President Vincente Fox wants drugs legalized there, including putting cocaine and heroine on the store shelves.

Since legalizing the production would likely increase the production, if Mexico does listen to Fox, yet more drugs will be available to spill across into the U.S. So, we should be discouraging Mexico from the move, with Hillary and others in diplomatic positions applying the persuasion.

How many drug-sniffing dogs are at the border. A good number, but not enough. In 1987 or 1988, two dogs named Rocky and Barco set a record with 969 drug seizures on the Texas-Mexico border. Rocky and Barco were so good, the Mexican drug lords put a bounty on their heads.

But, despite Rocky and Balboa's -- I mean, Barco's -- success, more could be done. From what I can tell, the drug-sniffing is only done at random. I read one story about a man on medicinal marijuana who moved south to Calexico, Calif., to be nearer medical treatment and in a healthier environment. He crossed the border often, and evidently without problem even though having drugs with him. Then, at last, he was caught in a random search, handcuffed, bodily searched, then let go. His drugs were taken from him.

Did the border agents known he had the right to the drugs through the medicinal marijuana laws? I don't know. His story doesn't say they did. He says he was told the dog was "searching for what it alerted to," and does not make mention of drugs even being verbalized. He says they let him go without ever explaining what they had been looking for or why they detained, handcuffed, and searched him.

You might be wondering if the agents didn't know the man was medicinally allowed marijuana, why didn't they then file charges to have him prosecuted? But, perhaps somewhere in the conversation, the man, Charles Berg, told them his situation, even though there is no mention of that in the story I read.

Berg was upset that they should even make such a search, suggesting it should be illegal to search without a warrant.

I would think everyone should be thoroughly searched at the border. It shouldn't take a search warrant. If, per chance, this isn't so, then a legislation should be drawn up making it legal, even if it means going so high as a Constitutional amendment.

Every vehicle crossing the border, and every train box car, and every truck trailer, should be searched, complete with drug-sniffing dogs sniffing every parcel. If this is considered an invasion of privacy by some, then I suppose they will need to get used to the notion this is a border, and crossing the border is not the same as living within the walls of your own home.

We should also make searches of everything leaving the U.S. and entering Mexico, searching especially for weapons. By our government's estimate, 90 percent of the weapons used by the Mexico drug cartels are coming from the U.S., and from what I gather, they are being smuggled in illegally.

Yesterday, I said we should make it easier for those coming from Mexico to obtain legal right to be here. If we make it so the entry papers are issued right at the border stations, as opposed to issuing paperwork in advance, then they will be funneled right into our searches. The drug cartels will no longer be forcing poor immigrants to be human pack mules carrying illegal drugs because the drug lords will know the people will be going through the search points.

But, you say, if we make it so easy for a person to get the right to come across, the drug lords, themselves, will apply for and obtain the right to be here. True, but if they have to come through the legal checkpoints, they, also, cannot bring drugs through. The only way to bring drugs in is to sneak across. They might have paperwork, but they won't be using it.