It was just over five years ago that I first experienced the beauty that is Ecuador. For a man who grew up in Vermont, it was breathtaking and truly impressive to see mountains five times as tall as Mount Mansfield, the highest point in the state.
Now I read that one of Ecuador’s presidential candidates has been shot to death. Not as an assassination to advance another specific candidate, mind you, but to silence a voice who spoke out against organized crime.
Illegal drug trafficking is one of the greatest scourges of the modern age. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t believe it is the drugs themselves that are the problem. It is only because these substances are kept illegal that such intense violence and mayhem go with them. Without a doubt, cocaine and opiates are often deadly to those who are addicted. But if they were legal to use in highly regulated situations, that danger would be greatly mitigated.
The capital premium that is put on these substances by virtue of their illegality has given incomparable wealth and power to the most vicious psychopaths of the world. These people and organizations have undermined and virtually destroyed almost every government between the Rio Grande and the coca-producing regions of the Andes.
As a public school teacher, I could never have said this. If I posted this while I was still working, it would have threatened my job. But what more pressing concern is there to much of the Spanish-speaking world? How can you be concerned about climate change when your mayor gets his head blown off on the campaign trail or when you see two dozen severed heads lining the highway as you drive to visit your family in the next state? When your 12-year-old son is forcibly recruited into a violent street gang?
The U.S. consumes more of these drugs than anywhere else. If we decided as a society to accept that they will always exist (they will) and to regulate (not condone) their use, we would save hundreds of thousands of human lives. Period.
Elliott Crowe
Amherst