As Mexico's foremost female drug trafficker, Sandra Avila Beltran is notorious for her lavish lifestyle and love of cosmetic surgery. Soon, the "Queen of the Pacific" will once again be able to enjoy such indulgences as she prepares for her release from a US prison.
The 52-year-old is set to be returned to Mexico in the next few days after a US judge sentenced her to 70 months in prison but ruled that the penalty had been fulfilled by her five years spent in a Mexican jail and 11 months in US custody.
(snip)She has inspired a number of "narco-ballads" - folk songs which eulogise the exploits of drug traffickers - notably Party in the Mountains by Los Tucanes de Tijuana. In the video for the track, overflowing with Hummers, limousines and helicopters, Avila is portrayed by the Mexican model Fabiola Campomanes, shown jetting into the party on her own private plane.
(snip)Her imprisonment in a Mexico City jail might have hindered but did not entirely interrupt her beauty regimen. In 2011, two officials at the Santa Martha Actitla Prison were fired after it was revealed they had allowed a plastic surgeon to enter the facility and administer Botox injections to the high profile inmate.
Here is the above mentioned narco-ballad she inspired. Is it just me, or should she be imprisoned for life, rather than being released to further glamorize the mafioso life-style? Or should we just call the whole drug war off?
33 comments:
Deborah, Salma Hayek played a role in the movie, Savages, that sounds like this person.
How 'bout we fight it like a war? Hit the marijuana and coca fields with Agent Orange.
Execute pushers.
Stuff like that.
The toll of drug addiction is the real cost.
Our War on Drugs is mostly for the 6 O'Clock News.
I think marijuana should be removed from the equation. Someone told me yesterday that 75% of people in prisons for drug offenses are in there for simple possession of marijuana. I confess I don't know if that's true or if it includes county jails, but I think it's terrible to know that anyone is in prison simply for possessing marijuana.
Our legislators are cowards. I suspect a fair percentage are alcoholics as well.
Legalize it.
I think she should be released to further glamorize the mafioso life-style AND let's call the whole drug war off!
And...
Anybody got her phone number?
phx, edutcher is stark raving mad on cannabis and the war on drugs. Just ignore his uninformed rants on this topic.
How about yes to both?
ndspinelli said...
phx, edutcher is stark raving mad on cannabis and the war on drugs. Just ignore his uninformed rants on this topic.
Yeah, cannibis is just great.
Look at all the swell potheads wandering around.
Makes you wish everybody was high, dude.
Tubular.
How many million wasted every year on that junk?
Stark raving mad, indeed.
What phx said. And John.
It wouldn't be wasted if it were legalized and taxed - like alcohol and cigarettes...
edutcher, We've gone through this many times @ TOP. This is a different, less vitriolic, BETTER place. Let's just disagree on this. Deal?
Yeah, cannibis is just great.
Look at all the swell potheads wandering around.
The potheads I know are a lot less damaged (and damaging) than the drinkers I know.
Anyone who has ever grown up with an alcoholic parent knows, big, expensive problems.
I like the bad girls.
Particularly if they're pretty and brunette.
Instapundit has a link to a commercial running @ the Brickyard 400 comparing beer to cannabis. I love the commercial, but I wonder about the target audience.
phx, You'll hear shortly that edutcher grew up w/ an alcoholic father. My suggestion is that we all just let the man rant. It is simply irrational emotion that drives it and a waste of energy. Believe me, I tried many times @ TOP.
@ndspinelli so far edutcher hasn't been at all rude to me. We disagree but I'm all right with that so far.
phx, nd wants everybody to know what a tough guy he is.
He also thinks anyone who stops to count the cost of drug addiction is insane.
phx, nd wants everybody to know what a tough guy he is.
I'm not being an arbiter between you two. I like both you guys. And I don't care about either of your politics so much - or my own.
OK, just noting nd likes to cultivate a persona here.
phx, You and edutcher are good people also. All I can say on this thread is, to each their own. My default position.
I think, like Prohibition, the war on drugs is worse than the crime. In other words, legalizing drugs would create less overall societal damage, over time.
We started the "War on Drugs" because we found legalized Cocaine, Heroin, Opium, etc.
You write a law legalizing drugs, and then write it so I don't have to pay anymore taxes for increased hospitalizations, medical care, unemployment, welfare, car accidents.
Oh, and is going to be legal to sell to minors? Because if not, you're going to still have drug control laws. How are you going to make sure the drugs are safe and not so impure?
Of course, usually when someone says "We need to stop the war on Drugs" they usually are just a pot-head who wants to smoke dope.
Word. Move to the West Coast.
rc
"How are you going to make sure the drugs are safe and not so impure?"
FDA
So I wonder if anyone's done a cost/benefit analysis, i.e, which would be cheaper in the long run?
rcocean, It's not just the west coast anymore, unless Colorado was moved 900 miles west recently. Legalized cannabis is coming. The American people are as usual, way ahead of politicians and a few folks here.
Deborah, All connections between organized crime growing exponentially during Prohibition, and the hundred of billions of dollars made by the drug cartels is simply coincidental.
The war on drugs provides a good living for lots of failed high school athletes so it's here to stay.
Nick, I understand the connection. I was wondering overall, would it be cheaper to keep the war on drugs going (containment) or to deal with the financial downsides that rc mentioned:
"You write a law legalizing drugs, and then write it so I don't have to pay anymore taxes for increased hospitalizations, medical care, unemployment, welfare, car accidents."
Either way, it's about money and societal decay.
Deborah, Here's my short take. I worked @ Leavenworth, a maximum security Federal prison. There are NO 5th amendment rights. Any inmate or employee can be submitted to a full body cavity search @ any time. You could get ANY DRUG you wanted. Where there is demand, there will ALWAYS be supply. Now, look @ a US map. How in the name of everything holy can anyone think we can stop drugs coming into this country. It is INSANE.
You legalize cannabis and tax it like liquor w/ either an 18 or 21 year old age requirement. Like liquor, states should regulate and set the laws.
The UK tried legalizing heroin back in the 60's and that was an abject failure. Hard drugs need to still be illegal. However, spend the billions of dollars we do for enforcement and interdiction on education and treatment. Work on the DEMAND side.
Legalizing pot is a given, for sure.
Do I have you right...keep drugs illegal, but stop fighting the traffic, and concentrate on demand (education and treatment)?
I've never heard that approach before. It splits the difference between legalization and continuing the drug war...cool, I'll think on that :)
Deborah, You need some enforcement, but w/ the legalization of cannabis, you have ~30% of that money freed up for education and treatment. Take another 20%-30% from enforcement, cutting the supply end by ~50-60%. Use that wasted supply money on the demand side. The more you cut demand, the less enforcement needed.
We adopted our son from Medellin, Colombia in 1987. That was the height of Pablo Escobar's reign of terror. He ran Colombia. I had a conversation w/ a businessman @ the hotel in Medellin where I stayed. He said, "If Americans stop using cocaine we'll stop making it. We also export coffee, if Americans stop drinking coffee[never happen!!], we'll grow tea or whatever it is they are drinking." It is the most fundamental economics.
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