Would you rather accept legalization or give billions to paramilitary cartels?

Indulge me in a quick game of Would You Rather. Here are your choices: Would you rather legalize and regulate most drugs in the United States... or give $39 billion per year to the Sinaloa drug cartel to spend on whatever it wants? It's a serious question. For those who aren't familiar with that criminal organization, it may help to know that earlier this year, its bosses in Mexico were responsible for decapitating 15 people and leaving their bodies on the streets of Acapulco.

So what's it going to be? It's an easy question for those of us who want to legalize most drugs anyway. What I'd like to know is which choice those of you opposed to legalization would make.

Oh, you don't answer hypothetical questions? Okay. What if I told you that "earlier this month, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller told Congress that upwards of $39 billion a year in drug profits from north of the border is making it back to Mexico and the cartels." That's a quotation from an LA Times article titled, "Mexican Cartels Setting Up Shop Across US." Yes, the Sinaloa cartel, the most powerful in Mexico -- a country so corrupt that police officers are being arrested for helping drug cartels hide mass graves -- has outposts in South Carolina, Seattle, Anchorage, and Minneapolis.