Five years into Mexico's U.S.-backed war on drug trafficking, the sale of narcotics continues to be a one of Mexico's most profitable industries -- earning violent cartels an estimated $30 billion each year, or roughly three to four percent of Mexico's GDP. The country is awash in bloodshed. Since Mexican President Felipe Calderón deployed his military to take on drug cartels in 2006, some 35,000 Mexicans have lost their lives. And now relations between the U.S. and Mexico are showing strain. The U.S. Ambassador to Mexico resigned earlier this month after leaked confidential cables revealed him questioning the competency of the Mexican effort.
While many say the war is a lost cause, Calderón and Obama insist they are winning, and that most of violence stems from a power struggle between cartels squeezed by the new pressure. Earlier this month, I traveled to Mexico to try to make sense of this contradiction. For our special report "Mexican Standoff," we discussed this topic at length with several experts. We heard one proposal you wouldn't expect to come from a prominent former Mexican government official.
Jorge Castañeda, who served as foreign minister under Calderón's predecessor and now teaches at New York University, thinks the answer is to legalize drugs in Mexico and the United States -- starting with marijuana.
"Legalization of drugs doesn't seem to me to be a terribly radical proposal," he said, pointing out that more than a dozen states already allow the use of medical marijuana, and that California voters came close to legalizing the drug for recreational use.
"So why in the world would American presidents declare war on drugs in Chicago or Los Angeles or New York or Birmingham or anywhere else? They don't want to. What's incomprehensible to me is why [Mexico] should do it if Americans don't want to."
Making pot legal, Castañeda says, would kneecap the cartels, which make their profit from the very illegality of the drug they are selling. Drug users are willing to pay a premium for what they can't easily get; Making pot legal would drop prices and put traffickers out of business. Not only that, says Castañeda, but an above-board marijuana trade would employ thousands of workers, and allow the Mexican government to collect much-needed tax revenues.
Lest you think that Castañeda has gone off the rails, it's worth mentioning that his former boss, ex-President Vicente Fox, recently posted on his blog that he also favors ending the prohibition of illegal drugs, especially marijuana. Both say that doing so will significantly diminish the bloodshed plaguing Mexico and free the country's strained law enforcement to take on other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs.
"If you look at the polls and you ask Mexicans are they worried about drug trafficking?" he said. "No. Are they worried about drug consumption in Mexico? No. Are they worried about kidnapping, violence? Yes. Okay, so what you want to do is attack those aspects of the violence and insecurity. The collateral damages. You want to stop kidnapping. You want to stop extortion, protection rackets, which are really terribly damaging to communities... Now, when someone says, 'Well, it's the drug traffickers who do that,' well go after the kidnapper. If he happens to be a drug trafficker also, great, you got a two-fer."
For now, it doesn't appear that anyone in Obama or Calderón's office will heed Castañeda's call. For now, it is clear that the drug war rages on. Shortly after I returned from Mexico, it came out that the United States military had even begun flying drones over Mexico to track movements of traffickers -- the same type of unmanned aircraft used to track insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dan Rather Reports airs Tuesdays on HDNet at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET and is available on iTunes.
Michelle Chen: Wars on the U.S.-Mexico Border Divide and Conquer
Sandy Goodman: Mexico Drug War a Lost Cause as Presently Fought
http://youtu.be/GINO3cvIjAs
Washington, you keep putting corporate greed in front of the needs of the US taxpayers. Equally the cartel run Mexican government does the same to the Mexican citizens. Two sides of the same flippin' filthy coin.
Someday the chickens will come home to roost.
I suggest that you brush up on your Spanish and learn what "estamos hasta la madre" means.
http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2011/04/imagine-two-countries-saying-estamos.html
it is ScaRy how closely LA city government works WITH south american cartels from anything to importing toxic sprayed marijuana sold in the mega dispensaries, to helping bring in worse drugs (crystal) to sell in the various drug houses in the bad parts of LA....
LA City officials, SD City officials are TOO willing to help south american cartels meet the demand!!!! IT IS CAUSING CORRUPTION HERE LIKE IN MEXICO WAKE UP !!! NOW!!!!
WAKE UP NOW THERE IS A LOT OF CORRUPTION IN THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT DUE TO SOUTH AMERICAN CARTELS
How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico's murderous drug gangs http://t.co/y4H1bYh via @guardian
I have not read this in any US news outlets and maybe there is good cause.
Long since time to go to Plan B!
Schlosser, Eric.
Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
What do strawberries, marijuana, and prostitution have in common?
We can see what legalizing pornography did for us. Gee, what an accomplishment. Now instead of lurking in the seedy back allies, there it is on our kids' computers. What progress!
You need to hit the books, and I don't mean the "Good" one.
Murder: a crime with a complaining victim. Obtaining cannabis: no complaining victim; no one was injured. All the pain and suffering involving cannabis can be directly related to the prohibition therein.
Making cannabis illegal is one of those new, 20th century-invented "sins" that is just like making alcohol illegal. You must not be old enough to remeber the 18th amendment and its after effects.
What is it about this country that refuses to learn from its mistakes? Denial of the truth? History revisionists?
In summary: in 1911, if you commited murder, you would go to prison. If in 1911 you smkoked a joint, someone would say, "What's that?"
Regarding other drugs, what's the point of sending people to prison for using them? We're better off if we treat it as a medical problem or an addiction problem, as we do alcohol. The money we waste on the war on drugs could be partially spent on rehab and treatment and the rest could be spent on education, including educating people about the perils of drug use.
Now, just to add a little more to the conversation, I don't think we should continually fighting a losing battle against "victimless" crimes, such as prostitution. Make it legal, regulate it, tax it and require health checks, etc, like they do in Amsterdam. We drive these activities to the underground and create opportunities for criminals. Besides, if someone wants to pay for it, why does it matter? Again save money on all the costs of policing it, courts, prisons, etc.
We need to use our tax money better.
The War on Drugs was and is nothing but a political ploy and another way for Republicans and their friends to make money.
From drug testing to private prisons, corporations are making money from the drug war just like they do any other "war". As long as we have the profit-driven politicians in office, there is no chance they are going to give up on it.
Never mind that taxing pot alone could possibly wipe out a large portion of our national debt, there is more money going into the hands of our "leaders" from keeping it illegal.
Oddly, the majority of that money is coming from the brewers and distillers who just frankly can't stand the competition.