Mexico's drug problem isn't.
Mexico's drug problem, that is.
It's America's drug problem.
And our looking at it backwards is a huge part of the problem itself.
We sit and blame Mexico for smuggling drugs across our border as if we were innocent in all this. As if the evil (and they are) Mexican drug cartels are forcing Americans at gunpoint to consume illicit drugs.
(The proposition is not as far-fetched as its sounds. In 1842, Great Britain forced China to accept opium importation, and took the island of Hong Kong to use as a staging base.)
We condemn Mexico for exporting drugs while ignoring the inverse dynamic -- we are importing the drugs. We are the ones bringing in 20 tons of heroin, 110 tons of methamphetamine, 330 tons of cocaine and literally countless tons of marijuana annually.
The cartels could stack up drugs on this side of the border until California tilted into the ocean, and if we weren't using them, it wouldn't matter. The drugs would be worthless, instead of the multi-billion dollar product that we have made them.
Mexico has every right to be furious.
We insist that the Mexican government 'crack down' on the drug cartels, while at the same time we maintain the world's largest drug market just across its border. We condemn Mexico for its corruption while ignoring the societal rot in our own culture. We act appalled at the (appalling) level of violence in Mexico without ever acknowledging our own share of the responsibility for perpetuating it.
Just for the sake of getting a different perspective, turn the map upside down for a second. Just to get a fresh look, put Mexico to our north and consider the situation.
What if we had highly-armed, wealthy and immensely powerful criminal organizations thriving in the United States -- 'cartels' whose combined power rivaled the national government. Let's say that they had enough money to bribe politicians, judges, police, even the military. Let's suppose that they felt so insulated from consequences that they assassinated police chiefs, mayors and journalists. That they were responsible for an average of ten thousand violent deaths or disappearances a year. That they conducted unspeakably grisly tortures by way of vengeance and intimidation. In the streets of New York, Chicago and L.A.
Now let's say that Mexico funded them.
To the tune of $25 billion annually.
Go just a little further and say that Mexican entrepreneurs supplied them with the guns they use to kill.
How long would the U.S. tolerate that situation?
Months? Weeks? Days?
What if Mexican drug consumers were funding, let's say, terrorist organizations inside the United States? How long would it be before the tanks started rolling?
But that's exactly what we do to Mexico. Our drug money goes south (along with our guns), perpetuating the power of the violent cartels, creating untold misery and suffering for the Mexican people, destabilizing their society, government and economy.
(It is estimated that fully 10% of Mexico's economy is built on drug proceeds.)
At the same time, we commit more billions ($10 billion in 2011, twice what we spent of treatment and prevention) to try to interdict the drug traffic, money that only drives up the price and gives more profit and power to the cartels that control the prime smuggling turf. We increase the violence in Mexico both by buying the drugs and then by trying to stop them from coming in.
And then we call it the 'Mexican drug problem.'
We're Mexico's drug problem.
Follow Don Winslow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/donwinslow
Rev. Jesse Jackson: Rep. Issa Waging Phony Drug War
If Mexico would legalize drugs, the violence would immediately move north of the border into the United States. Problem solved, for them.
Perhaps if we start by decriminalizing Marijuana and stop wasting the billions of dollars we spend annually by chasing down, prosecuting and incarcerating simple cannabis users and instead legalize and tax marijuana the same as you tax alcohol and cigarettes, that would free up valuable money (not to mention be a great source of tax revenue) and resources to educate the public about much more serious and dangerous drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine and enforce those laws and increase rehabilitation access and programs better.
Next, the U.S. needs to look within its own political system and find out what really drives the Mexican Cartels and where that money really is coming from. We may be very surprised to see that it is our own corrupt political system and politicians that turn a blind eye and even cooperate with an already corrupt political system in Mexico, which is run by the very same corrupt politicians (who themselves are criminals) both here and in Mexico. Then and only then when the U.S. looks in the mirror to see who the real culprits are and who the real victims are will we ever see the truth for what it really is, and then perhaps we can find a solution to the problem we love to blame Mexico for.
This is obviously a fallacy of logic and the truth lies in that until the public's desire for drugs is acknowledged and re-affirmed on the federal level as a part of life!
While I agree that "we" are the problem, the "we" are our expectations of what various laws can achieve in the face of inevitable demand for drugs.
Because marijuana is not as harmful as the drug warriors make it out to be, I agree with legalizing, regulating and taxing it. As for harder drugs, I agree with decriminalization. Ciminalization drives a wedge between users who need help getting off of them and the government that should be helping them do so. In place of criminal statutes, civil law remedies should be enacted to suppress the drug trade. Specially designed civil statutes could allow anyone in the drug market logistic chain to sue those who supplied them with such drugs.
The perceived threat of civil suits between drug transaction parties could have a very strong dampening affect on drug market activity. Because civil suits have lower thresholds than criminal suits for juries to find plaintiffs guilty (a preponderance of the evidence versus beyond a reasonable doubt), the threat of civil suits are more likely to be an effective deterrent to drug market activity than criminal prosecution has been. Also, because civil trial lawyers would then have the economic incentive of being on the side of PLAINTIFFS seeking damages from drug suppliers, the legal resources that could be marshaled to surpress the drug trade would not be restricted by the budgets and/or zeal of government prosecutors.
Don,
The notion that "we (Americans) are the problem" is not new. That is why "law & order" politicians like Nixon, (Nelson) Rockefellar, and Reagan pushed and passed tougher sentences for drug users. The idea was to make the criminal penalties of drug possession, even small quantities, so onerous that people would be scared away from using drugs. But such laws fail to achieve that desired effect in part because they are selectively enforced, with the rich and powerful rarely feeling the blunt nightstick of enforcement. This creates a disrespect for such law among many citizens, and a cat and mouse game between drug users and the authorities ensues.
1. Take marijuana off the table by legalizing/taxing it. Treat pot just like alcohol.
2. Users of harder drugs are automatically made public and receive mandatory treatment.
3. Posessors of marketable quantities/dealers of harder drugs receive mandatory life w/o parole or death (how many people has each dealer already killed?).
ALL of the above in the United States. No more export of the "War on Drugs".
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Generations ago the United States had such a thing (during the 13 years that Budweiser was illegal); in Chicago this entity was commonly known as Al Capone and in Detroit this was commonly known as The Purple Gang.
How soon we all forget!
Must I draw a picture in purple crayon?
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This is what happens when you start a War on Drugs whose primary objective it is to eliminate as much domestic competition as possible that could potentially oppose the monopoly that the Mexican cartels currently hold over the U.S. marketplace:
"If you look at the drug war from a purely economic point of view, the role of the government is to protect the drug cartel."
--Economist Milton Friedman