Mexican Drug Cartels Challenge US Security

More than 7,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence in the last 15 months. The US government has announced that it is sending a few hundred Drug Enforcement Agency personnel to firm up the security along the border. This is like adding a teaspoon of water to the Pacific Ocean and saying one has raised the sea level. What must happen to prevent Mexico from becoming a failed state is a much more radical approach to drugs in both the US and Mexico.

This journal opposes the recreational use/abuse of all drugs, alcohol and nicotine included. The only time one should take a pill is under the supervision of a qualified physician. Drugs make the user stupid, clumsy and useless. They are the step-child of death, the definition of anti-life.

Nevertheless, the social harm done by prohibiting drugs is vastly greater than the harm the drugs themselves do. Prohibition creates a black market that criminals exploit to raise vast sums of money. In addition, some of the very people the West has spent billions to subdue fund themselves with the cash brought in by growing opium poppies. The Troubles in Northern Ireland went on longer than they otherwise would have because both Green and Orange terrorists made money with drugs.

Legalization of all drugs in the US would effectively rob the crooks and terrorists of their money. Yes, there would be a huge increase in pot smoking – and probably deaths related to driving under the influence of marijuana (but interestingly, there is no recorded case of a pot overdose). Yes, cocaine abuse would rise, and there could well be more heroin addicts on the streets. People will die due to their poor choices. However, the decrease in drive-by shootings that kill innocents will plummet.

Mexico is currently fighting a not-quite civil war as the Calderon government tries to reassert its authority. The heavily armed and well-funded narco-traficantes represent a clear and present danger to both Mexico and the US, and it is imperative that the Calderon government triumph. The only way to ensure that it does is to take the resources away from the drug cartels. Legalization may be an ugly strategy, but it is the only one that undermines the business/war model of the drug peddlers.

© Copyright 2009 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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