Comments on This Week on Drugs, Mexico Edition

I really really hope the cocaine came from El Salvador.

Re: "Plan Mexico"
I'm by no means a neo-con, in fact I'm a liberal working at a non-profit in Mexico City. But I think it's a bit foolish to criticize the Mexican Drug Policy for its use of the military and arrogant to say this is about controlling supply to the United States.

This is about ending the hold the cartels hold on the Mexican government.

Although the military has an bad record with human rights, it is still more reliable than the corrupt police force. You should read the stories on how those top commanders were killed. They were mostly sold out to cartels by high-ranking corrupt cops.

It may not be going well now, but this is a step the Mexican government needs to take.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7423090.stm

Bob Weir (actually John Barlow) said it best:

"Shipping powders back and forth,
Black goes south and white comes north."

Wow, I'm Jewish, and yes, anything which does not harm other people should be legalized. Nixon was smarter than you thought!

What, nothing on McClellan's reports on Bush's cocaine use?

Kim,

The easiest way to get rid of the cartels is to get keep the money out of the drugs. With no money they can't corrupt the police and government.

There are really only two ways to take out the money though. You either have to reduce demand to near zero, or make the price super cheap.

Demand isn't going to go to zero. The only way to get the price lower is to legalize/decriminalize. I don't see that happening either.

If you get a chance read Cocaine: An Unauthorized Biography and you can see how this kind of thing has worked in other countries before. (it hasn't).

Andrew: You are responding flippantly to someone with real insight. I'd like to see drugs legalized in the U.S. too, but Mexico can't make that happen. As long as it is the major supply route to the biggest black market for drugs in the world, Mexico is going to have to deal with criminal cartels operating on its territory. And since Mexico can't just go find itself a new next-door-neighbor, a military response may well be its best practicable option.

@ 2) Nobody wants the cartels to lord over the law. But further militarizing the anti-drug efforts in Mexico will be just as ineffective as attempts in Colombia. At least, that's what the article you linked to suggests:

"In Colombia the headway that has been made - such as the arrest of (top drugs boss) Diego Montoya - has a lot to do with good police work. The military is not made for fighting for organised crime," says Markus Schultze-Kraft of the think-tank International Crisis Group.

"Mexico will continue to experience serious problems with drug trafficking as long as the drug flow from the Andean countries is not considerably reduced," argues Mr Schultze-Kraft.

History shows Plan Mexico will be a failure. For example, we've spent billions of dollars on eradication and enforcement in Colombia, but that country is home to the most powerful and most lethal cartels in the world. There's a direct relationship between the extent that law enforcement tries to clamp down on an illegal market with a high demand and how hard the cartels will push back to sell their product. We had the same experience in the US during alcohol prohibition, which built up the mafia to sell booze to a thirsty America. The problem is rooted in the demand side of the supply-demand equation. The options are to regulate the flow of drugs or to reduce demand.

@7) With all due respect, David, it's naive of you to suggest that proximity to a problem is, in itself, insightful of a solution. Cops often say they see the harm of marijuana, so it makes sense to throw all the pot smokers in prison. Sure, those cops see drug abusers, but that doesn't mean that prison is an effective way to manage drug abuse. Likewise, it seems plausible that fighting fire with fire would work in Mexico, but that's a simplistic way of addressing a conflation of issues related to international trade, economics, poverty, and drug abuse.

The funding for Plan Mexico isn't money from Mexico spent by Mexico to solve its own problems; rather, it's money from the US to make it look like we're doing something without having to deal with the fallout on domestic soil. We have to overcome the visceral reaction to "get those cartel bastards" and instead undermine the economic systems that empower them.