Today's news from Mexico is grimmer than ever: in the past two months gangs of thugs have gunned down 50 people in Tijuana, apparently in random terrorist attacks. This should remind us of the rampant violence in Nuevo Laredo in which at least 21 Americans were among those missing or were eventually found dead, thanks to a different drug cartel. Recent statistics credit as many as 5,400 deaths annually to the Mexican drug cartels, whose activities are primarily aimed at smuggling drugs into the U.S.
If we leave this issue to the traditional right wing, we know what they will offer us: higher walls, more border patrols, more money to Mexican anti-drug efforts. Never mind that the smugglers dig tunnels and many of the elite anti-narcotics officers trained at Fort Bennett are now called "Los Zetas", the vicious group responsible for the Nuevo Laredo trouble. The more money we throw at the problem the more violence and mayhem will ensue, but as long as those in power can tell their constituents that they are doing something, as long as they tell themselves that they are reassuring the public.
Unfortunately, wishing doesn't make good policy. Look at the history of China, which for millennia was the greatest empire on Earth. In 1729 the Emperor was annoyed by a few nobles smoking opium at court. By 1840 he was signing Unequal Treaties giving power to the drug smugglers. The harder the Chinese fought to ban drugs, the more profitable it became for the British to smuggle them in. The only thing that ended the nightmare was that the British, apparently no wiser than the Chinese, demanded after the second Opium War that the Chinese legalize the drug. About 40 years later the Chinese were producing all the opium they wanted, their opium usage began to decline, and other countries around the world started passing laws to prohibit the importation of opium... at which point, drug crimes began to plague the rest of the world.
After ninety years of Prohibition, groups like the Zetas have advanced military weapons and are beginning to pose a real threat to the U.S. that local police departments are hard-pressed to fight. Where will things go from here? Will we wait until they are crossing our borders and devastating whole towns, then copy the "security zone" policy Israel used in Lebanon and invade parts of Mexico? Will we wait until they have subverted branches of the government and have full use of weapons of mass destruction? Will we see the day when our country suffers the same national humiliation as the Chinese?
There is a better way. Though I think we should, we don't even have to legalize drugs. All we need to do is recognize a basic symmetry that is as clear as day to the source countries plagued by drug violence: in the international community, it is as irresponsible for a nation to be a net drug consumer as it is to be a drug producer. We should recognize that the extremely tough measures taken against people who grow or manufacture drugs in the U.S. have an effect on our neighbors to the south - a hill of corpses of innocent people from Tijuana and Laredo. We don't need to declare a full legalization to end this - just dial down enforcement against small scale domestic production of whatever people currently smuggle over the border from Mexico.
According to a 2007 San Francisco Chronicle article, smugglers buy marijuana in Mexico for $500 per kilogram and sell it for a little more than double that price in the U.S. All we have to do to put a complete stop to the smuggling is allow enough domestic production to lower the price here to $500 per kilogram. That isn't like a border interdiction policy where you stop 5% and 95% gets through - if the price is too low, no one can make a living by smuggling. All of these vicious gangs will be left with nothing to fight over. Smugglers also bring in methamphetamine, thanks to restrictive legislation that forces common cold medications to be sold behind the counter in the U.S. Since Mexico can't control precursors so carefully, a market has been created. Let's roll back those restrictions. I'm not saying that local "meth cooks" in American communities aren't a nuisance and a fire hazard, but according to an interview on A&E one of the more diligent drug makers was making $800 per week selling to 20 customers. That's not even a very good salary, let alone a threat to national security!
On the other end, we need to make sure that well-meaning efforts to be more compassionate on drug issues do not lead to increases in demand. However sensible it may be to allow drug users to get by with little or no penalty, it is not sensible to set this up while maintaining draconian penalties for those who fill this demand. Such a shortsighted approach can only lead to more crime and a backlash against "legalization". We must also speak out against cheerleaders for drug use, who are apt to turn up in the strangest places. For example, there has been an ongoing discussion of "neuroenhancement" at the leading scientific journal Nature, in which survey respondents and editorialists alike have been claiming that taking amphetamines like Adderall and Ritalin is a harmless way for college students to enhance their academic performance. I've added my comments to oppose this wild excess of misplaced enthusiasm - it's not easy to improve on evolution - but this cheerleading for amphetamine and related drugs has shown up in many news reports. Eventually this kind of glowing optimism will wind up in random shootings over trade routes to bring crude methamphetamine to people who have gotten addicted, unless we do something.
Obama, please: declare a goal of "no net import/export" for all drug contraband through moderate relaxation of prohibitions on domestic manufacture for drugs that are imported, or consumption for drugs that are exported.
Comments are closed for this post.
