Filed Under: Featured
Tags: cartels • cocaine • drug czar • drug policy • drug war • marijuana • methamphetamine • mexico • prohibition
How to End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War
Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He wasn’t describing the federal government’s nearly century-long war on drugs but he might as well have been.
Despite ample lip-service for “hope” and “change,” the Obama administration’s cynical response to the escalating drug prohibition-related violence around the Mexican border epitomizes Einstein’s oft-quoted observation.
Since 2008 more than 7,000 people—over 1,000 last January alone, including Mexican civilians, journalists, police, and public officials—have been killed in clashes with warring drug traffickers. Wire-service reports estimate that Mexico’s drug lords employ over 100,000 soldiers—approximately as many as the Mexican army—and that the cartels’ wealth, intimidation, and influence extend to the highest echelons of law enforcement and government. Where do the cartels get their unprecedented wealth and power? By trafficking in illicit drugs—primarily marijuana—over the border into the United States.
The U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy (more commonly known as the drug czar’s office) says more than 60 percent of the profits reaped by Mexican drug lords are derived from the exportation and sale of cannabis to the American market. To anyone who has studied the marijuana issue, this figure should come as no surprise. An estimated 100 million Americans age 12 or older—or about 43 percent of the country—admit to having tried pot, a higher percentage, according to the World Health Organization, than any other country on the planet. Twenty-five million Americans admit (on government surveys, no less) to smoking marijuana during the past year, and 15 million say that they indulge regularly. This high demand, combined with the drug’s artificially inflated black-market value (pot possession has been illegal under federal law since 1937), now makes cannabis America’s top cash crop.
In fact, according to a 2007 analysis by George Mason University professor Jon Gettman, the annual retail value of the U.S. marijuana market is some $113 billion.
How much of this goes directly to Mexican cartels is difficult to quantify, but no doubt the percentage is significant. Government officials estimate that approximately half the marijuana consumed in the United States originates from outside its borders, and they have identified Mexico as far and away America’s largest pot provider. Because Mexican-grown marijuana tends to fetch lower prices on the black market than domestically grown weed (a result attributed largely to lower production costs—the Mexican variety tends to be grown outdoors, while an increasing percentage of American-grown pot is produced hydroponically indoors), it remains consistently popular among U.S. consumers, particularly in a down economy. As a result, U.S. law officials now report that some Mexican cartels are moving to the United States to set up shop permanently. A Congressional Research Service report says low-level cartel members are now establishing clandestine growing operations inside the United States (thus eliminating the need to cross the border), as well as partnering with domestic gangs and other criminal enterprises. A March 23 New York Times story speculated that Mexican drug gangs or their affiliates are now active in some 230 U.S. cities, extending from Tucson, Arizona, to Anchorage, Alaska.
In short, America’s multibillion-dollar demand for pot is fueling the Mexican drug trade and much of the turf battles and carnage associated with it.
Same Old “Solutions”
So what are the administration’s plans to quell the cartels’ growing influence and surging violence? Troublingly, the White House appears intent on recycling the very strategies that gave rise to Mexico’s infamous drug lords in the first place.
In March the administration requested $700 million from Congress to “bolster existing efforts by Washington and Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s administration to fight violent trafficking in drugs . . . into the United States.” These efforts, as described by the Los Angeles Times, include: “vowing to send U.S. money, manpower, and technology to the southwestern border” and “reducing illegal flows (of drugs) in both directions across the border.” The administration also announced that it intends to clamp down on the U.S. demand for illicit drugs by increasing funding for drug treatment and drug courts.
There are three primary problems with this strategy.
First, marijuana production is a lucrative business that attracts criminal entrepreneurs precisely because it is a black-market (and highly sought after) commodity. As long as pot remains federally prohibited its retail price to the consumer will remain artificially high, and its production and distribution will attract criminal enterprises willing to turn to violence (rather than the judicial system) to maintain their slice of the multi-billion-dollar pie.
Second, the United States is already spending more money on illicit-drug law enforcement, drug treatment, and drug courts than at any time in our history. FBI data show that domestic marijuana arrests have increased from under 300,000 annually in 1991 to over 800,000 today. Police seizures of marijuana have also risen dramatically in recent years, as has the amount of taxpayer dollars federal officials have spent on so-called “educational efforts” to discourage the drug’s use. (For example, since the late 1990s Congress has appropriated well over a billion dollars in anti-pot public service announcements alone.) Yet despite these combined efforts to discourage demand, Americans use more pot than anyone else in the world.
Third, law enforcement’s recent attempts to crack down on the cartels’ marijuana distribution rings, particularly new efforts launched by the Calderón administration in Mexico, are driving the unprecedented wave in Mexican violence—not abating it. The New York Times states: “A crackdown begun more than two years ago by President Felipe Calderón, coupled with feuds over turf and control of the organizations, has set off an unprecedented wave of killings in Mexico. . . . Many of the victims were tortured. Beheadings have become common.” Because of this escalating violence, Mexico now ranks behind only Pakistan and Iran as the administration’s top international security concern.
Despite the rising death toll, drug war hawks at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) remain adamant that the United States’ and Mexico’s “supply side” strategies are in fact successful. “Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” acting DEA administrator Michele Lionhart said recently. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.” President Obama also appears to share this view. After visiting with the Calderón government in April, he told CNN he intended to “beef up” security on the border. When asked whether the administration would consider alternative strategies, such as potentially liberalizing pot’s criminal classification, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano replied that such an option “is not on the table.”
A New Remedy
By contrast the Calderón administration appears open to the idea of legalizing marijuana—or at least reducing criminal sanctions on the possession of small quantities of drugs—as a way to stem the tide of violence. Last spring Mexican lawmakers made the possession of personal-use quantities of cannabis and other illicit substances a noncriminal offense. And in April Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, told CBS’s Face the Nation that legalizing the marijuana trade was a legitimate option for both the Mexican and U.S. governments. “[T]hose who would suggest that some of these measures [legalization] be looked at understand the dynamics of the drug trade,” Sarukhan said.
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox recently echoed Sarukhan’s remarks, as did a commission of former Latin American presidents. “I believe it’s time to open the debate over legalizing drugs,” Fox told CNN in May. “It can’t be that the only way [to try to control illicit drug use] is for the state to use force.”
Writing recently on CNN.com, Harvard economist and Freeman contributor Jeffrey Miron said that ending drug prohibition—on both sides of the border—is the only realistic and viable way to put a permanent stop to the rising power and violence associated with Mexico’s drug traffickers. “Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground,” he wrote. “This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead. . . . The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs.”
Growing Support
Americans’ support for legalizing the regulated production and sale of cannabis—an option that would not likely rid the world of cartels, but would arguably reduce their primary source of income—is at all an all-time high. In May a national Zogby telephone poll of 3,937 voters by the Republican-leaning O’Leary Report discovered, for the first time ever, that a slight majority (52 percent) of Americans “favor the legalization of marijuana.” A separate Zogby poll reported even stronger support (58 percent) among west-coast voters.
Predictably, critics of marijuana legalization claim that such a strategy would do little to undermine drug traffickers’ profit margins because cartels would simply supplement their revenues by selling greater quantities of other illicit drugs. Although this scenario sounds plausible in theory, it appears to be far less likely in practice.
As noted, Mexican drug lords derive an estimated 60 to 70 percent of their illicit income from pot sales. (By comparison, only about 28 percent of their profits are derived from the distribution of cocaine, and less than 1 percent comes from trafficking methamphetamine.) It is unrealistic to think that cartels could feasibly replace this void by stepping up their sales of cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin—all of which remain far less popular among U.S. drug consumers anyway. Just how much less? U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey data show that roughly two million Americans use cocaine, compared to 15 million for pot. Fewer than 600,000 use methamphetamine, and fewer than 155,000 use heroin. In short, this is hardly the sort of demand that would keep Mexico’s drug barons in the lucrative lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.
Of course, it’s unrealistic to think that pot legalization would wipe out prohibition-inspired violence altogether. After all, ending alcohol prohibition in America didn’t single-handedly put the Mafia out of business (though it greatly reduced its power and influence). And it’s always possible that Mexico’s drug cartels would continue to engage in violent acts toward one another as competing factions fought over the crumbs of America’s drastically shrunken illicit-drug market.
That said, it’s equally unrealistic, if not more so, to think that continuing our same failed drug war policies will do anything but exponentially increase the catastrophe they’ve spawned, both in Mexico and at home. It’s time to engage in a different strategy. It’s time to seriously consider legalizing marijuana and other drugs.
Comment by RFWoodstock on 19 November 2009:
Valid medicinal value, it’s a victimless crime, the War on Drugs WAY too costly, too many arrests for simple possession, tax it and use the money to pay for health insurance and to reduce the deficit…Need I say more?
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Comment by Winder on 19 November 2009:
What a great article. I’ve not seen such pragmatic treatment in print regarding this increasingly pressing issue. Why does it seem that only foreign and former presidents espouse this common-sense approach to a widely understood problem and its equally evident solution?
Why does our current president not back up his pre-election rhetoric: “The war on drugs has been an utter failure. It is time that we rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.” Why has he changed his tune? We voted for change, and this “more of the same” won’t cut it.
Marijuana reform is really about personal freedoms. Our constitution, which President Obama understands very well, having taught it, guarantees us the right as adults to decide what we put into our bodies. Victimless “crimes” are not crimes at all; it is time to stike them from the books, and once again lead the world in a positive direction. Yes, we can.
Pingback by Monsieur Bastiat, Call Your Office | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 20 November 2009:
[...] across the border, creating concern throughout the United States. There’s an easy way to stop it, Paul Armentano writes: End the [...]
Comment by Carol on 24 November 2009:
Cannabis prohibition has been a tragedy for decades. People’s lives have been destroyed and many have been denied a good herbal therapeutic that would have helped many conditions. That this plant continues to be illegal speaks says much about how cynical and self-serving many of our elected “leaders” seem to be.
Pingback by The Freeman: How To End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War on 24 November 2009:
[...] the December 2009 issue of The Freeman I propose another solution. How To End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War via The [...]
Comment by Brian Kerr on 24 November 2009:
Legalize Cannabis right NOW.
Decriminalize all others, until we figure out how to regulate, then legalize them. Use honest factual education to inform everyone the real dangers of drugs which can kill us.
Cannabis isn’t a problem drug at all and has health benefits to its use. There are some studies which seem to indicate that cannabis use helps to prevent cancer. The studies can be found on the internet.
Note to politicians: We out here in the world are learning the truth about how prohibition is causing all the violence on the streets. We are also learning about Cannabis and how safe it actually is.
Lets not vote for prohibitionist politicians.
Comment by John Anello on 24 November 2009:
Winder,
You said, “our constitution, which President Obama understands very well, having taught it, guarantees us the right as adults to decide what we put into our bodies.”
Where in the Constitution is the right of consumption guaranteed? Perhaps one could make an argument that this right is guaranteed under the Ninth Amendment but I do not know how much legal effect that argument would have in the courts.
I am personally against marijuana use, but I would support decriminalizing it provided the legislation was accompanied by immigration reform. Even if marijuana was legalized, we have no reason to believe that these violent Mexican drug cartels would lay down their weapons and become respectable businessmen. In fact, legalization could have the opposite effect, increasing the participation in a lucrative and inherently violent industry while neutralizing law enforcement.
Lastly, has anyone ever noticed that a central thesis of the pro-legalization’s crowd argument is that government could tax drugs and use the revenue for some “noble” cause? And what evidence do we have to support this position exactly, government’s stellar record on managing money? I would support legalization because I believe in individual liberty not because the government could profit from it.
Comment by Carol on 24 November 2009:
If cannabis were legalized, people (legitimate growers) could grow cannabis. The drug cartels would likely lose interest in cannabis business, because it would no longer be so lucrative. It is the black market aspect of cannabis that makes it lucrative for the cartels.
Decriminalization would not serve to release cannabis from the illegal market profit motive, since it would still be illegal.
Cannabis is a therapeutic herbal that has been used for thousands of years for relief of symptoms of illnesses and for relaxation. Cannabis is non-toxic, and is a source of anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and other therapeutic molecules that can be delivered to the consumer in a variety of ways including smoking.
I am personally against drinking alcohol, but I do not wish to see people imprisoned and criminalized for doing so, nor do I wish to return to the days of alcohol prohibition. And alcohol is toxic.
Comment by Darrell Kilgore on 25 November 2009:
Its the right thing to do.
Comment by MatterofLiberty on 25 November 2009:
This article really illustrates how Cannabis re-legalization is the KEY to actually winning the “War on Drugs”! If we could just get refocused we might have chance…
1)Law enforcement wont be undermining their own authority anymore by telling people that Cannabis is as addictive and chemically toxic as Heroin, Cocaine, Meth ,etc. Individuals whose only education on drugs comes from the government, wont mistakenly think these other lethal drugs are comparable to Cannabis.
2)Cannabis users will no longer be exposed to the black markets that sell these other more harmful illicit drugs.
3)Taking away 60-70% of a Cartels profits will cause the price of their harder drugs to skyrocket when they try to adjust for their losses. This should cause an overall decrease in useage of harder drugs in the popoulation.
4)People under 21 will, for the first time, actually have a harder time getting Cannabis! We know this because it will be restricted to the same degree as Alchohol. Which, while not impossible for minors to obtain is currently harder to get than Cannabis. ANY improvements to this statistic should be considered a step in the right direction.
5)Most importantly, if we allocate 30-50% of new taxes collected from Cannabis sales back to the “War on Drugs” and also redirected our current funds to fight these harder drugs, we might actually start to make a dent.
Comment by Robin Spracklen on 2 December 2009:
What an excellent article. It’s too bad that not more American people are tuned into what is really going on in our country. The time for the legalization of cannibis IS NOW! How many countless lives have been lost? Over what? An herb that grows naturally on our planet, one that has been used for centuries.
It’s illogical to keep doing the same thing over and over, while the results remain the same. By continuing to make marijauna illegal and other drugs as well we are only fueling this violence. I am dismayed at our President’s tone as well. I thought we had change to look forward to. This is what you get when you wage a war on drugs! Drugs are not an entity in and of themselves people are the users and peddlers of them. Thanks to the Reagan’s ingenious plan “War on Drugs” campaign.
We are losing billions of dollars and spending billions to do what?
What has any of this achieved? Why can’t we just be allowed to have our freedoms?? It’s time Americans woke up took their heads out of the sand, step out of the box, stop feeding off the media hyped frenzy and start thinking for themselves! If we don’t speak up and bring about the changes that are needed it will never happen.
Isn’t the war in Afghanistan (the Taliban/Al Quida primarily fueling and financing there war machine by illegal drug trade)enough to open peoples eyes to the devastation and violence that can be brought upon a people all for the sake of POWER and GREED! They came to our soil to destroy us, remember? Nearly 3000. This is serious business!
It’s time to move forward and be progressive and stop stagnating in the same ol’, same ol’. It’s really starting to stink!
We need change and we need it now, the Mexican drug lords are already in our country. Continuing to take their slice of the pie and paying not a red cent in taxes I’m sure.
Keeping drugs in general, illegal makes no sense. What about the pharmaceuticals advertised on TV? Some ads list death as a side effect. Does this make any sense? Peace to all! WAKE UP AMEERICA
Thanks for indulging me!
Pingback by The Freeman: How To End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War : WeedBits on 2 December 2009:
[...] the December 2009 issue of The Freeman I propose another solution. How To End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War via The [...]
Comment by Rob on 15 December 2009:
This is a very difficult situation. Legalising cannabis would not reduce the adverse impact on individuals mental and physical health from the consumption of cannabis. If it’s bad for you when it is illegal, then it’s bad for you when it is legal.
What does making it legal mean? Does that mean less government control. I think that would be very unlikely.
Would it mean that people would be free to grow their own?
Are alcohol and tobacco production controlled. Are they bad for our physical and\or mental health? Are they a waste of our money and health?
The best option is that we respect our bodies and stop using the stuff completely.
Comment by papasmurf on 21 December 2009:
Common sense must prevail and legalization cuts off 70% of the Mexican cartels income and gives the money to American farmers and American business and the American government. Win-win for all!
Comment by shawn on 8 January 2010:
legalizing sounds great.it will be a happy day day when an occasional user can consume in peace.but our governments have set up entire buisnesses around prohibitation. the amount of money a county and state recives from drug related arrest is stagering.new policies would have to come into affect,laws re written and mind sets changed.it would be no easy task.also the FDA would have to regulate and control but unfortuantlly cannnabis is a plant and grows wild so tecnacly they cant regulate it,so until all those changes have been made and people stop worring about how much money they could make, marijana will always be illigal….we need to change the image of marijana users.i know people who use it and are pretty rough looking and have a typical poverty class lifestyle but i also know a couple of people who earn a six figure income and our biger pot heads than the poor smuck getting arrested…im just saying that more and more people are using it regardless of age,sex,nationality and religion…besides,how els could you keep the little guy little?make it as hard for him to get out of the poverty rut as you can,bust him for simpal possesion charge give him a record and make him feel like he has no options but to stay in the rut he is in…its all about control, money and power and i will argue with anyone who says its not….we as AMERICANS have the power to change these ridicules laws and actually make it better for everyone..we need to help our children understand that there are dangers in all things, help them make their own decions and if they choose to do the opposite when they are older and on their own then so be it but i dont think they will…anyways thats my comment
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Pingback by How Many Mexican Drug War Deaths Can We Attribute to U.S. Pot Laws? | themcglynn.com/theliberal.net on 19 March 2010:
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Pingback by Mexican Drug Trade Now in U.S. | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty on 29 March 2010:
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Pingback by Mexico’s War on Drugs « Democracy in Latin America Blog on 30 March 2010:
[...] drugs create massive demand. Marijuana, for example, commands an annual market worth an estimated $113 billion in the U.S. (our largest cash crop!) and is the most significant source of profit for the Mexican [...]
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Comment by Peter Fleming on 26 April 2010:
Hey guys, I just spent a happy half hour writing on this great article. I come back and it has disappeared.
What happened, oh great webmaster ?
Peter Fleming
Pingback by Associated Press: Drug Law Enforcement Spurs Violence — U.S. Officials Hide Their Heads In The Sand « SpeakEasy on 30 April 2010:
[...] regulating marijuana — the crop that, according to his own office, provides Mexican drug lords with over 60% of their present profits — would in any way stave this ongoing violence, he responded: “I don’t know of any [...]
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Pingback by The Chronic Chronicles » Blog Archive » Associated Press: “Study Links Drug Enforcement to More Violence” on 10 May 2010:
[...] regulating marijuana — the crop that, according to his own office, provides Mexican drug lords with over 60% of their present profits — would in any way stave this ongoing violence, he responded: “I don’t know of any [...]
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[...] definition av galenskap Publicerade juni 16, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different [...]
Comment by Tisha Casida on 20 June 2010:
EXCELLENT ARTICLE. It is the truth, and it would save our country so much money in the judicial system – use that money to fight REAL CRIME, or better yet, how about using that money on the most broken system that should be eliminating a lot of this drug use anyway – OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM?
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