REALITY OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

When it comes to the drug business, legal or illegal, it takes two to
tango. Vincente Fox, Mexico's soon-to-be-inaugurated president,
understands this. Alas, plenty of Americans involved in the United
States' perennial war on drugs do not. In a recent interview with The
Associated Press just days before his inauguration as Mexico's 62nd
president and the first one in 71 years who is not a member of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, Fox said the United States is too
quick to blame Mexico for its illicit drug problems.

Many officials and others tend to portray Mexico as a corrupt haven
for illegal drug smugglers and merchants.

Fox, of course, is correct. He pointed out that supply is concomitant
with demand and that if the illicit drug business is a severe problem
in the United States, it is because of the insatiable demand for and
money to pay for illegal drugs that exists in this country.

The Mexican president has promised strong measures against drug
corruption. If he follows through, it is about all that the U.S.
government can reasonably expect the Mexican government to do. It is
this country, not Mexico, that has a fixation about illegal drug use.
This is what primarily has driven up the price -- and heady profits
- -- of illegal drugs.

True, Fox's predecessors also have complained that the supply of
illegal drugs would not exist except for demand in the United States.
However, this does not negate the legitimacy or truth of the
assertion. Few would take the effort and risk of supplying illegal
drugs if there were little demand for them and no willingness to pay
for them. The fact that Mexico's new president raises this issue is
not evidence that Mexico plans to do nothing to curb drug smugglers.

The degree of effort in this respect is up to the Mexican people and
their government. All Fox's comments do is suggest that demand is as
big a factor as supply when it comes to illegal drugs.

No one can argue with this.