LEGALIZATION WOULD END DRUG WAR IN MEXICO, WORLD

A shootout last month in the streets of Tijuana resulting in at least
13 fatalities was a glaring display what happens when society bans
intoxicants.

Mexico has experienced a drastic rise in violence over the past few
years. President Felipe Calderon has focused Mexico's army on
combating the drug cartels but, instead of curbing the gangs and
cartels, the violence has escalated. Tijuana's main hospital, treating
the injured from that gunbattle, has been locked down and surrounded
by federal troops.

Last year, more than 2,000 people were killed in Mexico in drug
prohibition-related violence. This year, more than 200 have been
killed in Tijuana alone.

But Mexico's drug-war deaths are not just rival traffickers caught by
their competitors. In Nuevo Laredo in 2005, new Police Chief Alejandro
Dominguez was gunned down hours after being sworn in. In January,
Tijuana Deputy Police Chief Margarito Saldana Rivera, his wife and two
young daughters, were killed in their home.

The proposed solution to the increased drug-war violence is more
money, more soldiers and more guns. The Merida Initiative - or "Plan
Mexico," as many are calling it - is a $1.4 billion "aid" package for
Mexico and Central America (with the lion's share going to Mexico)
with the intended purpose of bolstering Mexico's drug war.

Is there a solution to the problem of drug-cartel violence in Mexico
(and the U.S.)? Absolutely. Just as the criminal syndicates
controlling the flow of booze during Prohibition were cut off from
their profits when the distribution of liquor was returned to
legitimate businesses, the same can happen with our very few illegal
drugs.

Legalization is a viable alternative. It has a historical precedent in
the ending of Prohibition but often gets dismissed as the notion of
radical pot smokers.

There is an organization comprised of former (and current)
criminal-justice professionals raising a voice against the war on
drugs. I am a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and I
stand proud with the others who've served on the front lines of the
drug war.

We've spent our careers going toe to toe with drug dealers and gangs,
and we speak out about the travesties of justice and the lack of
success wrought by the entrenched drug-policy bureaucracy - empowered
by politicians seeking to appear "tough on crime."

Legalization will not be a cure-all for the problems of drug abuse.
What it can do is take away an industry that generates $500 billion a
year in cash trade (8 percent of total annual global trade, according
to the U.N.) from gangs and international drug cartels. It will free
up law enforcement to pursue those who daily commit crimes. We can no
longer afford to be the most imprisoning nation on the planet. We
cannot afford to neglect our children's educational resources. Prison
is no substitute for school. End the drug war. Take away control of
drugs from criminals and their organizations. End the violence that
shatters the peace of our communities and is escalating at a tragic
pace in Mexico.