Re: "The Cartel" (Insight, July 9):

Caldwell did a very good job of presenting an overview of the Mexican
drug trade. Unfortunately, all of this rhetoric and the entire war on
drugs program, which has dragged on for more than two decades, are
dealing only with symptoms of the real problem.

The Arellano Felix organization is only a group of entrepreneurs going
about the business of supplying a product. The drug agents are people
trying to put them out of business. Naturally, they are going to
resist any interference in their business, whether it be drug agents,
newspaper publishers, law-enforcement officers, government officials
or anyone else.

After all the time and resources we have spent on this war against
drugs it should be apparent to a majority of people of average
intelligence that the war is being lost. Who among us -- when given
the choice of cooperate, quit, or die -- is going to choose the last?

If the Arellano Felix brothers were all jailed tomorrow, their
replacements would have the business up and running again in a few
days. The real problem is not Mexico or Colombia, but the good old
United States, whose drug-addicted citizens have created this
tremendous, insatiable drug market.

Mexico has just elected a new president, Vicente Fox, who will soon
have to deal with this problem. What a great and opportune time to
drop the bomb that would solve it all: legalization.

James S. Caldwell,
San Diego