TWO WIDELY DIFFERENT VIEWS ON DRUG CONTROL

Although not much attention seems to have been paid to it, current
events are again bringing into focus a proposal to establish an
international law enforcement academy in New Mexico.

U.S. Rep. Joe Skeen, R-N.M., says that he and U.S. Sen. Pete V.
Domenici, R-N.M., have been worked to establish that academy to bring
top law enforcement officers from the Western Hemisphere to coordinate
efforts to fight illegal drugs and money-laundering activities.

"Sadly, the State Department has resisted these efforts to date and
with no apparent legitimate reasons to support their position," said
Skeen in a news release from his Washington, D.C., office. "The front
line of the war is our border and we want to increase cooperation with
our counterparts in South America and Latin America to successfully
defeat the drug lords."

The academy is a lofty plan and defeating the drug lords is easier
said than done, but Skeen says the location this past week south of
Juarez of graves of people killed in the drug war between two of
Mexico's leading drug cartels "supports the basis for the efforts we
have taken in the past and those we must take in the future to prevent
the infiltration of illegal drugs and violent crime in this country."
(Any national debate on this subject should involve the ideas of
another New Mexican who has assumed a high profile on the matter. That
is Gov. Gary Johnson, who sees the drug war as a losing effort and
sees the legalization of drugs as a better way -- and he's quite ready
to argue that point at any forum anywhere).

Still, Skeen (like most Republicans other than Johnson) believes in
the method of war that's ongoing -- the interdiction by law
enforcement of drugs and drug smugglers. For example, Skeen says steps
have been taken to increase the number of U.S. Border Patrol Agents on
the border.

"Over the past few years we have added significant funding which would
promote the application and adoption of various technologies to assist
our border law enforcement agencies," the congressman said. "We have
also increased National Guard resources in New Mexico to give them
state-of-the-art technologies."

That interdiction effort is indeed going full speed and increasing,
but as an Associated Press story today reports, there is no indication
that narcotics trafficking is slowing down even in the wake of the
discovery of the bodies associated with the warring drug cartels. So
much money is involved in the drug trade that greed overcomes fear --
fear of either being killed by fellow traffickers or of being
apprehended and being prosecuted by law enforcement.

A Joe Skeen vs. Gary Johnson debate on which is the best approach
could be quite enlightening, involving two Republicans (well, make
that one Republican and one Libertarian/Republican). Skeen hasn't
wanted to debate in his last two runs for re-election, but a debate
with Johnson should be looked upon quite differently by Skeen as an
opportunity to defend his point of view on drug control against the
governor's. And Las Cruces would be a good site for the debate.