A STIMULUS PLAN FOR MEXICAN GANGSTERS

Obama's Promise Not To Crack Down On Medical-Marijuana Use Raises The
Stakes For Traffickers.

Mexico City Just when you thought the effects of U.S. drug policy
couldn't get more pernicious, guess what? That's where we're headed.

Mexico's young democracy is already paying a high price for the
lethal combination of prohibition and strong gringo demand for
mind-altering substances. Drug violence has escalated as Mexican
suppliers intent on satisfying appetites across the border have
tangled with each other and law enforcement. Now the U.S. is getting
ready to raise the incentives for gangsters. At a press conference
last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder indicated that President
Obama would keep a campaign promise by ending federal raids on
medical marijuana dispensaries. This means that the weed will remain
illegal to transport and sell -- and thus highly profitable for
criminals -- but there will be fewer repercussions for those who use
it in states with liberal marijuana laws. The administration says it
wants to end federal infringement on the rights of states.

But the consequence of the policy change will be stealth legalization
- -- which will create the worst of all worlds for countries like
Mexico that are asked to fight supply.

It seems unlikely that Mexico will welcome this new U.S. policy at a
time when it is paying so much in blood and treasure to fight the
drug war. In a meeting at his office in Mexico City three weeks ago,
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora filled me in on his
three-year-old battle with the cartels. Marijuana is a big part of the problem.

The attorney general rejects the suggestion from the U.S. Joint
Forces Command that Mexico is at risk of becoming a failed state. But
he acknowledges that the power of organized crime, armed with weapons
and drug-trade financing from across the border, continues to be a
very serious challenge. To illustrate how overblown the "failed
state" charge is, Mr. Medina Mora cites Colombia, a democracy that
has come back from the brink of the ruin it faced in the 1990s. Last
year, he notes, it had a murder rate of 33 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Mexico, which suffered an especially violent year in 2008, recorded a
murder rate of 10 per 100,000 inhabitants. Life is statistically far
more dangerous in the north. This year, 60% of drug-related murders
- -- just over 1,000 -- have taken place in the states of Chihuahua,
Baja California, Sinaloa and Durango. But the attorney general
emphasized that murders are down from the last three months of 2008
in all parts of the country except in the city of Juarez.

"We certainly have a problem," Mr. Medina Mora tells me, but he sees
the violence as an outgrowth of the revival of the state's authority
rather than a sign of looming collapse. He argues that law
enforcement has restored order in many areas where the mob previously
ruled. As territory has been reclaimed, the cartels have gone to war
with each other over their shrinking turf. This is why, he reports,
of the 6,616 drug-related murders last year, more than 85% were
gangsters killed by gangsters.

"Our objective is to regain for Mexicans the right to live in peace,"
Mr. Medina Mora says. Again, he cites Colombia, where "the state
vis-a-vis the criminal groups now controls the geography and has
stopped organized crime from challenging the democracy's authority."

The improvement in Colombia is something to celebrate. Yet the
persistent violence there after decades of sacrifice is troubling.
Drugs remain ubiquitous in the U.S. and Europe and demand remains
inelastic. Coca growing and supply chains may have been altered, but
it's safe to say that the Andean region is still active in the
business. Venezuela has become a major transit route to the Caribbean
and Europe via Africa. To really change things for the better, Latin
American countries need the Americans to cut funding to the bad guys.
Mr. Medina Mora estimates that drug consumers north of the Rio Grande
put some $10 billion into the pockets of the cartels annually. This
is how they either buy, intimidate or annihilate many of those who
get in their way.

More interesting is Mexico's estimates that half of all cartel
revenue comes from the marijuana business. That means, by my
calculation, that if you lift the prohibition on trafficking pot
alone, it would cut mob income by half. It also means that if the
U.S. adopts a wink-wink policy of tolerating marijuana use but keeps
it officially illegal, the thugs are going to get richer. It is
considered politically risky in the U.S. to argue for lifting the ban
on marijuana. But that's no excuse for Mr. Obama's policy, which will
harm Mexico further. The country has already paid enough for American
hypocrisy on drug use.