DEALING WITH DRUGS

Instead Of Seizing Cars And Cash, Lawmakers And Law Enforcement
Should Focus On Crushing The Mexican Cartels

"The kingpins of this hemisphere's drug trade are no longer
Colombians. Mexican cartels have leveraged the profits from their
delivery routes to wrest control from the Colombian producers. The
shift is also because of the success authorities have had in cracking
down on Colombia's kingpins. As a result, Mexican drug lords are
calling the shots in what the United Nations estimates is a $142
billion a year business in cocaine, heroin, marijuana,
methamphetamine, and illicit drugs on U.S. streets." -- The Christian
Science Monitor Aug. 16

That's a lot of money -- $142 billion-- being made off of the dope
business in America. Estimates are that the northern Mexican cartels
alone make between $10 billion and $20 billion by selling South
American cocaine, homegrown heroin, marijuana and homemade meth to
American customers and smuggling illegals across the Mexico-U.S.
border. According to a Feb. 16 story in the Dallas Morning News,
Mexican crime lords are gearing up for the increased border security
that's designed to slow the flow of illegals into the U.S. And we all
know most of them enter the U.S. via Arizona.

Small Take

Will a wall, multimillion-dollar electronic sensors from Arizona and
federal governments, National Guard and U.S. Border Patrol really
stop the cartels from making billions of dollars off of the United
States? It's never worked before, why would it this time?

Two weeks ago, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announced the
state's latest efforts at taking on Mexican cartels. Following a plan
of attack he and Gov. Janet Napolitano concocted as their way to go
after cross-border crime while getting maximum election year
publicity, Goddard announced the seizure of ill-gotten cash and
assets. To hear Goddard tell it, you'd have thought his army of
police officers had seized billions.

"We're going to go after the leaders anyway we can to take their
houses, jewelry, clothes if possible, cars, every asset that they
have," he boasted.

In reality, he got $600,000. He went on to say that Arizona
authorities had seized a grand total of $17 million over the past six
years. If the cartels were only making $10 billion a year, Goddard's
sixyear seizure record of $17 million nipped them for roughly .0017
percent of a single year's profit.

Add this into the equation: It's estimated that 4,000 illegal
immigrants enter Arizona daily and pay as much as $2,000 apiece to
the Mexican mob to be smuggled into our state. These guys are making
billions and billions of dollars.

How To Win The War

Do our elected and law enforcement officials really think they're
breaking the backs of the Mexican cartels and scaring them away from
doing business in Arizona? Are they that naive?

Goddard's goal of "taking every asset they have" is a sad commentary
on what our state's chief law enforcement officer really knows about
the cartel billionaires who continually demonstrate their lack of
respect and fear for our government and their contempt for our laws.
Even with an occasional arrest of purported coyotes or local
"highlevel" drug dealers, the cartel's brains and cash are tucked
safely away south of the border with the blessing and protection of
the Mexican government.

A 1996 San Francisco Chronicle article said Mexican drug lords were
spending more than $500 million dollars a year to bribe corrupt
Mexican officials. Today's estimates are they pay out $1 billion.

According to the 2003 report "Organized Crime and Terrorist Activity
in Mexico, 1999-2003" by the Library of Congress' Federal Research
Division, there are three major drug cartels in Mexico supported by a
half-dozen smaller cartels. Mexico is also home to Russian and Asian
organized crime families.

Then there's that thing about terrorists in Mexico. At least one
terrorist group has ties to one of the Mexico's biggest drug cartels.

Seizing cash and assets was the plan that was supposed to win the war
on drugs. We know how that turned out; we lost. While cops and
politicians grab up drug money and make press releases, the Mexican
cartels have grown at such a profitable rate that it makes
stockbrokers wish they'd start trading on Wall Street. The Mexican
cartels invade and attack us daily and they get away with it.

President Bush, Napolitano, Goddard, our congressional delegation and
law enforcement appointees tout their plans for the war on drugs and
immigrant smuggling. But if they don't take the war into Mexico and
topple the cartels and destroy the corruption in the Mexican
government, we're going to lose this war, too.