An Unconventional Cure for Mexico's Drug Violence

LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA IS THE CARTELS' WORST NIGHTMARE

When someone next door is coping with trouble, the neighborly thing
to do is help. Mexico has a growing problem with extreme violence.
And many people in California have a good idea of how to help.

Mexico has been wracked by murders connected to the drug trade. Last
year, it suffered more than 6,500 drug-related killings, triple the
number in 2007. And 2010 looks worse. As of mid-March, more than
2,000 people have died in drug-related homicides which puts Mexico
on pace for more than 10,000 such deaths this year. That's more than
one every hour.

This is not an epidemic of crazed meth addicts slaughtering people at
random. It's the byproduct of a war involving narcotics traffickers,
who sometimes kill each other, sometimes kill police and soldiers,
sometimes kill journalists who report their crimes and sometimes kill
innocent bystanders.

So what can the Golden State offer in the way of assistance?
Something potentially valuable. In November, Californians will vote
on a ballot initiative that would make it legal not only to use
marijuana but to grow and sell it.

You may think this would help only by allowing Mexicans to flee
northward and escape their troubles in a stoner fog. But it would do
more. Mexico is the biggest supplier of cannabis to the United
States. Control of that market is one of the things that Mexican drug
cartels are willing to kill for.

Legalizing weed in this country would be their worst nightmare. Why?
Because it would offer Americans a legitimate supply of the stuff.

Criminal organizations would no longer be able to demand huge
premiums to compensate for the major risks that go with forbidden
commerce. If the referendum passes, some 39 million Californians will
have access at lower prices, from regulated domestic producers.

So the drug cartels would see a large share of their profits go up in
smoke. Those profits are what enables them to establish sophisticated
smuggling operations, buy guns and airplanes, recruit foot soldiers
and bribe government officials. Those profits are also what makes all
those efforts -- and the murderous violence the merchants employ --
worth the trouble.

By now, it should be clear that using force to wipe out the drug
trade is a task on the order of bailing out the Atlantic Ocean with a
teaspoon. Law enforcement can interdict shipments and imprison
dealers, but the success is invariably short-lived.

Each seized cargo is an opportunity for another seller to fill the
gap. Each arrested trafficker is an invitation for a competitor to
grab his business. The more vigorous and successful the law
enforcement campaign, the higher the prices drug suppliers can
command -- and the more people will be enticed to enter the market.
It's a self-defeating process.

All this would be academic if Americans (and Mexicans) would simply
lose their taste for illicit drugs. But we might as well hope the
Sahara will run out of sand.

There has always been a demand for mind-altering substances, and
there always will be. That's why, despite all the resources the U.S.
government has expended on locking up sellers and their customers,
drug use is higher today than it was two decades ago.

Prohibition is no match for the obstinacy and ingenuity of many human
beings. Iran has a repressive theocratic regime that imposes severe
penalties for using and selling drugs -- including death by hanging.
Yet it has one of the highest rates of addiction in the world.

President Obama's promise of change is inapplicable in this realm.
The Bush administration provided hundreds of millions of dollars to
help Mexico fight the drug war. The Obama administration intends to
keep sending money, the only real difference being that it will go to
the police instead of the military.

On a recent trip to Mexico City, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
acknowledged that Americans' demand for drugs helps sustain the
Mexican merchants and resolved to address the problem. "We are
looking at everything that can work," she said.

Well, almost everything.

The most viable option is the one that is considered unthinkable. The
head of Obama's Office of National Drug Control Policy has said that
"legalization is not in the president's vocabulary nor is it in mine."

No, but failure is.