DRUG KINGPINS: FREEZING THEIR ACCOUNTS WILL HURT THEM

The war on drugs is so filled with failure that it's good to get some
positive news. The Obama administration on Wednesday designated 54
suspected Mexican drug-cartel lieutenants and enforcers as drug
kingpins. This designation allows the feds to freeze their bank
accounts and penalize their business partners.

Because money greases the wheels of the drug-cartel operations,
freezing bank accounts could deprive gang members of the precious
commodity of money and thus hamper their efforts and make them less
useful in the eyes of other cartel or gang members.

This particular action was aimed at the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, a
gang of former Gulf Cartel hit men. But the lesson should be clear --
it could happen in other places, to other cartels.

Hitting the cartels in their wallets could prove to be a highly
effective strategy.

Meanwhile, the fear generated by the cartels has never been more
obvious than in a quote from an Associated Press article. After a
deadly incident in Santa Catarina, a suburb of Monterrey in the
northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, the security chief was quoted as
saying, "I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know
anything. That's my position."

That's the kind of fear generated by the drug cartels, and it's one of
their most potent weapons. People -- including law enforcement --
intimidated to that degree aren't likely to cause the cartels much
trouble.

So it's good to have a weapon like the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin
Designation Act through which the cartels can be attacked at one of
their most vulnerable points -- money.