THE WAR ON DRUGS IS DOOMED

Strong Demand and the High Profits That Are the Result of Prohibition
Make Illegal Trafficking Unstoppable.

They say that the first step in dealing with a problem is
acknowledging that you have one. It is therefore good news that
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lead a delegation to Mexico
tomorrow to talk with officials there about efforts to fight the mob
violence that is being generated in Mexico by the war on drugs. U.S.
recognition of this shared problem is healthy.

But that's where the good news is likely to end.

Violence along the border has skyrocketed ever since Mexican
President Felipe Calderon decided to confront the illegal drug
cartels that operate there. Some 7,000 troops now patrol Juarez, a
city of roughly one million. Yet even militarization has not
delivered the peace. The reason is simple enough: The source of the
problem is not Mexican supply. It is American demand coupled with prohibition.

It is doubtful that this will be acknowledged at tomorrow's meeting.
The drug-warrior industry, which includes both the private-sector and
a massive government bureaucracy devoted to "enforcement," has an
enormous economic incentive to keep the war raging. In Washington
politics both groups have substantial influence. So it is likely that
we are going to get further plans to turn Juarez into a police state
with the promise that more guns, tanks, helicopters and informants
can stop Mexican gangsters from shoving drugs up American noses.

Last week's gangland-style slaying of an unborn baby and three adults
who had ties to the U.S. Consulate in Juarez has drawn attention to
Mrs. Clinton's trip. The incident stunned Americans. Yet tragic as
they were, statistically those four deaths don't create even a blip
on the body-count chart. The running tally of drug-trafficking linked
deaths in Juarez since December 2006 is more than 5,350. There has
also been a high cost to the city's economy as investors and tourists
have turned away.

Even with low odds of a productive outcome, though, Mexico can't
afford to write off tomorrow's meeting. It is an opportunity that,
handled correctly, could provide for a teachable moment. I suggest
that one or two of Mexico's very fine economists trained at the
University of Chicago by Milton Friedman sit down with President
Obama's team to explain a few things about how markets work. They
could begin by outlining the path that a worthless weed travels to
become the funding for the cartel's firepower. In this Econ 101
lesson, students will learn how the lion's share of the profit is in
getting the stuff over the U.S. border to the American consumer. In
football terms, Juarez is first and goal.

Mexico hasn't always been an important playing field for drug
cartels. For many years cocaine traffickers used the Caribbean to get
their product to their customers in the largest and richest market in
the hemisphere. But when the U.S. redoubled its efforts to block
shipments traveling by sea, the entrepreneurs shifted to land routes
through Central America and Mexico.

Mexican traffickers now handle cocaine but traditional marijuana
smuggling is their cash cow, despite competition from stateside
growers. In a February 2009 interview, then-Mexican Attorney General
Eduardo Medina Mora told me that half of the cartel's annual income
was derived from marijuana.

This is especially troubling for Mexican law enforcement because
marijuana use, through medical marijuana outlets and general social
acceptance, has become de facto legal in the U.S., and demand is
robust. The upshot is that consumption is cool while production,
trafficking and distribution are organized-crime activities. This is
what I called in a previous column, "a stimulus plan for Mexican gangsters."

In much of the world, where institutions are weak and folks are poor,
the high value that prohibition puts into drugs means that the thugs
rule. Mr. Medina Mora told me in the same 2009 interview that Mexico
estimated the annual cash flow from U.S. drug consumers to Mexico at
around $10 billion, which of course explains why the cartels are so
well armed and also able to grease the system. It also explains why
Juarez is today a killing field.

Supply warriors might have a better argument if the billions of
dollars spent defoliating the Colombian jungle, chasing fast boats
and shooting down airplanes for the past four decades had reduced
drug use. Yet despite passing victories like taking out 1980s kingpin
Pablo Escobar and countless other drug lords since then, narcotics
are still widely available in the U.S. and some segment of American
society remains enthusiastic about using them. In some places
terrorist organizations like Colombia's FARC rebels and al Qaeda have
replaced traditional cartels.

There is one ray of hope for innocent victims of the war on drugs.
Last week the Journal reported that Drug Enforcement Administration
agents were questioning members of an El Paso gang about their
possible involvement in the recent killings in Juarez. If the
escalation is now spilling over into the U.S., Americans may finally
have to face their role in the mess. Mrs. Clinton's mission will only
add value if it reflects awareness of that reality.