THE TORMENT OF MEXICO

With mixed feelings, I read your story, "Mexico: bleeding to death in
the war on drugs" (26 August). I returned to Britain last month after
having lived in Monterrey, Mexico, for the past three years.

I left as a result of the rapidly increasing insecurity and can write
first hand of the psychosis gripping this city and indeed the country,
as a result of the "war on drugs".

Civilians are increasingly among the dead; most infamously (prior to
the mass grave being found), the bodies of two post-graduate students
were left unrecognisable, the only victims of a gun/grenade battle
between the army and a drug cartel, which spread on to university
ground. No one was ever held accountable for their deaths, as is the
case for most narco deaths in Mexico.

Mexicans are not suffering and dying as a result of their own
addictions to, and misuse of, drugs. No, these people are caught up in
the incessant thirst for drugs, both recreational and dependent, in
the West.

This war will not be won through violence on the streets of Mexico.
For every cartel member whose death President Felipe Calderon is
lauded for, hundreds more are willing to take their place and continue
their horrifically brutal work.

The situation needs to be addressed at the point of use. It is
cringe-worthy how countries, including the US and Britain, actively
encourage these wars on foreign ground yet shirk their
responsibilities on home ground. The zero tolerance attitude is not
working. It is unrealistic to think that Western drug consumption can
be stopped, just as it is unrealistic that drug smuggling into the US
will end.

I was never an advocate of legalisation, rather the opposite, but that
was because I never looked past my own backyard. I never asked where
the drugs came from and at what cost. And while I now agree with
Vicente Fox's stance for legalisation in Mexico, it would mean nothing
unless countries responsible for the consumption also adopted
legalisation.

It is now glaringly clear, as countries such as Mexico and Afghanistan
suffer the consequences of our demand for drugs, that we need to work
together; we all have blood on our hands.

Rebecca Hilton,

Edinburgh