LOSING A COSTLY "WAR"

Drug prohibition is not just destabilizing Mexico, it is encroaching
on the United States. As the corruption and violence surge against our
border, the urgency rises for a national debate on drug
legalization.

But Washington officialdom continues to duck this needed
debate.

The Wall Street Journal is doing some of the best reporting on the
crisis in Mexico and its growing impact on the United States.

Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady reported on federal pressure on El
Paso, Texas, city officials - desperate to stem drug violence - to
back off efforts to push for a new federal drug policy. She names the
Drug Enforcement Agency as a "special interest" intent on maintaining
its power by opposing efforts to consider drug legalization.

O'Grady notes that "while the 'war on drugs' has done nothing to curb
the U.S. appetite for mind-altering substances, its unintended
consequence has been to empower organized crime networks. These gangs
. are undermining the economy and the quality of life in the
binational El Paso-Juarez metropolitan region."

Juarez, she reports, has experienced 6,500 murders since 2008 - equal
to 26,000 murders in New York City on a per capita basis. El Paso has
had more than 1,600 murders.

Meanwhile, the Journal reports that both Mexicans and U.S. citizens
are fleeing drug violence in Monterrey, home to 10 percent of Mexico's
annual economic output. The U.S. State Department and Caterpillar have
both ordered U.S. employees with children to leave.

The newspaper reports that Mexico appears to have lost control of
parts of the country to drug gangs. "Mexico can't afford to lose
Monterrey," said an expert on Mexican security - a shocking statement,
like saying the United States "can't afford to lose Dallas."

Meanwhile, local Mexican police are riddled by pervasive corruption
fueled by drug money.

Yes, drug legalization is a controversial issue. But as O'Grady and
others point out, drug prohibition is no more successful than alcohol
prohibition, and is spawning the same crime and corruption.

"In the 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on drug suppliers
abroad - because American consumers had consistently demonstrated that
they had no interest in curtailing demand - illicit drug use ... has
remained fairly constant," O'Grady writes.

Meanwhile, U.S. jails are full of low-level drug dealers, and the
cartels are moving production to the United States, where indoor pot
cultivation has become a "major source of funding for criminal gangs."

Where to start? O'Grady notes that up to 60 percent of the cartels'
income comes from marijuana, "still the world's drug of choice."

If we were winning the drug war, it would be a classic Pyrrhic victory
- - so costly that it's as bad as losing. But we aren't winning.