AN AMERICAN DIES IN MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

Rounding Up The Killers Of U.S. Immigration And Customs Enforcement
Officer Jaime Zapata Will Not Curtail Americans' Voracious Appetite
For Mind-Altering Substances.

Mexico City

The murder of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jaime
Zapata in the state of San Luis Potosi on Feb. 15 shocked and outraged
the American law-enforcement community. For Mexican law enforcement it
was just another day at the office.

Early indications are that Zapata was killed by members of the Mexican
drug cartel known as the Zetas. If so, his death adds to a shocking
statistic. The latest data available from the Mexican government show
that 87 members of the Mexican military and 867 law-enforcement
officers were killed by drug gangs between December 2006, when
President Felipe Calderon took office, and March 2009. Undoubtedly the
number is higher now.

Around 35,000 Mexicans are known to have died in drug-related
violence since December 2006-15,273 of those just last year. To
understand the magnitude of this violence, consider that the per
capita equivalent for the U.S. would be some 98,000 dead.

While Mexico's 18 murders per 100,000 in 2009 is still well below the
rate in Colombia (35) and Guatemala (52), it is a lot higher than it
was in 2007 (eight) and a lot higher than in the U.S. in 2009 (five).
It represents a sharp reversal of a improving trend after 1999.
American demand for illegal narcotics-the source of this escalating
violence-meanwhile shows no sign of letting up.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that if the U.S. was facing similar
rates of bloodshed, Washington would be forced to reconsider the
wisdom of its prohibition approach to the narcotics business. But the
suffering is south of the border, out of sight and out of mind for
Americans and, therefore, their politicians. Meanwhile, a
multi-billion dollar U.S. bureaucracy dedicated to fighting this war
has little incentive to see it won or change course.

The prospects for "victory" appear increasingly dim. The trouble is
that the rule of law in any free society emanates from the norms and
values of the culture. When it comes to voluntary transactions between
two parties, the government may pronounce one thing but if the
population doesn't share that view, it will not abide by the law.

Exhibit A is America's robust recreational drug culture, easily
observable in television, film and the arts. The July 2008 Science
Daily reported on a study at Australia's University of New South Wales
using statistics produced by the World Health Organization. It found
that the U.S had the highest levels of cocaine and cannabis use among
17 countries studied. The authors said that some "16.2% of people in
the U.S. had used cocaine in their lifetime, a level much higher than
any other country surveyed (the second highest level of cocaine use
was in New Zealand, where 4.3% of people reported having used
cocaine)." U.S. cannabis use topped 42%.

It is Mexico's bad luck to sit next to this lucrative drug market. And
it doesn't help that once the drugs are over the border they seem to
reach consumers with ease. As Juarez's then-mayor-elect Hector Murguia
told me in an interview at his home last fall: "We need to ask the
U.S. how you have a calm country despite the high rate of
consumption." Or to put it less delicately, perhaps the capos risk it
all at the border because they know that from McAllen, on the Texas
border, to Seattle, they're home free. It's hardly a surprise that
raids by feds last week to hunt down Zapata's killers netted 676
cartel suspects in the U.S.

Mexico has tried to rationalize the casualty toll by arguing that 85%
of the dead were gangsters killed by rival cartels. But with over 90%
of the murders in Juarez (where 3,100 were killed last year) unsolved,
it is hard to see how such a statement can be made. What is more, tens
of thousands of vulnerable children have been recruited to work in the
business, and some of them get killed too. Their deaths as cartel
fodder cannot be shrugged off. Finally, even if the government's
numbers are right, we're left with 5,250 innocent victims, a number
far too large to write off as collateral damage.

Why should Mexicans be asked to give their lives because Americans
have a voracious appetite for mind-altering substances? Mr. Calderon
has done little to elevate this question. Instead he claims the war
is justified because consumption is now an issue at home. But
Mexico's data do not support this, as former foreign minister Jorge
Castaneda wrote in a May 6, 2010 paper for the Cato Institute:
"'Users of drugs have gone up from 307,000 to 465,000 over the last
seven years (2002-2008), which in a country of 110 million people, is
not a huge drug problem."

The problem is on the other side of the border. And as long as there
are vast profits to be had, it's not going away, no matter how many
Jaime Zapatas, American or Mexican, are sacrificed.