RESPONSE TO COMMENTS ABOUT 'WE, AMERICAN DRUG MARKET, FUEL
INTERNATIONAL WAR ON DRUGS'

On Monday, I published an article in The Daily Campus called, "We
American drug market fuel international war on drugs." It linked the
rampant drug culture in America (particularly the use of marijuana) to
the cartel violence raging in Mexico.

In the past day I have received numerous emails from various readers
of The Daily Campus, most of which are not affiliated with SMU. All of
the emails were concerned with the legalization of marijuana, which my
article, in fact, never denounced nor promoted.

Apparently I am "wrong," "unfair," or just flat out "preposterous" for
asserting that a "low level drug users" could be blamed for such
"rampant violence." I believe the readers are confused in their
entirety about the point I was making.

I stated that there is a moral dilemma in buying an illicit substance
that comes from organizations that have killed 34,612 Mexican
citizens. There is no denying that it is the United States that
purchases the majority of the marijuana that comes from Mexico.

The profits from the sale of drugs to the United States population are
in turn used to buy guns, produce more drugs, run prostitution rings,
etc. All of the cartels present in Mexico vie for power and profit
from these sales, in a sense, it is all business competition - and
destructive at that.

One reader, Chuck, stated that "it's unfair for [me] to ask civilized
Americans and Mexicans to wait for everyone to stop using marijuana
before we can all enjoy a life without violent criminal groups," and I
could not agree more, but that is not what my article said. I believe
that the legalization of marijuana is, in fact, a step in the right
direction to lessening violence in Mexico, which the U.S. citizens
have helped perpetuate.

What one cannot do, which reader Thomas asserted, is state that the
"blood is on the hands of the politicians who...implement the failed
prohibitionist model of criminalizing what free people put into their
own bodies." One must not forget that it is the constituents that
elect these officials to office in the first place.

If there is a tinge of guilt in the moral conscience of America
because of our culture which promotes the use of marijuana, then
America has a responsibility to put politicians in to office that will
begin the process of the legalization of marijuana to curb the black
market created by the illegality of the drugs themselves.

I am unsure if some readers failed to catch the mention that the "War
on Drugs" is actually Mexico's war on drugs declared by Mexican
President Calderon and not an American war on drugs, or if they are
just informed about the goings on in Mexico. It is not the "DEA that
is causing bloodshed," as one respondent put it. No, actually the DEA
is not running Mexico's war on drugs. And if no one in the United
States smoked marijuana, there would be no reason for Mexico to have a
war on drugs as the cartels would be significantly less funded than
they are at the moment.

I find it interesting that so many people vehemently responded to my
article when I challenged what has become a very integral part of
American culture. I expected some resistance to my opinion (no one
likes to be accused of fueling the death of others after all), but the
responses were all extremely passionate in denouncing what I had said,
claiming that I am uneducated when it comes to the international issue
of drugs.

As I mentioned before, all of the emails, in some way, stated that the
legalization of marijuana would solve the problems in Mexico. Although
I agree, (yes you heard it readers, I was not as many of you seemed to
believe, declaiming the legalization of marijuana) it must be noted
that the process of legalization is much more complicated than passing
one law.

In addition to that, there must be a carefully planned strategy for
regulating marijuana trade, laws passed on age restrictions, and
protection against the infiltration of cartels into a legalized
market. All of these issues must be confronted before any actual
legislation can occur.

I hope this article clarifies some of the ambiguous points and
misconceptions in my previous article. As always, I thank the Daily
Campus readers for their continued comments and feedback and look
forward to further discussions on this, and other, topics.