MEXICO MAY EVENTUALLY JUST SAY NO

Something remarkable happened in Mexico this month. Tens of thousands
of Mexicans gathered in the main squares of cities across the country
to demand an end to the "war on drugs." In the Zocalo, in the heart
of Mexico City, they chanted "no more blood," and many called for the
resignation of President Felipe Calderon, who launched the current
war by deploying the army against the drug cartels in late 2006.

Some 35,000 people in Mexico have been killed in drug-related
violence since then. Even as the crowds chanted, news came in of
another 59 bodies discovered in mass graves in Tamaulipas state. In
the words of poet-journalist Javier Sicilia, who inspired the
demonstrations after his own son was killed, the war is "tearing
apart the fabric of the nation."

But what does he know? In fact, the United States and Mexico are on
the brink of winning the war on drugs. We know that because Michele
Leonhart, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said
so on the very same day, at an international conference in Cancun.
"It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is
a sign of success in the fight against drugs," she said.

She presumably means that all the Mexican drug-traffickers will be
dead soon, and that nobody else will be tempted by the easy money to
take the place of those who are killed. Americans will then stop
using drugs because they simply aren't available, or at worst they
will be so scarce and expensive that only the very rich can afford
them. And we'll all live happily ever after (except the very rich, of course).

True, drugs in the United States have become cheaper, stronger and
more easily available over the past 40 years, despite annual claims
by the DEA that victory is at hand. To go on doing the same thing
every year for 40 years, while expecting that next time will have a
different outcome, is sometimes seen as evidence of insanity, but we
shouldn't be judgmental. We could, however, try to be rational.

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has been doing well on the
rationality front recently. Last August he wrote in his blog: "We
should consider legalizing the production, sale and distribution of
drugs. Legalization does not mean that drugs are good. But we have to
see it as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that
allows cartels to make huge profits, which in turn increases their
power and capacity to corrupt."

This would mean that Mexican drug-users could get any drugs they
want, of course. Just like now. The only differences would be that
the drugs, being state-regulated and taxed, might cost slightly more,
and that there would be fewer deaths from impurities and overdoses.
But it wouldn't actually break the power of the cartels so long as
drugs remain illegal in the huge U.S. market.

Former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria addressed this issue head-on
in a recent interview with Time magazine: "U.S. drug policy has
failed. So please, change it. Don't force us to sacrifice thousands
of lives for a strategy that doesn't work simply because American
politicians lack the courage to change course." Well said -- but why
did these men not act when they had the power?

Because they were afraid of the American reaction. The United States
has repeatedly made it clear that it will inflict grievous economic
pain on any Latin American country that defects from its war against
drugs. That is becoming an empty threat, however, for U.S. economic
power is nothing like it used to be, even in Latin America.

That's partly due to the recent near-collapse of the U.S. economy,
but it's also the result of the rapid growth of the Latin American
countries. Mexico, for example, is a rising industrial power with
tens of millions of educated middle-class people and an economy
that's growing at seven per cent a year. It can now say no to
Washington without being crushed.

Ending the war on drugs in Mexico would not instantly stop the
killing, most of which is between cartels competing for control of
the routes by which drugs transit Mexico on their way to the United
States. But just ending the army's involvement would greatly lower
the level of violence, and legalizing drugs in Mexico would diminish
the epidemic of corruption, too. You don't need to bribe officials if
the drug trade is legal.

The current wave of demonstrations against the drug war is only a
start. The policy won't change so long as Calderon is president, for
too many people have been killed for him to repudiate it now. But by
the end of 2012 he will be gone, and his successor, from whichever
party, will be free to change the policy. One of these days, Mexico
will just say 'no'.