Mexico's soul

Whether Mexico's impending socio-political collapse has less or more
to do with its President is a moot point (The Soul Of Mexico -
editorial, May 16). Mexico's probable destiny is to become a failed
state and so, a state without any soul at all.

One would think Mexico's neighbours might recall the lessons of their
own Prohibition era and adjust their outlook accordingly. As Canada
and the U.S. struggled for their souls in the 1930s, commodities once
deemed socially corroding were properly understood as merchandise more
in need of better distribution-management than ever-more-robust law
enforcement. It took only a change of outlook, and then policy, to
make gangsters gentlemen as their children became bankers, politicians
and movie moguls.

The other desperate irony concerning Mexico's disintegration will be
that, as Canadian and U.S. politicos ignored their own history and
insisted upon pan-regional prohibition and enforcement as the best
answer for drugs, they kept access to guns, and the trade that
supports it, highly liberalized.

L.W. Naylor

Stratford Ont.