THE MISSING PIECE TO THE GANG-VIOLENCE DEBATE

Now that politicians and the public have finally started to discuss
guns, gangs and murder, countless explanations have been offered.
It's about fatherless families, weak immigration rules and a
soft-touch criminal justice system, one side says. No, it's about
racism and poverty, the other side counters, and too many guns.

All these points are important and worthy of discussion, but there's
something missing. Most gang-related murders have one thing in
common, one motivation, and yet scarcely a word has been said about
this missing piece. But it is the key. Take it out of the equation
and most of the killing stops.

To see this missing element in all its bloody glory, take a look at
recent events in Mexico, a country embroiled in a gang war that makes
the violence in Toronto look like a high-school debate.

The gun battles erupted in March, 2003, in Nuevo Laredo, a city on
the border with the United States. The federal government flooded the
city with officers but that only displaced the fighting. Now the
bullets are flying all over Mexico. About 1,000 people have died so
far. And the war continues.

The fight is over control of the mammoth trade in marijuana,
methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. Some of the drugs are produced
in Mexico, others are imported from South America, but almost all are
sold to willing buyers in the United States.

That the illicit drug trade is violent is no surprise to anyone, but
what most people don't know is that violence in black markets tends
to be cyclical. A mature market, with established networks and
powerful figures in place, tends to minimize bloodshed. It's when the
status quo is disrupted that all hell breaks loose.

That's exactly what happened in Mexico in March, 2003, when Mexican
authorities arrested the drug lord who controlled the Nuevo Laredo
smuggling conduit. President Vicente Fox praised the arrest as a
great victory and proof his country was making progress in the fight
against the drug trade.

It doesn't look like such a triumph now. "Why are we in this
situation?" Mexico's deputy attorney general told The New York Times.
"Because the only leaders who can contain the violence are the ones in jail."

That's the thing about drug enforcement: Even when you win, you lose.

Yes, drugs are the missing piece in Canada's guns-and-gangs debate.
Why are gangsters shooting up the streets of Toronto and Winnipeg and
Vancouver? It's true that gang culture, fatherless homes, poverty and
other factors people are talking about may play a role. But in almost
every case, the drug trade is the reason why the trigger is squeezed.
If the black market didn't exist, neither would most of the bloodshed.

Homicide studies in many countries have repeatedly confirmed this
fact. One review of murders in New York City in 1988 found 39 per
cent of killings -- all killings, not just those involving gangs --
involved a drug-trade business dispute. If you can't sue, you shoot.

Now, one could say -- and many people do say -- that the answer is
tough enforcement. Wipe out the drug trade and the violence goes with it.

Of course anyone who even points a gun at another human being must be
caught and punished. But it is a mistake to think law enforcement can
eliminate the drug trade and the violence swirling around it. As
every economist knows, markets -- legal or not -- are self-correcting
mechanisms. Even if the police took down every drug dealer in Toronto
tomorrow, the unsatisfied demand for drugs would drive the price up
and that higher price would entice new traders into the market. It's
the law of supply and demand and it trumps any law passed by Parliament.

Of course politicians don't like to admit they aren't omnipotent. And
they really don't want to say unpopular things in public,
particularly during an election. And so both the Liberals and the
Conservatives have promised to deal with gang crime by, yet again,
increasing law enforcement and boosting sentences.

This will fail. And worse.

Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Boston University, has studied the
links between violence and prohibition -- of both alcohol and other
drugs -- over the last century. His research found a strong
correlation not only between violence and a drug's legal status --
the moment it's banned, violence goes up -- but also between violence
and the amount of money spent trying to enforce the ban. After
controlling for other factors that might be influencing the result,
Miron came to clear a clear conclusion: "Higher enforcement is
associated with higher homicide."

I'm sure Mexicans are starting to get Miron's point. And if
politicians in this country ignore the evidence of almost a century
of failure and greatly ratchet up law enforcement, so will Canadians.