FUND DRUG TREATMENT RATHER THAN MEXICAN ANTI-DRUGS OPERATIONS

The White House announced a proposal last week seeking $1.4 billion
in counter-narcotics aid to Mexico and other Central American
countries for yet another supply-side drug control scheme. The
military and security package would go for helicopters, police
training and communications and data-processing equipment. It is a
familiar game.

U.S. leaders continue to blame another country for our failure to
reduce substance misuse here at home. That country escalates its war
against drugs, but asks the United States to pick up part of the tab.
Aid is given, but it ends up having no impact on the availability of
drugs in the United States. U.S. leaders again point fingers, and the
cycle continues.

Of course, it's tempting to give aid to Mexico. President Felipe
Calderon seems to be doing all the right things in cracking down on
drug traffickers. He's appointed new people to key military and
criminal-justice positions, deployed troops to quell drug violence,
reasserted federal police power and extradited major traffickers to
the United States.

But all this provides little reason to hope that Mexico will really
turn a corner in its efforts to control the illegal drug trade. For a
guide to what's in store, one need only look at past sexenios (the
six-year terms of Mexican presidents).

What Calderon is doing now differs little from what his predecessors
did at the start of their terms. The results are always the same.
Drug trafficking gangs re-group with new leaders and new connections.
Previously incorruptible officers are newly corrupted. Police of all
ranks, and all shades of probity, tremble in fear of assassins'
bullets. And Mexicans once again wonder why the cycle never really ceases.

Some things do change, of course - such as the identities of the
traffickers and the police who pursue and protect them, and the drugs
they traffic. Methamphetamine is hot now, fueled in part by
legislative and regulatory actions in the United States that raised
the cost of domestic production and gave a boost to methamphetamine
"super-labs" South of the Border. Something else will replace it one
day, just as marijuana was once replaced by heroin, and heroin by
cocaine, and cocaine by methamphetamine.

So what should policymakers do?

Mexico should crack down hard on violence, drug-related or not - and
think in terms of protecting its own citizens, not fighting drugs per
se. That requires thinking strategically about drug enforcement,
targeting the most violent people and criminal organizations, and
even promoting nonviolent solutions to conflicts among traffickers.

The United States should put its own house in order. Decades of
research has shown that the most cost-effective way to undermine drug
markets and reduce drug abuse is not providing aid to other countries
but making a greater commitment to reducing drug misuse and its harm
at home. Funding effective drug treatment provides a far better
return on investment than does any form of international drug control.

Leaders in both countries would do well to provoke a discussion about
the failures of drug prohibition and the damage it is causing.
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said it best in a
letter to the first President Bush's first drug czar, William Bennett:

"Of course the problem is demand, but it is not only demand, it is
demand that must operate through repressed and illegal channels.
Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics
of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law
enforcement officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest
law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the
simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault.

"Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use
converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and
nonusers alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a
replay of our experience with the prohibition of alcoholic beverages."

Until policymakers start rethinking failed drug-war policies, the
violence and corruption inherent in prohibition will continue.