'Colombianization'

DRUGS' STRONGHOLD IN MEXICO NOW EVIDENT

Mexico is a major source of heroin for the U.S. market, as well as the
principal hub for cocaine coming in from South America. For years, many
people both inside and outside Mexico have worried that the country might
descend into the maelstrom of corruption and violence that has long plagued
the chief drug-source country in the Western Hemisphere: Colombia. There
are growing signs that the "Colombianization" of Mexico is now becoming a
reality.

In just the past few months, there have been several alarming developments.
Rival drug gangs in numerous cities - especially cities along the border
with the United States - are waging ferocious turf battles. Several of
those armed conflicts, including one centered on the popular resort city of
Cancun, have involved present or former police officers.

That is just one indication of mounting corruption within Mexico's
political and law-enforcement systems. Just recently, evidence came to
light that some of the country's biggest drug kingpins still were running
their organizations even while they were inmates in supposedly
high-security prisons. The power of the drug organizations is generating
fear throughout the country. There even is concern that ruthless drug gangs
may have targeted President Vicente Fox for assassination, and security
around the president has had to be tightened.

All of this is familiar to those who studied the effect of the drug trade
on Colombia in the past two decades. Another Colombian pattern also is
beginning to emerge in Mexico - the branching out of the drug gangs into
kidnapping and other lucrative sources of revenue. That aspect has made
Colombia the kidnapping capital of the world in recent years. Now, the same
phenomenon is becoming noticeable in Mexico. Indeed, several American
citizens traveling in Mexico have been victimized. That danger reached such
an alarming level that the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert in
January, much to the annoyance of the Mexican government.

It would be a tragedy if the corruption and violence that has plagued
Colombia also engulfs Mexico.

Such a development would automatically be of grave concern to the United
States. Colombia is reasonably far away; Mexico is our next-door neighbor
and a significant economic partner in the North America Free Trade
Agreement. Chaos in that country would inevitably affect Americans,
especially those living in the Southwest.

It should not come as a surprise, though, if Mexico is on the path to
becoming the next Colombia. The trade in illegal drugs is a
multibillion-dollar enterprise, with the United States as the principal
retail market and Mexico is a key player. The illegality of the trade
produces a huge profit potential that attracts the most ruthless and
violence-prone individuals and organizations. It is a truism that, as long
as drugs are outlawed, only outlaws will traffic in drugs.

When the United States and other countries consider whether to persist in a
strategy of drug prohibition, they need to consider all of the potential
societal costs. Drug abuse is certainly a major public health problem, and
its societal costs are considerable. But as we have seen in Colombia and
other drug-source countries, banning the drug trade creates economic
distortions and a huge opportunity for some of the most unsavory elements
to gain tenacious footholds. Drug prohibition leads inevitably to an orgy
of corruption and violence. Those are very real societal costs, and that
reality is now becoming all too evident in our neighbor to the south. The
Bush administration needs to pay closer attention to the burgeoning crisis
next door.