Mexico's Loco War on Drugs

Nick Gillespie | March 8, 2007

Drug Policy Alliance head Ethan Nadelman writes at The Huffington Post about how the new prez of Mexico Felipe Calderon is repeating the past when it comes to the drug war down there:

What President Calderon is doing now differs little from what his predecessors did at the start of their terms. But the results are always the same -- encouraging at first but then it all starts up again. 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 stops.

More here.

Comments

|3.8.07 @ 5:02PM|#

...Friedman was right -- and ... Mexico is doomed to repeat the follies of the past until Friedman's policy becomes Mexico's policy.

Holy supply and demand Batman. Did you think you'd live to see the day the Huffington Post acknowledged Milton Friedman as the supreme source of economic wisdom.

|3.8.07 @ 5:02PM|#

No wonder the results are the same: Every time you crack down on one set of drug dealers, it just encourages other more violent dealers to fill the space.

Mexico has been following this crazy policy just to keep the USGov and its anti-drug zealots happy, but at the cost of billions of dollars in wasted resources, more people being placed in horrible jails, and more violent and daring criminals being artificially selected (just like drug-resisting bacteria) out of the rest to rule over the business.

Unfortunatelly, just too many people in Mexico are indoctrinated in the idea that whatever the MexGov decides, it is in the best interest of all. Too many Mexicans are functional socialists, letting their lives be ruled by the few technocrats in Mexico City. If you think the level of aquiescence in the US is enough to worry, in Mexico it is much worse.

LarryA|3.8.07 @ 5:38PM|#

And Mexicans once again wonder why the cycle never really stops.

Insanity: Repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results.

|3.8.07 @ 7:30PM|#

Mexico has been following this crazy policy just to keep the USGov and its anti-drug zealots happy

Tempting as it is to lay all things evil at the foot of US anti-drug warriors, I know of no reason why Mexico would be more sensible on this score without the loco gringos to the north. Sure, it's a crazy policy, but it's a crazy policy for the US, too, and that didn't keep it from becoming the law.

|3.8.07 @ 11:02PM|#

Notice how everyone who has posted to his blog - at this time anyway - has been flagged as "abusive?" But none of them has said anything abusive yet.

Reportero|3.9.07 @ 12:08AM|#

I passed through Matamoros yesterday and many taxi drivers there now moonlight in "narcoturismo" in which they take curious visitors to all the places narcos were shot up or arrested in the past.

Bill|3.9.07 @ 8:58AM|#

Maybe they need to get serious once and for all and declare war. The American people want WAR, the american people want DEATH!!! Find where the stuf is produced, and where it is sold and carpet bomb the whole neighborhood with cluster bombs, kill everyone involved. Enought is enough, we want DEATH!!! to everone even tangentially involved in poisoning americas children.

Bill|3.9.07 @ 8:59AM|#

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LarryA|3.9.07 @ 10:40AM|#

Tempting as it is to lay all things evil at the foot of US anti-drug warriors, I know of no reason why Mexico would be more sensible on this score without the loco gringos to the north.

1. The U.S. produces an annual "report card" grading how eager other countries are in helping with the WoD. As in the U.S. the WoD provides a lot of cover for questionable law enforcement tactics and strategy.

2. Drug users in the U.S. provide most of the funding for the other side, and the U.S. government a lot of funding for the drug control folks.

3. Black markets always produce corruption, or make corruption more profitable if it already exists.