We Can't Legalize Drugs Because There Is Just Too Much Violence In It

Yesterday President Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and expressed admiration for his fight against the illegal drug trade:

At a joint news conference at the White House with Mr. Calderón, Mr. Obama said Mexico had shown "extraordinary courage" in its stand against a wave of crime and violence that has left tens of thousands of Mexicans dead since 2006, threatening the stability of a country whose democracy is barely a decade old.

And he pledged that the United States, which provides a market for the illegal drugs, would do more to help.

"We are very mindful that the battle President Calderón is fighting in Mexico is not just his," Mr. Obama said. "It's also ours. We have to take responsibility, just as he's taking responsibility."

Has Calderon taken a stand against a wave of violence, or has he precipitated it? Some 35,000 people have died in prohibition-related violence since his crackdown began in 2006. Just as Obama's secretary of state does not seem to understand that illegal drugs are expensive and sold by criminals because they're illegal, Obama does not seem to understand that the business is violent for the same reason. If he were serious about taking responsibility, he would reflect on the havoc caused by his government's arbitrary pharmacological dictates.