David Simmonds

Mexico has a serious problem going on, folks. And although it hasn’t affected their dynamic tourist industry (except for a few border areas), the drug cartel wars are escalating rapidly. These guys don’t fool around. Tijuana has had 50 drug war homicides in the past week with two of the victims having been beheaded. Two more people were found outside a popular TJ restaurant stuffed into a barrel full of acid. More than 400 others have been killed in the border town this year, and most SoCal people are staying away from the popular coastline that leads from there to Ensenada.

Mexico’s President Calderon has vowed to win this vicious war against the cartels, but the battle will be long and bloody and very possibly unsuccessful. Drug lords have many local police forces on their payroll throughout the country enabled by  huge amounts of cash and weapons. And although most of the drugs are exported to the insatiable U.S. market, Mexico’s usage has increased as well. The number of drug addicts has grown by  51% to 307,000 since 2002, according to government sources. The real number is likely higher.

Now Calderon has proposed a bill whereby small amounts of cocaine, marijuana and heroin would be decriminalized, providing the user agrees to complete medical treatment or a prevention program. Ex-president Fox had tried the same thing but withdrew his proposal under pressure from the U.S., who should probably be more concerned about our their own domestic laws than Mexico’s.

I have stated before on this site that it’s time for the U.S. to legalize and control certain levels of  street drugs. It’s the only effective way I can see to take the profit, the dealer’s lifeblood, out of the system. We having been waging this losing War on Drugs for 50 years and it’s way past time to try something different. Mexico has wisely taken a first small step in that direction.