Pubdate: Mon, 21 Mar 2005
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2005 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Note: Apparent 150 word limit on LTEs
Author: Ted Galen Carpenter
Note: Contact Carpenter, vice president for defense- and foreign-policy 
studies at the Cato Institute, at 1000 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., Washington, 
DC 20001.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

'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.
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MAP posted-by: Beth