Pubdate: Tue, 04 Sep 2007
Source: Burlington Times-News (NC)
Copyright: 2007 Freedom Communications, Inc
Contact: http://www.thetimesnews.com/sections/contactus/letter.php
Website: http://www.thetimesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1822
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Plan+Mexico (Plan Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico (Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Plan+Colombia
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Arnold+Trebach
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

WANT TO SHOVEL MORE MONEY DOWN A RAT HOLE IN MEXICO'S DRUG WAR?

President Bush confirmed at the recent U.S.-Canada-Mexico "summit" 
meeting, that the U.S. is planning a "robust" aid package to help 
Mexico combat the illegal drug trade. There is little question that 
Mexico is experiencing a tragic wave of violence as various drug 
cartels battle among themselves and with the federales. But throwing 
more resources into enforcement will make matters worse.

The administration was at pains to say that the proposed aid to 
Mexico was not at all like the "Plan Colombia" program that has seen 
$800 million to $1.3 billion sent to Colombia every year since 1998, 
when the Clinton administration started it. No wonder. After all that 
money was spent, the number of acres under coca cultivation in 
Colombia actually has risen in recent years, and the street price of 
cocaine in the United States has declined, which is exactly the 
opposite of what the plan was supposed to accomplish.

The continued availability of illicit drugs in the U.S. should be 
testimony enough that the "war on drugs" is one of the most massive 
and socially disruptive policy failures of modern times. Drug 
warriors may like to think that if they just spent more money and 
ratcheted up the pressure on traffickers, they would finally end 
illicit drug use and trafficking. This approach has always failed in 
the past and will fail in the future, for some obvious reasons.

Prohibition raises the price to consumers to many times the cost of 
producing the drugs, so as long as the demand is there the potential 
profits will lure unscrupulous operators into the trade. Conspicuous 
flurries of enforcement tend to winnow out the least-competent of the 
dealers, reducing competition for those most skilled at the dark arts 
of concealment and violence. Even if a major operator is taken down, 
a dozen more will scramble to take his place.

Then there's what former American University law professor Arnold 
Trebach called the "iron law of prohibition." Concentrated 
enforcement, he observed, leads to traffickers moving toward more 
compact, more easily concealed and higher-margin illicit drugs. In 
practice this means moving from less harmful drugs like marijuana 
toward more harmful drugs like heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine. So 
dealers in the U.S. could find themselves with smaller supplies of 
"softer" drugs and better supplies of "hard" drugs, and will push 
customers in that direction.

Thus the U.S. "anti-drug" aid package to Mexico not only won't be 
helpful, it will almost certainly make things worse. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake