Mexican president calls ending drug trade impossible, a matter of Supply and Demand
To the wingnuts who blame Latin America for exporting drugs and cheap labor (undocumented immigrants) to the U.S.: Particularly Mexicans have said for generations that these are straightforward matters of Capitalism, supply/demand: “If the U.S. didn’t demand, we wouldn’t supply.” Wingnuts seldom look inward for root causes of problems, nearly always look outside for a villain to blame. So after blaming outsiders, they cut off their nose by slashing social services such as education and rehab, thereby encouraging Demand.
I realize that drug legalization (especially pot) is popular with (most? or, a lot?) of my side of politics, and I’m aware of the wrongheadedness of Prohibition and of the ravages of the legal drug of alcohol. But an indigenous person told a Hippie in the ‘70s who was demanding pot from him that pot is a pain management agent, not for recreational use, is “for when a woman is giving birth or when a man has a broken limb.”
President CALDERON has a month left in his term and, despite (as the legalizers would say) his prosecution of the “war on drugs,” has been decent and reasonable. He and Vicente FOX are members of the PAN party that interrupted (12 yrs) the 70 yrs of PRI party dominance that will return in January. The PRI had gotten corrupt, although it was good in secularism. Mexican presidents have emphasized their sovereignty vis a vis the U.S., and President CALDERON proposed changing the name of Mexico, away from “The United States of Mexico,” to just plain “Mexico” as a recognition of its selfhood and what everybody calls it anyway. (Wouldn’t it be further independent for him to stay at a Mexican university instead of Harvard?)
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/11/drugs-business
[font size=5]The drugs business
"Impossible" to end drug trade, says Calderón[/font]
ENDING the [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]consumption[/FONT] and the trafficking of illegal drugs is “impossible”, according to Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s outgoing president. In an interview with The Economist Mr Calderón, whose battle with organised crime has come to define his six years in office, said that countries whose citizens [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]consume[/FONT] drugs should find "[FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]market mechanisms[/FONT]" to prevent their [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]money from getting into the hands of criminals[/FONT]" in Latin America. ,,,,
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E)ither the United States and its society, its government and its congress decide to drastically reduce their [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]consumption[/FONT] of drugs, or if they are not going to reduce it they at least have the moral responsibility to reduce the flow of money towards Mexico, which goes into the hands of criminals. They have to explore even [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]market mechanisms[/FONT] to see if that can allow the flow of money to reduce.
"If they want to take all the drugs they want, as far as I’m concerned let them take them. I don’t agree with it but it’s [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]their decision, as consumers[/FONT] and as a society. What I do not accept is that they continue passing their money to the hands of killers." ....
Mr Calderón’s comments sum up what seems to be a growing consensus: stopping or even seriously reducing drug consumption has so far proved impossible, so it is time to focus on [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]ways of making that consumption less harmful[/FONT]. That sort of thinking has been fashionable for a long time on [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]the demand side[/FONT], with innovations such as needle exchanges and methadone replacement now common in many rich countries. The next step is to explore legal ways of [FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: yellow"]managing the supply side, as Colorado and Washington[/FONT] have recently voted to do.
Sitting presidents such as Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala are pushing for a rethink. As a result of this agitation the Organisation of American States, a regional body, is compiling a report on drug policy which is expected to explore alternatives to the current regime. It will be interesting to see if Mr Calderón, who is widely expected to take up a post at Harvard after leaving the presidency in December, gets bolder still in his retirement.
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