When Will Washington Learn? Alternative Drug Policies Needed to Prevent Violence
Distressingly, the United States has long ignored its role in the illegal drug trade and its contribution to the ongoing violence plaguing the territory throughout Mexico and Colombia. Recently, however, counteractive efforts have begun to assume an inclination toward violence as a strategy to curtail the further proliferation of drug trafficking and illegal immigration from Colombia and Mexico. Similarly, Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s strategy of rooting out drug cartels with widespread flame and combat has only aggravated the problem. Over the course of a four-year initiative, over forty thousand Mexicans have been killed, the overwhelming majority of whom had no connection to drug cartels. New York Times columnist Damien Cave’s article on the hacker syndicate Anonymous retells how after the Zetas drug cartel kidnapped an Anonymous employee, the syndicate released a haunting video (much like those filmed and used for intimidation by the Zetas), threatening to release hundreds of names of political officials tied to the cartel, intending to foment violence against those individuals. This poses a terrifying situation: responding to the violence in Mexico and Colombia with further unchecked, unplanned violence.
These sorts of tactics, along with policy suggestions of U.S.-sponsored military action in Mexico, are a step in a decisively wrong direction. If the costly, detailed anti-drug campaigns were not capable of preventing the further diffusion of illegal drugs and migrants into the U.S., it is foolish to think that an all-out drug war could ever be effective in resolving the issue. Past administrations have often marginalized the problems associated with the drug trade, insisting that developing solutions should not be the responsibility of the U.S. government, but rather should remain an initiative solely under Colombian or Mexican control.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Zac Deibel.
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Tuesday November 1st, 2011 | Research Memorandum 11.3
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