Mexican President Calderon Speaks on U.S. and Mexico’s War on Drugs
Mexican President Felipe Calderon paid a visit to the White House on May 20 on President Obama’s invitation to speak on various topics concerning the two leaders’ nations including drug trafficking and violence related to the war on drugs.
Since former President Nixon officially declared ‘war on drugs’ in 1970, the drug lords of Mexico have had little to slow them down from overtaking and amplifying the American drug market. With $1 trillion having been spent on combating drug cartels, drug smuggling, and gang violence since Nixon’s time, the U.S.’s War on Drugs has conceptually failed. After fighting Columbian cocaine distribution during the 1990s, cocaine production, smuggling, and violence transferred to Mexican territory where trans-border importation is more easily attained. Today, seven prominent Mexican drug cartels exist throughout the country’s 31 states. Mexico remains the world’s largest cocaine distributor, and the U.S.’s largest supplier of methamphetamines and marijuana. Thanks to its 1,952 mile-long border with the U.S., and both western and eastern cartel-controlled maritime ports, Mexico is a leading thoroughfare for cocaine, heroin, and stimulant distribution for international importation and U.S. exportation.
In December 2006, Mexican President Calderon declared a war on drugs and his nation’s feared drug cartels. Calderon has deployed a total of 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal agents to 18 of Mexico’s states in one of the world’s bloodiest battles today. Since 2007, an estimated 22,700 people have died as a result of drug-related violence. During his presidency, President Obama has held over a dozen meetings with President Calderon in both the U.S. and Mexico to discuss the progress of the campaign against illegal drug trade and the U.S. support of Mexican militia training and supplies. Since formation of the Merida Initiative—U.S.’s $1.4 billion security co-operation with Mexico and other Central American nations for military training and equipment for the purpose of combating drug trafficking and intercontinental crime—Mexico and the U.S. have failed to curtail the success of the lucrative drug trafficking business.
Calderon’s administration has influenced major shifts in power amongst the drug cartels as leaders are arrested or killed in police combat. The changing balance of power inside the cartel families, as well as cartel-related disputes over Mexican territory, has modified operations and alliances amongst cartels and added to the level of violence. Cartel lieutenants and their troops have attacked and slaughtered thousands of their opponents, Mexican forces, and Mexican citizens in their ongoing battles to control profitable drug-trafficking routes to the U.S. Guns are bought in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico where violence has become magnified in the last 3 years. In his speech at the White House, President Calderon asked Congress to renew its ban on assault weapons to help aid his efforts against the drug cartels. Many of these weapons that make their way to Mexico, Calderon stated, end up in the hands of cartel members who kill thousands each year.
In addition, President Calderon stated that the growing success of drug trafficking is fueled by America’s steadfast addiction to drugs. President Obama has repeatedly acknowledged that U.S. drug consumption is part of the problem in the war on drugs. Today, an estimated 25 million Americans have a substance abuse disorder. After 40 years of ‘War on Drugs,’ the number of American drug addicts has increased by 10 million. The U.S., the world’s largest drug consumer, has made Mexico the world’s leading drug supplier and distributor. U.S. efforts to infiltrate drug trafficking, such as $49 billion spent on law enforcement, $121 billion spent on the criminal justice system, and $350 billion spent on federal incarceration, have actually made the illegal drug trade a more successful business. Inside and outside of prison, drug lords continue to operate their trafficking business, and investigative teams have trouble gathering evidence or making it stick since informants, witnesses, and agents are more often intimidated, threatened, tortured, or killed. Only 75% of U.S. arrests related to drug trafficking are able to be processed, and thousands of cases are acquitted each year. The drug industry is too profitable of a business that others are more than willing to replace drug leaders as they die off. Fighting violence with violence, it seems, has not given the U.S. an advantage over drug consumption.
In his historic 2011 $15.5 billion drug control policy, President Obama is pledging only $5.6 billion be spent on prevention and treatment programs in the U.S. Although law enforcement remains the top priority under this plan, as it did under the Bush administration, drug czar Gil Kerlikowski warns that noticeable change in the drug war effort will take much progress. The level of violence in Mexico is still too high and living situations for innocent Mexican citizens in cartel territory are too dangerous to abandon. Obama’s plan emphasizes law enforcement such as border patrol agents, police, and military to combat the continuing drug war rather than treating drug consumption as a public health mandate.
Preventative measures and substance abuse treatment have time and again proven to be the most lasting and successful solution to substance abuse in statistical and medical research. Drug users are less likely to return to their habits and criminals are less likely to recidivate after receiving substance abuse treatment and counseling. However, without treatment, these individuals are most likely to relapse and return to jail, where their drug habits continue. Unless the cycle is broken, drug cartels and their violent business will continue to prosper at America’s demise.
References
http://www.knx1070.com/Mexican-President-Slams-AZ-Immigration-Law-at-Whit/7104616
http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-failed-drug-war,0,1805606.story?page=1
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126890893
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/052010dnnatassaultweapons.223cfb36.html
