Xinhua Analysis: Failed US-Backed Drug War a Boon to Uncle Sam's Arms Sales Mao Pengfei - Xinhua
go to original June 25, 2015

Thousands of confiscated firearms are destroyed last year in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. (CNN)

Decades after the United States launched a multinational war on drugs with the help of its Latin American allies, the drug trade continues to thrive and brings huge profits to U.S. arms sales.

Just across the border with Mexico, the number of drug cartels has multiplied.

A handful of drug trafficking organizations, such as the Juarez, Gulf, Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels, once controlled the business. But today, there is a crowded field of upstarts, from Zetas to Knights Templar and Jalisco's New Generation, not to mention the drug dynasties that rose and fell, including the Beltran-Leyva Cartel and La Familia Michoacana, and numerous subgroups like Gente Nueva, El Tigre, and Los Artistas Asesinos.

As their names suggest, the lucrative trade also spread geographically. It used to be confined to the country's northern states bordering the United States, but now reigns over much of Mexico's heartland and southern Pacific coast, and has a presence in 23 of 33 states.

Proponents of the drug war may argue that many of these criminal organizations are just the splintered remains of once-powerful regional cartels whose capos have been captured or cut down by law enforcement. But the truth remains that the war on drugs, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year, has not made a dent in the use of illicit drugs, which is actually on the rise both in the traditional consumer countries like the United States and in the centers of production or transit like Mexico.

Why would such a clearly failed policy be endorsed? At least one interrelated sector is raking in huge profits - the U.S. arms sales.

Read the rest at GlobalPost

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