Romney and Obama Foolishly Ignore the War on Drugs Ted Galen Carpenter - Cato Institute
go to original September 5, 2012

Roberto De Vido writes cartoons and comics about politics, sports (and life) from a small fishing and farming village an hour southwest of Tokyo.

One of the least discussed issues in the presidential campaign is the war on drugs. That's unfortunate, because that crusade has been an expensive catastrophe both domestically and internationally.

During the decades since Richard Nixon declared a "war" on illegal drugs in 1971, the United States has spent nearly one trillion dollars trying to eradicate the drug trade, filled America's prisons with nonviolent drug offenders, ruined millions of lives and undermined the Bill of Rights - especially the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Beyond America's borders, the results have been even worse. The greatest tragedy has occurred in Mexico. When President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006, he launched (with Washington's encouragement and financial support) a military-led offensive against his country's powerful drug cartels. The result was an explosion of violence that has now claimed more than 50,000 lives. Yet the cartels are more powerful than ever and challenge the Mexican government's control in several parts of the country, especially along the border with the United States.

Mexico's cartels have also set up shop in several Central American countries, putting that region back on Washington's security radar for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Evidence indicates that those criminal syndicates now control vast swaths of territory in Honduras and Guatemala - perhaps as much as 40 percent of the latter country.

Drug violence and intimidation is also beginning to spill over Mexico's border with the United States. Ranchers in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas report increasing encounters with heavily armed cartel enforcers, and some ranch workers openly express fear about working on lands anywhere near the border.

The reason the Mexican cartels exercise such worrisome clout is because they have vast financial resources at their disposal. By most estimates they control at least $35 billion a year of a $300 billion a year industry. Because drugs are illegal, the cartels enjoy a huge black-market premium. As much as 90 percent of the retail price of illegal drugs is a result of that illegality.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. After waging a futile war on drugs for more than four decades, while causing horrific unintended consequences both here and abroad, it is well past time to try a different approach.

Read more at The Huffington Post

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