"America tried a war like this before."

Here is an excerpt from Mike Gray's article in The Detroit News:

"After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into the United States, it's clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico's cash-starved government struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than enough to buy political protection and military power while still maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what's driving this desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels' income. At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody's attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition, we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs." Link to Full Article

Analysis: What follows in the rest of the article is an interesting argument for the legalization of marijuana. Without getting into the whole moral or legal debate, I think the article presents a great angle comparing the organized crime problem in the US during Prohibition to the current organized crime problem in Mexico. The argument has its strengths and weaknesses, but overall, it's well-written and provides a great argument. Of course, there are always a couple of things I like to point out in an article like this.

Gray mentions that drugs are cheaper today than ever before and available anywhere. Well, that's partly true. The price of cocaine has been going down over the last several years, but is now on the rise again due to enforcement efforts. Low-grade marijuana is cheap, but the price of high-grade Mexican marijuana and Canadian marijuana from British Columbia (known as "BC bud") is high and going up. Mexico is also exporting black-tar heroin, which is increasingly popular and not always cheap. However, methamphetamine is right on the heels of marijuana as far as Mexican drug exports go, and that is relatively cheap and very easy to make.

I've read the arguments before regarding the income that would be generated by legalizing marijuana. I wonder how much of that would be offset by the need for treatment program, rehab facilities, etc. I also wonder if the use of meth, designer drugs like ecstasy, or other relatively cheap and readily available drugs would increase. Who knows? Maybe the use of harder drugs might go down because marijuana is all of a sudden really cheap and legally available anywhere. I don't know enough about patterns of illegal drug use or the psychology of drug use to speculate intelligently about the societal effects the legalization of marijuana would have. I have a feeling that many would argue we shouldn't legalize a substance like marijuana in an attempt to reduce violence in another country. But then, others would argue that too much effort by law enforcement is being wasted and too much jail space is being used for people being picked up for possessing a couple of joints. 

I agree with Gray that this won't solve the drug problem. He thinks it might save us from something worse, but it's really hard to say. Mexican DTOs have made inroads to European markets and have established relationships in Central and South America; in some cases, with unsavory characters like the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) in Peru. Try to think of this situation in business terms. If you sell flowers to the US because the US is your primary market and pays you a lot of money for your flowers, it's bad for your business if the US changes its attitude about flowers. Let's say the US decides it's better to grow its own flowers because it can do so for much cheaper than buying them from you. Now you have two choices: sell your flowers to someone else who's willing to pay top dollars for your flowers, or start selling something else to the US. If the bottom drops out of the illegal marijuana market, who's to say that the DTOs won't sell it to Europe, Canada, South America, or elsewhere? And who's to say they won't start pushing cocaine, methamphetamine, and black-tar heroin even harder?

Or, who's to say that it won't dramatically reduce crime rates in the US, reduce violence levels in Mexico, and free up a significant amount of time for DEA, CBP/USBP, and other law enforcement agencies that can begin to focus exclusively on the hard stuff? I firmly believe you can do a million studies, create a million computer models, and consult with a million experts on the subject, but no one will be able to say with complete accuracy the effects of marijuana legalization until it's actually put into practice. Whether or not that policy will be enacted during this Administration - or my lifetime - is just as good a mystery.