The Drug War in Mexico

Though the tourists flock to places like Cancún and Puerto Vallarta pretty much like they always have, Mexico is in the midst of a drug war in which an estimated 10,000 people have been killed since last year.

I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but twenty years of this will leave Mexico looking like Lebanon way back in the 1970s and 1980s. Places like Cancún and Puerto Vallarta will likely recede back into the jungle.

Don't worry: U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is behind Mexico's President Felipe Calderón all the way. If the Mexicans want helicopters, they've got 'em. If Mexico wants the Immigration and Naturalization Service to beef up its border patrols so that the gangs can't gets its product to places like Houston and Phoenix, hey, the INS will do that, too.

What the U.S. and Canada really need to do, however, is to curb their demand for illegal drugs like marijuana and cocaine. As well, the U.S. needs to close loopholes that allow gun dealers at gun shows to sell firearms without doing background checks. No more dancing Kalashnikovs for the likes of the Mendoza!

That's right, we're talking gun control here. Nobody thinks that more background checks is going to solve the problem completely, but you can't let criminals buy guns with impunity— just like you can't let people who are unqualified to drive motor vehicles or let kids who are underage drink. That's just common sense.

As a Canadian, I am particularly incensed about the fact that most of the illegal guns confiscated in Canada have been traced to the U.S. Is it that the whole world will have to train its nuclear warheads on the US to make it pass simple, common sense gun laws like better background checks? Maybe the North Koreans are onto something here.

Though they claim that Mexico has stricter gun laws than the U.S., I suspect that it's just National Rifle Association propaganda. Article 10 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 reads:

"The inhabitants of the United Mexican States are entitled to have arms of any kind for their protection and legitimate defence, except as expressly forbidden by law, or which the nation may reserve for the exclusive use of the Army, Navy, or National Guard; but they may not carry arms in public without complying with police regulations."

I don't think Mexico has stricter gun laws. Does the NRA really mean to say that you can carry a concealed weapon without a permit in the U.S.? Does the NRA really think that you can keep a World War I-vintage Howitzer in your backyard and fire it on New Years' Day?

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: "The right to bear arms for the maintenance of a militia shall not be infringed."

It sounds to me like you have to join the National Guard before you can keep an M-16in your closet in the United States. You don't have to join the National Guard in Mexico. However, the U.S. has been known to be lax in enforcing certain amendments to its Constitution. I'm sure African-Americans didn't have the same right to bear arms in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era as whites did, for instance.

Okay, you could spend five years in prison if the Mexican customs opens up your trunk and finds a spent casing. But you have to ask yourself: why would a Mexican have a spent casing in his trunk? Why would anybody have a spent casing in his trunk? If you had bullet holes in your car, chances are that the Mexican federales would be looking for more than just spent shells. They might be looking for drugs or dead bodies, because who knows what hobgoblins run through the minds of customs officials anywhere in the world?

But let's get back to our sheep, eh? It sounds to me like Mexico has a problem with law enforcement. If Mexico has any laws vis-a-vis background checks when it comes to purchasing weapons, the authorities there obviously aren't enforcing them very well. If you slip them a few pesos, they might not find anything in your trunk (which could be a big part of the problem).

As for drug laws, possession of both marijuana and cocaine are illegal in Mexico, but that hasn't stopped the Mendoza Brothers from trying to link up with street gangs in East Los Angeles. Nor did it stop the drug cartels in Medellin and Cali in Colombia from smuggling their product in the U.S. When the war on drugs got too hot in Colombia, their suppliers in Peru started selling their cocaine through Mexico. That's where the Mendoza Brothers come in.

It's called "supply and demand." If people want condoms in countries where all forms of birth control are illegal— like in Ireland right around the time of "The Troubles"— somebody steps up to meet that demand. That's how the Irish Republican Army was able to buy weapons from the Libyans.

Part of the problem is that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency thinks that it's winning the war on drugs— or was, before the war in Mexico. The DEA bases its assumption on this: If the number of hard-core users stays constant over a long period of time, say thirty years, while the number of "weekend warriors" decreases long term, then victory is soon at hand. Eventually, it will become a matter of putting all your hard-core users in one room and shooting them. Then you can declare victory and be home in time for Christmas.

Of course, the DEA (or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for that matter) is not winning the war on drugs. Nobody ever thought that Pablo Escobar would raise a white flag and yell, "I surrender!" Nor will the Mendoza Brothers do the same.

As long as people think that getting high on weekends is fun, people will do it. As long as there are addicts resorting to crime and selling themselves in prostitution, a demand for illegal drugs will persist. Eventually, you will have to legalize marijuana and cocaine (and maybe even heroin).

However, now is not the time to legalize drugs. You cannot possibly regulate the manufacture and sale of these drugs as long as streets gangs are terrorizing a good portion of Mexico and the United States. Before the United States, Canada, and Mexico can think long term, they must act short term.

If anything good has come out of the drug wars in Mexico, it is that the United States, Canada, and Mexico seem to be working more closely together than ever before. However, the Mexican army and police need more than just helicopters; they also need to keep up data bases and fingerprint files. They need all the things that U.S. and Canadian police take for granted: forensics experts and computer programmers, ballistics reports and yellow tape around crime scenes.

This is not to say that large Mexican cities like Mexico City and Veracruz don't already have these things, but in comparison to small U.S. cities like Lincoln Park, Michigan, or small Canadian cities like Hawkesbury, Ontario, law enforcement has yet to filter down to the local level. Even resorts like Cancún and Puerto Vallarta— where the tourists go— lack crime labs, or anywhere within a six hundred mile radius that they can send crime reports.

The US and NATO could speed Mexico along by allowing Mexicans to enlist in the US military as part of a Foreign Legion. That way, the best and brightest among them can learn NATO military tactics and computer skills, and NATO can train forensics and ballistics experts through its military police. Instead of simply throwing young Mexican men and women who are of draft age into jail while they await deportation for trying to enter the US or Canada illegally, why not give them the choice of serving in Afghanistan? What has Mexico done to keep the Persian Gulf safe from insurgents anyway?

Of course, this is something that would need lots of time and lots of money. As well, Latin American soldiers have a long history of mutiny, as the evidence of numerous military coups will show.

Whatever the US and Canada do, they must shore up an impoverished Third World country in their hemisphere. Events in Mexico are affecting Canada and the US.