Draconian drug laws fuel Mexico violence

Drug violence in Mexico is gaining attention from the Obama administration. But one has to ask why it's gotten so out of control in the first place.

If you don't know the answer, you haven't been reading my writings for the past 15 years.

Drug prohibition - more specifically, drug laws that are outrageously rigid - fuel violence by drug gangs.

We've seen it in the United States. Violent gangs flourish while small-time drug offenders get ruinous (often lifelong) prison terms.

Now it's fueling the Mexican battles too.

The #1 culprit is the Patriot Act's crackdown on even innocent purchasers of pseudoephedrine allergy drugs.

Frankly, I don't believe statistics that say these laws have reduced meth labs. I've seen other statistics that show the opposite. Also, statistics that claim a reduction are put out by the drug warriors, who want an excuse to keep the laws in place. That way, they can keep hitting up the government for funding for neater weapons.

Perhaps the real issue here is that the new laws have actually promoted the importation of meth ingredients. Meth cooks get around rules that allergy sufferers cannot.

So they bring it in from Mexico. And that feeds the shootouts on the border.

Another factor though is that Mexico began cracking down on previously legal pseudoephedrine drugs just before the current wave of violence started. The fact that violence followed the enactment of a harsher law is more proof of the failure of prohibition.

Let's end the War on Drugs. Just end it. The drug war doesn't work.

(Source: http://www.mccookgazette.com/story/1525654.html)