News Release

Mexico and the “War on Drugs”

Share

JOHN GIBLER
This week, Gibler is going back and forth between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. He is author of the new book Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt. Gibler said today: “As the violence related to drug trafficking plagues Mexico, the United States government still refuses to acknowledge the failure of the so-called ‘war on drugs’ and to initiate a real change in U.S. drug policy.

“The U.S. government refuses to acknowledge the violence and corruption within its own borders and instead hopes to give hundreds of millions of dollars to weapons contractors to further militarize the border and aid the Mexican military and police forces that have been found time and time again to support one or the other cartels battling over territory and trafficking routes in Mexico.

“The untouchable issues in the United States continue to be legalization and regulation. In 2006, the Mexican congress tried to regulate small possession of many now-illegal plants and substances in order to stop the explosion of killings generated by black market trade, but then-President Vicente Fox quashed the bill after the Bush administration condemned the progressive initiative. Even the Economist magazine and a coalition of former presidents from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have made various proposals for legalization.

“The issue is not of violence ‘spilling over’ from Mexico to the United States, but of the deeply transnational violence that will always accompany a multi-billion dollar illegal industry with entrenched networks both within and beyond national governments.

“If the current administration advertises change one can believe in, they would change the entire paradigm of the drug war and address both its economic reality and its social roots through regulation, decriminalization, and treatment.”
More Information

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167