“Economically, there is no argument or solution other than legalization, at least of marijuana,” an unidentified “senior Mexican official” tells the Wall Street Journal, in a report that comes in the aftermath of the death of drug trafficker Arturo Beltrán Leyva and the subsequent retaliatory killings of family members of a Mexican naval officer who took part in the raid against the drug kingpin.
I remain skeptical of drug legalization, because it most assuredly would prompt parents to feel undermined — and they feel plenty undermined to start with, for other reasons. This week, the London Economist takes a comparative look at drug policies in Western Europe and North America. The report describes a slow drift toward decriminalization.
I suppose that, at some point, the people of this country my be convinced that the cost-benefit calculus has shifted in favor of legalization. “Decriminalising personal possession, though helpful in other ways, won’t do much to tackle organised crime, which retains its grip on the market. But America’s tentative moves in the direction of legalising the supply of drugs, rather than just going easy on users, could start to change things. Sanho Tree, of the Institute for Policy Studies, an American think-tank, notes that Mexico’s cartels are thought to get about 70% of their income from sending marijuana north. The higher the legal production, the harder that will be.”
Conclusion: “If California’s hippies long for legalisation, the bullet-weary citizens of Mexico’s poorest barrios are even keener.”