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Friday, August 13th, 2010

Mexico Rethinks Drug Strategy as Death Toll Soars

Author:     TIM JOHNSON
Source:     McClatchy Newspapers
Publication Date:     Thursday, August 12, 2010
 Link: Mexico Rethinks Drug Strategy as Death Toll Soars
Stephan:   Just as we created a national Mafia in the U.S. with Prohibition, the Mexicans have created the Drug Cartels. Think about it: 28,000 dead. That's not a crime problem that's a civil war. It ought to be clear to anyone willing to look at the data that legalizing marijuana is an essential step in ending this madness. Legalization would produce tax revenues, and would cut off the billions currently being made from a plant that will grow in your backyard, and ought to cost no more than a geranium.

MEXICO CITY – The drug war in Mexico is at a crossroads. As the death toll climbs above 28,000, President Felipe Calderon confronts growing pressure to try a different strategy – perhaps radically different – to quell the violence unleashed by major drug syndicates.

Even an elder from his own party, former President Vicente Fox, is taking potshots at Calderon, telling him that his policy is seriously off-track.

Many Mexicans don’t know whether their country is winning or losing the war against drug traffickers, but they know they’re fatigued by the brutality that’s sweeping parts of their nation.

Calderon urged his countrymen this week not to gauge the drug war by the relentless rise of the death toll. In early April, newspaper tallies put the toll at around 18,000, but legislators then leaked a higher official estimate: 22,700. Earlier this month, the nation’s intelligence chief said that 28,000 people most likely had been killed since Calderon came to office in late 2006.

‘The number of murders or the degree of violence isn’t necessarily the best indicator of progress or retreat, or if the war . . . is won or lost,’ the president told opposition party chiefs at a meeting called to pull […]

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