Who can even imagine such a slander?
Poor Uncle Sam gets blamed for damned near everything these days.
Then again, she may be on to something.
Without US arm-twisting, would Calderon have led Mexico down the road of militarizing his war on drugs, a move that has thus far taken an estimated 60,000 lives?
No.
Would Guatemala and Honduras be battlegrounds for ongoing cartel wars?
No.
The remedy has been obvious for a long time; legalize, regulate, and tax drugs. Treat drug abuse as a medical/social problem instead of a crime problem.
Why won't this happen anytime soon?
Because too many powerful interest groups have a vested interest in the status quo.
America's for-profit prison system certainly wouldn't want to see decriminalization.
Nor would the unions that represent prison guards. Almost half a million American homes depend on a prison guard paycheck to pay the bills, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And crime-fighters across the land depend on drug busts for their bread and butter. When three quarters of all law enforcement activity is directly or indirectly related to the fact that drugs are illegal, it stands to reason that an awful lot of police budgets would slim down after decriminalization.
Not to mention the hordes of bankers and lawyers and consultants who are kept busy turning drug money into clean money.
So I'm guessing that no amount of common sense is going to change things in the foreseeable future.
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