This, however, is not to say that we can’t reduce drug demand. The last year has seen significant increas in research funding into methamphetamine addiction for which there is currently no proven therapy. The cartels manufacture and create most of the methamphetamine intended for US consumption. There have been an increasing number of steps taken by the US judicial system to divert drug offenders from prison to rehabilitation and an increasing sense that we incarcerate far too many drug offenders.

What is missing, however, from the discussion is the extent to which reducing drug demand increases our security and thus, is in our national interest to pursue. There seems to be no interest in discussing the real financial impact of US drug consumption on the Mexican economy. We can read in American newspapers that drug monies contribute anywhere from $12 billion (General Berry McCaffrey) to as much as $35 billion or more but we have no way of assessing which of those extremes is more accurate.

We can’t seem to discuss to what extent our drug consumption supports the Mexican economy, if it does, and what effect might reducing demand have on increasing emigration from Mexico to the US.

I guess in short, I am glad that there is some sense that we, as a country, bear some responsibility but we need more of of a committment to understanding that relationship and what we can realistically hope to achive.

Where I do take some issue is that your post seems to require that Mexico make the necessary reforms: remove corruption from the courts and police, institute education reforms, etc. I agree that all of those goals are desirable; my reservation lies solely in whether they are possible in light of US drug demand. Isn’t it our responsiblity to try to reduce that demand and remove from the Mexican economy as much drug profit as possible? Conversly, is it even possible for any government to undertake these reforms when their country is awash in so much illegal monies?

The Mexican government realizes the costs of migration, and hopes, in the long term, to stem these flows. And, if given the possibility to earn a living at home, a good number of migrants would do just that – stay home. But given the economic realities today, stopping Mexican migration today to the United States (whether legal or illegal) would create a large economic burden on the country, and perhaps lead even more workers into illicit parts of the economy, as they searched desperately for any means to make a living.

You will have to forgive me as my field is US national security, not Latin American or Mexican studies, but it seems to me (after reading your latest post) that Mexico is heading for a crash and that we should help soften it. Wouldn’t it be better for Mexico if we were not the door out for the most ambitious among Mexico’s citizens. If we controlled the influx into the United States, those who want to get ahead would become a force of change within Mexico. Our desire for cheap labor hinders Mexico’s needed change. We are the safety valve for the narrow rich elite in that country. This is not good for Mexico nor the United States.

Sincerely,

H.

Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia, a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute in Mexico City and a senior legal and economic adviser to the UN and the World Bank, concluded in a recent report that 17 of Mexico’s 31 states have become virtual narco-republics, where organized crime has infiltrated government, the courts, and the police so extensively that there is almost no way they can be cleaned up. The drug gangs have acquired a “military capacity” that enables them to confront the army on an almost equal footing.

If this is accurate, then it suggests that the cartels already control most of the country, at least in terms of the number of states. Whatever your view of the Mexican Army, that it is corrupt or that it is top heavy as the other commenter noted, or that it is inept, one thing seems clear: it has already lost a huge chunk of Mexico to the cartels.

Except that their agenda is criminal and not political, is the current state of Mexico any appreciably different than a successful insurgency? and if that is the case, can Calderon’s army, even if not inseperably linked to the institutional corruption of the PRI, ever succeed?