Is the legalization of drugs, as Charles Bowden suggests, the only way to quell drug violence in Mexico?
I don’t think that legalization of drugs will quell violence in Mexico in the short term because so much of the violence is connected to other factors — poverty, lack of social infrastructure, military and paramilitary actions that may be targeting certain parts of the population for “social cleansing,” perhaps other factors. It is a fact that the criminal syndicates that originated to produce and transport and sell drugs have expanded into many other areas of business, legal and otherwise. I think that in the short term, if the economic incentives were removed from the drug business, the violence would increase. The money from drugs permeates many facets of economic life in Mexico—most estimates put the drug business at between $30 and $50 billion per year. What will replace it? In the long term, the only way to deal with the human appetite for drugs will be to legalize the substances and to treat addiction as a health issue, not a criminal issue. It will not be easy, it cannot be acc
