Americans are discovering that the war on drugs begun 40 years ago by President Nixon has become costlier than the war in Iraq and more brutal on the streets of the U.S. than anything seen during the notorious underworld gang wars of Prohibition.
What began as infighting among cartels south of the border has now spilled over into American cities with unspeakable violence.
In a small county outside Birmingham, Ala., five men had their throats slit in a dispute involving $450,000 in drug money. In Phoenix, police report at least one kidnapping a day related in some fashion to drugs. Home invasion robberies are commonplace in big cities everywhere, when drug users look for easy pickings to finance their habits.
Some unprincipled Americans are complicit in the drug trade. They buy and sell guns for premium prices to Mexican cartels for armed war against Mexican police. A Phoenix gun shop has been documented as a major source for cartel guns.
In the past 15 months, some 7,000 Mexican police and cartel members have been killed in the bloody fighting. One Mexican mayor was mutilated and his head shipped in an ice chest.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has named 230 U.S. cities as major drug distribution centers for Mexican drug cartels—even such unlikely places far from the border as Anchorage, Boston, Atlanta and Billings, Mont. Through these gateways drug traffickers distribute cocaine, marijuana, meth and heroin.
Three years ago, only 100 cities were on the list.
Total costs to Americans are hard to come by. In 2006, the U.S. government reportedly spent $36 billion in direct costs. States spent $69 billion fighting drugs. But local government—cities and counties—spent a staggering $109 billion. The Iraq war is costing about $120 billion per year.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the obvious during a visit to Mexico: that without demand for illegal drugs in the U.S., the Mexican drug trade would shrivel.
So, more money for Mexican law enforcement will be needed. More federal, state and local U.S. law enforcement will be needed to stamp out drug trafficking and related crimes. Tighter restrictions of cross-border gun sales need to be written—the National Rifle Association's standard objections notwithstanding.
The drug war no longer is a matter of trying to snuff out illegal habits. The drug war now has exploded into indiscriminate violence and multi-billion dollar contraband operations that are more of a direct threat to American neighborhoods than al-Qaeda terrorists on the other side of the world.
