Withdrawal symptoms

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot…  Mexican drug cartels reap 62 percent of their profits from U.S.

That last stat, provided by the White House drug czar, is the silver lining. Every American concerned about Mexico’s security problems should be thankful that the cartels are so dependent on marijuana, and not a genuinely hazardous substance like heroin. Why? Because that means through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade out of the shadows and into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the cartels rely on. And here’s the best part: We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

(David Sirota “This is the truth on drugs“)

Since Felipe Calderón launched this latest “war on drug dealers” the body count has been mounting…. 9000 at last count. Mexicans are rapidly losing patience with the “negative consequences” surrounding its ties to the U.S. drug (and anti-drug) industry… and there is growing consensus in the United States for some reforms of its own draconian drug laws.

The possibility of some change, as well as recognition of where the problem lies, is welcome, but don’t expect everything to be hunky-dory this year… or maybe even in this decade.

First off, drug users may be a huge market, but both the U.S. and Mexico (to a lesser extent) have turned security and incarceration into mega-billion dollar industries… ‘too big to fail’.  Everything from the local community college with a “police science” program to the Drug Enforcement Agency has a vested bureaucratic interest in keeping “drugs” off the market.  Otto, at Inca Kola News recently plotted out an interesting chart that shows drug busts in Andean nations go up when the DEA is not involved.  Still, it’s a powerful bureaucracy, and it is going to do everything it can to keep up its inefficient (and probably counterproductive) work.

In Mexico right now, there is a political incentive to keep the “drug war” going.  PAN uses the specter of “drug money corruption” in politics to justify their attacks on the other parties.  And, given Calderón’s only tenuous legitimacy, the “drug war” — and the foreign support his administration enjoys for pursuing it — are useful politically.  The Army bureaucracy, now having more weaponry and a limitless supply of cannon fodder (we still have a draft here) are going to want to keep their bigger budget even after this “war” is over.  There are already signs that social movements are being targeted by the military as replacement targets for the drug lords, and let’s not forget about “corruption.”

Whether its more or less corrupting for Mexican Army officers to claim every social disruption is “cartel related” as it is for U.S. Homeland Security to claim there are “terrorist threats” everywhere is hard to say… but it’s the nature of bureaucrats to invent a mission to justify their existence and expansion.  While I might add (sotto voce) that the bribes paid to NOT see activities (like narcotics smuggling) are probably less harmful in the long run than the bribes paid to PERFORM socially destructive acts (like getting into a war to benefit oil companies and Haliburton, or writing banking laws that benefit speculators), old fashioned narcotics-trafficker bribery is not just in Mexico.  Felipe Calderón, interviewed by the BBC last week, said that of course there is corruption in Mexico, but the narcotics trade also depends on complicity by United States officials … and given the amount of money and manpower spent on preventing the trade (and how spectacularly unsuccessful the efforts are) it’s no secret that U.S. officials are also corrupted.  Expect howls of protest from the usual sources in the U.S. in the coming weeks on that point.

It’s true that marijuna is the main “drug” exported from Mexico, but even if the U.S. was to completely decriminalize marijuana nationwide (which is highly unlikely), this will not end the need for smugglers.  Even the most “progressive” proposals are rather timid, merely allowing home gardeners to grow a few marijuana plants… which certainly is not going to meet consumer demand.  The Mexican marijuana grower wil still be needed, and so will smugglers.  Should Mexico also legalize the trade, this would improve the lot of marijuana farm workers (who presently don’t even receive the minimal labor protects afforded to other Mexican farm workers, and are more likely to end up with a bullet in the back of their heads than an inadequate paycheck), but it doesn’t mean a sustainable rural industry.

If anything, there is still strong support for agricultural protectionism in the United States, and should by some miracle commercial marijuana become acceptable, agricultural corporate farmers are likely to dominate U.S. domestic production, and keep Mexican farmers out of the “free market.”  I only see lip service from U.S. “Progressives” on the issue of agricultural subsidies, but it’s not a sexy enough issue for them to sustain any interest, and, while legalizing marijuana is probably an excellent policy idea, when it comes to Mexican-U.S. relations, probably is much less important than agricultural subsidies.

The second most popular illegal drug in the United States is cocaine… which is one of the few agricultural products that doesn’t grow in Mexico.  Coca passes through Mexico, and… even if marijuana is legalized the cocaine will continue to flow into the United States.  Hopefully, for Mexico, though some other source, but with the cartels aleady in control of the distribution routes, they are unlikely to just cede control graciously to Miami gangsters or whomever responds to consumer demand and tries to set up new distributorships.

Mexican heroin isn’t the best of its kind (or so I’m told), but poppy farming is another agricultural industy the “progressives” haven’t thought about.  The heroin trade has been around a long time, and is a “mature industy” but with U.S. foreign policy and military action focused on the leader in the heroin supply business, Afghanistan, the Mexican poppy farmers may find themselves once more in demand.  And, should demand go up, it’s not that hard for the marijuana and cocaine transport companies to switch products.

Don’t get me wrong… I think marijuana should be legal, but then I think heroin should be too (assuming the United States gets on the stick and starts treating narcotics use as a social and public health problem — and more importantly — funding social and public health needs).  And, I do think even a watered-down “decriminalization” as long as it is coupled with other needed reforms (like more control on firearms exports, money transfers and better public health facilities) would be a step in the right direction, and would benefit us here in Mexico.

Of course, just decriminalizing marijuana will mean SOME farmers will either go out of production, or go legit… but absent any real rural development or free trade agreement, it doesn’t mean the illegitimate trade won’t still be a better financial option for cash-strapped rural workers.   The gangsters will have to move into other fields of opportunity,  taking over the construction or garbage hauling business or robbing unions (as U.S. gangsters did after liquor prohibition ended) and the guns are not going to magically disappear, nor are the gangsters.  But things will be better.