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Seven Ideas for Defeating Drug-Related Violence in Mexico
February 17, 2010
by Arjan ShahaniAs headlines continue to report a tale of horror, violence and massacre in what had seemed to be a peaceful country, a growing debate stirs on whether or not
The general consensus is that President Felipe Calderón has inherited a cancer that the Partido Revolucionario Institucional(PRI regime) had contained through institutionalization of corruption. This is a cancer that former President Vicente Fox was unable to effectively cope with when he took office, ending the PRI’s hold on power. Now Felipe Calderón is trying to get rid of this disease by beating it with a big stick and empowering the military to crack down on criminal organizations such as the Zetas and Beltrán Leyva’s group , but as Ana María Salazar has stated recently, “Mexicans are paying a huge price”
Calderón’s war on drugs seems limited if the goal is to effectively address the complex issue of drug-related violence. A recent conversation I had with a group of Thunderbird School of Global Management and Tec de Monterrey postgraduate students proves there are at least seven more ideas that the President should consider incorporating into his strategy:
1. A hard line political and militarily line is needed, but we should recognize this is not the path to a solution. This part of the strategy should be seen as mere containment. Just like the Planarian worms if you try to cut the head off a criminal organization, it will grow back and sometimes even multiply , but you need to keep doing so to prevent the worm from growing stronger.
2. Strengthen the rule of law. Don’t just prosecute dealing. Make possession and consumption outside of tolerance areas punishable by law. Help law enforcement not just by providing better salaries, but by providing the means for officials to get access to credit and health insurance. Bring the police back to your side. Work with
3. Accept that the problem is not going to go away entirely. Create drug-use and related industry tolerance zones (relocate casinos and gentleman’s clubs) and tax entry to these areas. Inject the funds allocated though taxation of unhealthy habits into the comprehensive strategy to combat drug-related violence.
4. Create an alliance with the media. Get the national media to understand that its sensationalism is hurting
5. A comprehensive strategy to strengthen education. This does not relate to the naïve idea that educated people don’t do drugs. However, better schools give children the tools to go out into the world and to have better possibilities of succeeding with an honest job. Investing in education does not just mean a “Don’t do drugs” campaign. It should be seen as a long-term strategy to make it harder for drug dealers to recruit “mules.”
6. Make the economy work for you. Drug consumption in
7. Make it easier for businesses to become your allies. Instead of overtaxing private enterprise, the government should provide incentives to grow. This creates more jobs. People with full-time jobs that are fairly paid have neither the time nor the need to engage in illicit activity. Help business by running an international public relations campaign. Just like he recently did in
Mr. President, you need to be more intelligent and creative than they are.
*Arjan Shahani is a contributing blogger to AmericasQuarterly.org. He lives in Monterrey, Mexico, and is an MBA graduate from Thunderbird University and Tecnológico de Monterrey and a member of the International Advisory Board of Global Majority—an international non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of non-violent conflict resolution.
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Prohibition?
Prohibition may be a problem for user countries, but this article assumes there is a user problem in Mexico, which even the reactionaries who back some of the more outrageous ideas expressed by the Thunderbird University students have pretty much given up on using as a rationale for this "drug war". Even if you doubled the Mexican narcotics user rate, you'd still be under one percent of the total population of this country. Perhaps Mr. Shajani moves in different social circles than I do, but the Mexican middle class and working class does not tolerate drug use, and it's seen as a shameful thing now. And, perhaps Mr. Shajani missed the news, but narcotics violations have always been classified as crimes against public heath, and minor possession is legal.
U.S. style "decriminalization" is just a public health matter, having little or nothing to do with the export trade. I live in Sinaloa, and I've had headless bodies show up a few blocks from my house, so I don't dismiss the violence of the narcotics trade. But, at the same time, I recognize that there isn't any viable businesses outside the narcotics trade for much of us. Tourism can't fill the gap, and NAFTA regulations make the traditional agricultural industries a losing proposition. Legalization in the major market for our few viable export industries (opiates, marijuana and meth) would leave the Mexican producers at the mercy of corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical firms (and, I'm told Mexican marijuana isn't of the same quality as that grown in California or British Colombia, where corporate agrobiz -- er, narco-biz -- would likely enforce protectionist measures to keep the cheaper produced Mexican products out of consumer markets, as is now done with Mexican avocados, tomatoes, tuna, etc.)
This doesn't mean I'm a supporter of the narco-biz... quite the contrary. I does mean that simplistic and militaristic "solutions" imposed on Mexico at the behest of the United States are counterproductive.
peace on the home front
The violence isn't drug-related, it's prohibition-related. Molecules don't cause crime and violence, very much the opposite. Only prohibition causes crime and violence. Don't reform prohibition, just repeal it. Society suffers from liberty-starvation. Only liberty can cure society's plague. One would think that the national embarrassment of having to burn a whole constitutional amendment just to say "oops, that prohibition idea was unwise," would've been a lesson to prohibitionists, but one would be wrong. Prohibitionists want you to believe that God goofed when He created the psychoactive plants, and determined the bodily response to their intake. Open season on hippies, commies, and non-whites under the war on drugs must be closed forever. The way forward is to repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and other drug laws. Void all convictions under the defunct laws. Let these shores once again know the lost blessings of liberty, and peace on the home front.