Things Go Worse With Coke

Why is anybody still mystified as to the reason for all the drug-related violence in Mexico? A single chart put out by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime tells us all we need to know. The wholesale value of a kilo of cocaine in Mexico is $8,000 – and the value of that same kilo just across the Rio Grande in the U.S. is $30,000. Now, when you have a product that you can get to appreciate in value by a factor of nearly four merely by smuggling it across an undefended border, whaddaya gonna do? And whaddaya think a few hundred thousand other dudes are also going to do? And whaddaya think the result is going to be? Again, it is clear that the latter-day Puritanism of the “War on Drugs” is the primary source of Mexico's troubles, as well as those of all the other “failed narco-states”, or soon-to-be-failed ones. Our uptightness about drugs is creating, in effect, war zones in dozens of other countries, both near and far – islands of anarchy in places where the rule of law is already on very shaky ground. And as to places like Afghanistan, where the lion's share of the GNP resides in trading drugs that we don't like – well, they can just go to hell. And that's exactly what is happening. Ever notice how much of our “foreign aid” goes to drug interdiction? And the more we provide, the worse the problem gets. (It's almost like... drug addiction!) The people of those countries must think we're totally insane... and they're right! But the consequences of not cooperating with our delusional crusade are apparently worse than the consequences of cooperating... so the madness goes on.