Opinion Archive

What to Make of a Solution to Narco-Violence

December 26, 2007

I am a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of being for individual rights and equality of opportunity. According to this view, matters of personal choice are none of the State’s business. Hence, I share the British newsmagazine, The Economist’s, opinion that the problem of adult drug use should be a health and social issue, not a criminal one.

Nevertheless, I am also a realist. I know that Mexico and the US are not ready to decriminalize the use of recreational drugs, despite the fact that the “War on Drugs” is being lost (see Rolling Stone magazine’s November 27th article, “How America Lost the War on Drugs” for an excellent recap of this mess).

Silver or Lead?

Mexico currently tailors its internal policies to the perceived needs of the American government, as was demonstrated by President Fox’s veto of a liberalization of Mexican drug laws because of US pressure a few years ago. Nevertheless, the devastating choice that organized crime forces on Mexican officials (the many who would otherwise do their job) is proving too much to handle. As they say, “either we give you ‘silver,’ or we fill you with lead.” To someone who makes between $400 and $1,500 dollars a month and who has every reason to believe that he or she will be betrayed by his own co-workers, the issue ends up being about life and death even more than personal integrity.

Drug trafficking is causing serious strains on the ability of Mexico’s institutions to govern effectively. The danger that Mexico will become a narco state is a serious worry for all of those who live on this continent. Mexico is one of the world’s largest economies, it has nuclear technology, and it is a 100+ million-strong nation with an economy that is integrated with its American neighbor. The inability of its government to come to terms with the serious (US-bought) firepower of narcotics traffickers and their massive corrupting influence is a globally important issue. Hence, it’s time to start thinking of a real and lasting solution. It’s time to think outside the box.

How We Can Do It

We must begin by acknowledging that it is a binational problem that requires real international solutions. Everyone pays lip service to this idea, but nobody is really doing anything truly binational, except for a few high-profile extraditions and some cooperation between law enforcement agencies. The Mérida Initiative is a step in the right direction, but given the magnitude of the problem, it does not go nearly far enough. A new, binational justice system, with the ability to enforce a specific set of clearly defined drug laws on both sides of the border needs to be created. And Mexico needs to decouple its domestic criminal justice system from the fight against narcotics trafficking.

Who can do it

There are currently an estimated 26 million Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States. About 14 million have US citizenship. It would take a small effort to create an elite police force with dual nationality which could act in both Mexico and the United States. They would remit their captures to special judges chosen according to their rectitude and ability (not their nationality), with their identities kept secret to all but a binational governing body whose chief would be rotated among Mexicans and Americans. They would be approved by, and report directly to, both Presidents. The new apparatus should be financed proportionally, according to GDP, not according to whose fault the drug problem is, or on whose side the violence takes place. In fact, this financing model, with contributions defined yearly according to GDP at current exchange rates, should be adopted for all binational initiatives, including long overdue border infrastructure projects.

Mexico is too important to sacrifice to this quixotic war as it is currently being fought. By decoupling its legal system from this massive source of violence and corruption, Mexico could begin to rebuild its criminal justice system. Such an effort would certainly make Mexico a better neighbor and it would make North America much safer. Mexican police and its armed forces would no longer be in the line of fire of the narcotraffickers because they would no longer have any authority over them.

Perhaps this sort of solution is too radical for our time. There are certainly many people who, despite the dual nationality of the officers, would worry about national sovereignty. There is also the issue of the significant amount of drug violence that occurs because of local gangs fighting over local markets. Nevertheless, both the US and Mexico are putting too much at risk by allowing this problem to get out of hand. The good news is that we have two exceptional resources that are being neglected as part of a potential solution: our border and our Mexican-American community. Let’s enlist their help and put this issue behind us.

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