Although President-elect Trump’s bombastic statements have made for good press and sound, superficially at least, like things that will make America great again, it is time for him to take a step back and be more diplomatic with the rest of the world, especially when it comes to illegal drugs. He clearly knows how to do this and is proud of his deal-making abilities, so this is not a strategy he should struggle with.
Much has been made of the possibility of actively going after drug cartels in Mexico. It clearly sounds exciting, and it would make things happen, but I’m confident the results would not be what the MAGA crowd expects. The first thing to keep in mind is that it is Americans who are funding the cartels, just as we did when I worked counternarcotics in Latin America in the early 1990s. The cartels were not and are not forcing us to purchase these drugs.
If US forces attack the cartels on Mexican soil, that is an invasion of a sovereign nation and would be likely to result in an insurgent war across our border and in various locations throughout the US. Mexicans who do not normally support or even interact with cartels would likely be a part of this insurgency against us. After all, why should Mexicans suffer more than they already do because of cartels funded by foreign sources?
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Image: Fentanyl users in Philadelphia. X screen grab.
We would destabilize Mexico even further while disrupting the greater economy and most likely angering many of our hemispheric neighbors. Needless to say, it would be expensive in terms of US lives and treasure to prosecute such an expedition, and this is especially so if Americans continue to fund the cartels.
If the US really wants to put the cartels out of business, we should aggressively attack the problem within our own borders. We should work to eliminate the demand for the drugs coming from Mexico by punishing traffickers and users here and treating the root cause of the problem—addiction. And we cannot ignore the cultural acceptance by a significant portion of our society that sees no problem with the use of these substances. This, too, must be addressed.
Legalizing drugs will not work. First, it will not eliminate the wide range of costs for individuals and across our society. The individual costs include physical and mental health issues and an increased risk of accidental injuries or even death. The financial strain on individuals includes spending significant amounts of money on drugs, lost income due to unemployment or the inability to maintain steady work, and legal costs resulting from arrests or convictions.
The social cost to our country is tremendous and includes things most people don’t think of when they consider this issue. For example, strained or broken relationships with family and friends, the loss of custody of children in cases of neglect or abuse, and the cost of policing, adjudication, and incarceration of drug-related criminals. Don’t forget the increased demand on our healthcare system dealing with overdoses and related injuries, managing the spread of infectious diseases, and caring for babies born with drug-related complications.
There are significant economic costs to the nation as well. With drug use comes reduced productivity and economic contributions, increased unemployment, and the loss of resources spent on combating drug trafficking and production, as mentioned above, rather than on other societal goods.
Legalization will lead the cartels to limit the supply of drugs to keep prices high, thereby countering our efforts to deal with the problem by making illicit drugs uneconomical for the cartels. Limiting the supply will likely lead to crime and violence as addicts and others fight to obtain the limited supply. Of course, US businesses or even the government could go into producing and supplying drugs to keep prices (and ostensibly crime) under control, but none of this will eliminate the addiction, social acceptance, and negative impacts that drug use brings to the individual user and our society.
President-elect Trump is fond of pointing out that he looks at the world from the perspective of a businessman. I hope he applies that thinking to his approach to illegal drugs in our country. It is a crime that takes advantage of capitalism and the concepts of supply and demand. In this case, we must eliminate the demand so that the supply will dwindle. Mexico would have less powerful cartels, and the Mexican people could have precious resources focused on their other needs rather than on an unwinnable war with American drug consumers.
This article was originally published at www.americanthinker.com
