Murders in Mexico

My patient today told me about how four of her relatives were tortured and murdered in her hometown in Mexico in December. She said the violence has gotten so bad people are afraid to leave their homes. I was so grateful in that moment to be able to speak Spanish—to be able to hear her pain, that she could share it with me.

As long as there is demand, there will be supply. American culture is unrivaled in creating demand for narcotics. Our consumption of drugs has skyrocketed, right along side the spending on the drug war. In 2017, over 70,000 Americans died of a drug overdose. Hundreds of thousands of people are in prison for drugs. I served a 5-year sentence. El Chapo is in a federal prison. And yet… the flow of drugs is undeterred.

The DEA confirms that most drugs come over the border at legal points-of-entry. The image of someone trekking through the desert with a backpack is a fabrication. It’s not necessary when so many American citizens and Mexicans that have been granted visas are willing to attempt to cross the border with drugs hidden in their vehicle for the promise of a few thousand dollars, the going rate. As long as there is poverty and desperation, there will be drug mules and dealers.

If you arrest a dealer, others will expand to fill the gap. Where there is demand, poverty, and the opportunity for profit, there will be a constant supply of drugs, no matter how illegal you make them. If you arrest the leader of a drug ring, you leave a power vacuum which several people will try to fill, resulting in increased violence and ruthlessness. Never is the flow of drugs deterred.

America’s immense consumption of drugs is a profitable business. Drug policy gave all those profits to criminals. What happens when criminal enterprises become unimaginably rich? See today’s Mexico. The cartels war with each other, each one becoming more and more ruthless to try to control more of the market share. Money controls politics, as it does all over the world. Government officials and law enforcement are subjected to the cartel’s “plata o plomo” philosophy—silver or lead. Bribe or bullet, take your pick. Now criminals who have learned unconscionable brutality dominate parts of the country. The situation is untenable. And directly caused by America’s failed war on drugs.

With my patient’s story fresh in my mind, I saw the news about the border wall being declared a national emergency. The war on drugs has caused an international emergency. We’ve empowered cartels and destabilized Mexico. We’ve destroyed our own communities. We’ve incarcerated millions and torn apart families. Hundreds of thousands have died preventable deaths from overdoses, many caused by the varying purity of adulterated street drugs.

I see an international emergency. An actual crisis causing countless human suffering. It has nothing to do with a border wall.