It should be little wonder why Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano was selected as the new Homeland Security Secretary. The US Mexican border is the sandbox of greatest interest to US security and we must not let violence, corruption, and crime in Mexico leak into the US. The flaggrant lawlessness, loss of rule of law, kidnappings, murder, extortion, drug running, public corruption -- weaken the fabric of society.
However, the Mexican crime problems are already leaking into the US, so writes Martha Gore in a recent post. Under the headline, "Mexico US cross border crime wave" Gore wrote on 2/08/09, "In 2008, more than 5,300 people were killed along the Southwest border which has been home to drug smugglers for twenty to thirty years. In spite of huge enforcement actions on both sides, the Mexican trade is more active and brazen as their tactics become more sophisticated. New tunnels are continually being excavated and ramps help to get the marijuana across the border. The four largest drug cartels, the Federation, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartell and the Gulf Cartel are working with prison and street gangs in the United States. According to a Congressional report one year ago, increased drug traffic activity was detected in Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Steatle and Yakima, Wash."
Ironically, there is unabated marijuana growing in the US in open fields so large they cannot easily be erradicated, however it is the distribution network, the corruption and organized crime that is being imported. I can recall many years ago (1992) when I was working for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) landing in a helicopter in a field of natural grown marijuana so large in size and scope that it made one wonder how we could ever contain such a naturally growing weed -- it appeared the weed grew as fast as other noxious weeds such as kudzu or bambo. Contrary to Say's Law, supply does not create its own demand. There is ample supply of illegal marijuana growing in US in domestic cultivated and natural grows, but it is the criminal distribution network and marketing that is creating demand and servicing demand. It is the criminal network and opportunity for crime that must be addressed -- the money needs to be taken out of this relationship along with the flagrant illegal markets robbing organized crime of their stranglehold on so many. What was evidenced at peak times of financial calamnity during the Great Depression appears again now. There was a natural time for Prohibition of alcohol to occur in the 1930s as the Great Depression fostered an environment where it was necessary to take the financial incentive out of crime, and to tax and regulate alcohol distribution for public safety; and the time is fast approaching that a marijuana regulated regime will be viewed as a rational and less baneful solution to combat the increasing Mexican drug related homicides, kidnappings, extortion, and public corruption infecting the land.
On to Kidnappings, the UN Drug and Crime Control unit has also been working recently in Mexico to try to innoculate citizens from the flaggrant rash of kidnappings impacting the country. A week-long training course on the UNODC manual to counter kidnapping was recently inaugurated in Mexico City. From the UN crime fighting website, "The increasing involvement of organized crime groups in kidnapping for ransom has raised serious concern to the international community. In the most severely affected countries, several hundred kidnappings are conducted each year by organized crime groups. The Anti-Organized Crime and Law Enforcement Unit has developed a United Nations Counter - Kidnap Manual to include best practices for law enforcement authorities to combat kidnapping."
Kidnapping, extortion, narcotics -- these are all economic crimes, and until the government focus on combatting the economics of these age old crimes, there is little hope that positive change will occur in the near term.
