Southside Pride

In the eight years I have been writing this column, I have touched, now and then, on the subject of the “War on Drugs” and how it affects the people of Mexico. I didn’t then, and I do not now support that “War”. I don’t think it’s healthy for our country, or for the countries our government has coerced and / or cajoled into participating in it. Put simply, it isn’t working.

Many of my fellow citizens support this effort, either actively or passively. Many do not. Some have been long engaged in a struggle to expose what they see as the harm caused by drug prohibition and interdiction as currently practiced, here and throughout our hemisphere. They include the conservative columnist and ideologue William F. Buckley, the present and past governors of some states, the Libertarian party, and economic guru Milton Friedman: hardly a bunch of stoned out hippies or flaky liberals.

In Mexico, as in much of Latin America, the proportion of “responsible people” who support some form of legalization or decriminalization of drugs is much higher. This makes sense, as the dislocation and terrorization of local populations is both more frequent and more violent. Politicians from all parties, including some in President Vicente Fox’s administration, have spoken out publicly, decrying the “Columbianization” of Mexico, a reference to the “Oro ó Plomo” (gold [money] or lead [as in bullet]) way the narcotraficantes corrupt law enforcement efforts and subvert constitutional government. The papers and magazines feature almost daily articles with new revelations of corrupt drug czars, army commanders, and police chiefs. During the previous administrations of Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo, suspicions were cast all the way up to Los Pinos (the Mexican White House).

There is a rapidly growing grass-roots movement, especially among students, to break away from the failed U.S. policy of interdiction and prohibition, and toward legalization. This is to a large extent driven by the dramatic increase in the numbers of Mexican youth who are falling victim to cheap and easily accessible “estupifacientes” (drugs that make you stupid); and the widely accepted analysis that these drugs would not be so readily available if South American growers were not forced by U.S. interdiction policies to use Mexico as a pipeline to U.S. addicts and party-drug users: the largest per capita illegal drug market in the world.

In the meantime, growing segments of South American society — and the politicians who represent them — are either beginning serious examination of the cost / benefits of participating in the U.S. “War”, or have already come out in opposition. They include the ex-drug czar of Columbia, and a large segment of the Brazilian, Bolivian and Ecuadorian legislatures, among others.

Very little of this information is available in the “corporate media”, such as the New York Times, the national TV broadcast networks, or such “independent” cable news providers as CNN. In order to find out what is going on, one must turn to the Internet, or to a few brave but under-subscribed independent news sources such as the Progressive or NACLA News.

It is fitting that Mexico, which is beginning to regard itself as a victim of, rather than a partner in, the U.S. drug “War”, is about to host an important conference to tackle the very issues mentioned here. In Mérida, in the Yucatan, later this month, an international symposium on alternatives to the present insanity will feature representatives of several Latin American governments, as well as intellectuals, politicians and police representatives from both sides of our common border. While they may not agree on the exact method to be used (for example, decriminalization vs. legalization), they all agree that the present system is so broke it is unfixable.

Diana and I will be there, covering the sessions as part of the press corps. As well, we will be acting as “advisers” to a group of journalists and journalism students from several continents, organized by Internet journalist Al Giordano and Mario Menendez, publisher of “Por Esto”, the third-largest-circulation daily paper in Mexico. Watch for our conference report in the next issue of the Pride. If you want to follow it on your own, try logging on to http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/shadows/

Stan Gotlieb has a web site at www.re aloaxaca.com. His email address is stan@realoaxaca.com.