Solving Mexico's Drug Gang Problem

Scary piece about Mexico's descent into an unsafe, wobbly near narco state from CBS News - Mexico: The War Next Door.

You want to cut the legs out from drug gangs in Mexico or Afghanistan? The simplest (and probably simplistic) solution: Take the high profits out.

Legalize the stuff and put a smallish import and sales tax on it to fund rehab centers and funerals.

Drug thuggery is driven by drug demand and the biggest demander nation is the U.S.*

Of course, then the drug thugs will have to find other work.

*One article from The American Journal of Economics and Sociology asserts that legalizing drugs will do everything but cure the common cold:

The legalization of drugs would prevent our civil liberties from being threatened any further, it would reduce crime rates, reverse the potency effect, improve the quality of life in the inner cities, prevent the spread of disease, save the taxpayer money, and generally benefit both individuals and the community as a whole. Our arguments are based on a basic appreciation of the benefits provided by voluntary exchange and the role markets play in coordinating human activities. Legalizing drugs would eliminate many inconsistencies, guarantee freedoms, and increase the effectiveness of the government's anti-drug beliefs. The present war on drugs has not and will not produce a decisive victory. We advocate a new approach to this important social problem.

Drug dealers are a thing of the past. Violent crimes and theft are greatly reduced. Drug-related shoot-outs are unheard of. The streets of America begin to "clean up." Communities pull themselves together. Youths and adults once involved in crime rings are forced to seek legitimate work. Deaths due to infected intravenous needles and poisonous street drugs are eliminated. Taxpayers are no longer forced to pay $10,000,000,000 to fund drug-related law enforcement. The $80,000,000,000 claimed by organized crime and drug rings will now go to honest workers . . .

Suggesting legalization has made for some odd bedfellows: Tom Tancredo and Nicholas Kristof.

Any war you've been fighting as long as we've been fighting the drug war ought to get a very close look.