More Than Secondhand Smoke

I spent the summer after my freshman year working as a researcher-writer for Let’s Go Publications. Alone, I worked my way through much of Mexico by foot, bus, truck, raft, and horse. Although I witnessed extreme poverty and occasional street violence, not once did I feel as if my life was in constant jeopardy. This past fall, in Creel, Mexico, 14 innocent civilians were gunned down in open daylight on a street I used to stroll on often past midnight. Their deaths were a casualty of the intense war between drug cartels, community law enforcement, and federal troops that increasingly engulfs parts of Mexico.

The Mexican citizens’ situation is tragic. Although Mexico is far from a failed state as some suggest—at least not on the same lines as Pakistan—and drug violence is not new, there is no doubt that the country now finds itself in its most dire conflict since revolution disrupted the nation in 1910.

But drug wars are not Mexico’s problem. They are everyone’s problem. Drug consumers and the wider world have long been complicit in the violence and death that now garners so much attention.

Earlier during the week, Secretary of State Clinton bluntly declared that the insatiable U.S. demand for illegal drugs is the overwhelming reason why cartels fight each other. Although more Mexicans are becoming addicted themselves, the vast majority of drugs flowing through Mexico right now will be snorted, puffed, or injected by Americans, Canadians, and even Europeans.

Exploding demand for cocaine within the European Union is now just as much a relevant factor for violence in Mexico (and Colombia) as U.S. consumption. The situation in Mexico is a pattern echoed on all corners of the map: Temazepam (the British’s number-one prescription fix) migrates from Eastern Europe to the United Kingdom, opium from Southeast Asia to India and China, and heroin flows from Afghanistan to everywhere.

Amidst the cries for tighter border security, drug legalization, and foreign intervention, people need to question the bigger picture. In addition to economic and security considerations, there is a huge moral problem with less developed countries becoming enveloped in violence to supply the drug demand of more developed countries.

No matter how many National Guard troops are sent to the U.S.-Mexico border, violence and death will not stop until drug demand in the North Atlantic is curbed. And those who think the violence is likely to spill over into the U.S. are right. There have already been kidnappings in Phoenix and gang wars in Vancouver. This is a shared social dilemma, and a joint effort is needed to reach a solution.

No matter what specific policies are crafted, the major theme should be this: Although the military may have to be used to control the spread of violence, this only attacks symptoms of the problem, not the source. Ultimately, nothing will address war like the ones in Mexico if it does not curb U.S. and European demand. We need to start treating international drug trafficking as a common public health problem rather than just a security issue.

Researchers in the U.S. have proposed focusing on prevention, treatment, and education programs to curb demand rather than continue the war on drugs as is. RAND studies in the ’90s found that channeling money into treatment and prevention would be seven times more cost-effective than law enforcement efforts alone and could potentially cut consumption by a third.

In the U.S. especially, some have hastily pointed to the violence in Mexico as a case for the decriminalization of marijuana, and even harder drugs. But that argument is symptomatic of the all-too-popular American mindset to not think about internationally interconnected problems thoroughly. Legalization in the U.S., Canada, or more European countries will exacerbate the violence if the same drugs are not legalized in Mexico. Demand would boom, and the competition to supply the product would intensify. Cartels would fight the government and each other even more to control precious supply lanes through borders.

The ugly fence along the U.S.-Mexico border is not achieving anything if we don’t remove the even uglier walls in the public mindset that separate American consumerism from the violence mere miles away. The simple fact is, if you’re doing drugs in the developed world, even recreational marijuana, you’re clearly involved in a morally compromising system. Comprehensive steps must be taken to rebuild a culture that takes little account of the ramifications of its practices. Certainly, this will be difficult, as much of the drug usage in developed countries is done by the socioeconomically underprivileged. But it must be done.

This Monday, “4/20,” is an American holiday for pot-smokers. Drug usage is a terrible, unhealthful habit that I do not support. However, if on Monday you do plan to smoke weed, at least buy American. If not, your habits may kill.


Raúl A. Carrillo ’10, a Crimson editorial writer, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House. He is the president of the Harvard College Latino Men’s Collective and was born and raised on the U.S.-Mexico border. His column appears on alternate Fridays.