On the radio again

I did another radio interview yesterday with Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio, this time on the brutal and tragic violence in Mexico that has followed the government's decision a couple of years ago to make the drug war literal rather than a metaphor. More than 5,000 killed last year according to a State Dept. official I talked with today, and probably more beheadings than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. When will the governments of the world end this futile exercise in violent puritanism? I'll post a link when Scott gets it up on the site.

Mexicans dying in our drug war

College students have officially been warned now that it would be dangerous to celebrate (if that's the right word) Spring Break south of the border in Mexico, because the level of violence is so alarming. The reason is that thr Mexican government, largely at the behest of the U.S. government (and with partial funding from U.S. taxpayers), has decided to get really serious about the Holy War on Drugs and really go after those producers, traffickers and dealers. While this has disrupted a few of the cartels, leading to struggles for power -- which are settled by gun battle rather than quiet negotiations among honchos and lawyers, as would be the case with legal substances -- it has also led many traffickers to shoot back and target police, mayors and other officials. Of course innocents and children are getting caught in the crossfire.

The best way to quell the violence, of course, would be to end the drug war by respecting the right of adults to decide what substances to put in their own bodies. As far as I know, only my colleague Steven Greenhut at the Register, Ted Carpenter at Cato, and I, in my most recent column for Antiwar.com, have put forward this eminently sensible and just approach. I look forward to somebody challenging us on the merits, but I don't expect it; the merits are simply too obvious. But I also don't expect common sense to prevail. On this issue, differently from medical marijuana raids in states with medical marijuana laws (about which Obama made a verifiable campaign promise several times) I expect Eric Holder's inner drug warrior to prevail.