Rick Perry's Drug War Political Nonsense Comment

Presidential hopeful, Texas Governor Rick Perry, recently said sending U.S. troops to Mexico to fight the drug cartels would be an option if he were to be elected President. That's just political rhetoric.

Besides the fact that Mexico wouldn't allow it--their constitution forbids it--what would be the result of shutting down the Mexican drug cartels?

Well, first, we could do the logical thing and just legalize all the presently illegal drugs just like alcohol and tobacco are legal now. That would shut the violent drug cartels down without firing a shot. It would raise a whole bunch of tax revenue, too. I have studied the issue for many years now and it is my strongly held belief that to re-legalize* the presently illegal drugs may cause a small, temporary rise in drug use. After that, however, drug use would go down. There would be no rebellious or counter-culture cache to it. Being a druggie would just be like being a wino or alcoholic now. Besides, the major illegal drug of choice is marijuana, and government study after government study, starting with the British in 1899, have all said that marijuana is, all things considered, less harmful than alcohol.

But, our politicians are either not logical or they are cowards (politcal suicide to propose the logical thing), so if we sent in enough troops and smart bombs and forced Mexico to let us do it, we might, just might kill all those drug cartel people. But that would just push the problem to somewhere else and drugs would still get into the U.S. in large quantities.

I like the first scenario, of course, because I'm a Libertarian and I want so very much for our government to re-establish the principle of inalienable rights. That would include the right of adults to own, and own completely, their bodies and minds and do with them as they pleased, just so long as they did not violate the rights of others when they did. It is a verifiable fact that the mere use of the presently illegal drugs causes little to no violence or criminal behavior in general. It is the prohibition of them that is the cause of nearly all drug-related violence and crime.

But now, to my real point. If we legalized drugs or were able to put the drug cartels out of business by force and, somehow, stopped the drug flow from Mexico to the U.S., then we stand a very good chance of causing Mexico to collapse financially and fall into anarchy and revolution. Billions of dollars flow south to Mexico. It has been estimated that Mexico gets 35 billion dollars from the illegal drug trade. That is approximately 18% of Mexico's G.D.P. Eighteen percent is nearly one-fifth. What would happen in the U.S. if we took nearly one-fifth of the money out of the economy, one out of every five dollars? Well, it would be a whole lot worse in Mexico.

U.S. economists and political analysts know the potential of an economic meltdown in Mexico should they stop getting the drug money. Rick Perry has people around him that know it too. Therefore, his get tough talk is just that, talk.

___________

* Note: I use the term "re-legalize" because about 100 years ago the presently illegal drugs were legally sold and used in the U.S. and there was no criminal justice problem associated with their use. But Christian temperance groups found their use to be immoral, therefore they lobbied Congress to make them illegal--the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. Basically, they got their version of religion passed into supposedly secular U.S. law. That would seem to be a violation of the "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment.