There are lots of good reasons to oppose the drug war and to continue pressing for drug legalization. The drug war has caused a massive number of deaths, including tens of thousands of innocent people in Mexico. It has engendered robberies, thefts, muggings, and burglaries by addicts and drug users struggling to pay the exorbitant black-market prices resulting from making drugs illegal. There is official corruption, manifested by asset-forfeiture laws and bribery of public officials. Prisons are overfilled with people who have done nothing more than possess, use, or distribute drugs. The drug war has given us drug lords and drug gangs, with gang warfare, kidnappings, and assassinations.
Here is another reason for ending the drug war: It has destroyed U.S. tourism to Mexico.
Oh sure, Americans still fly into Mexican resorts, such as Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, where they ensconce themselves in well-guarded resorts. But I’m talking about tourism that entails fun car travel into Mexico and even just visits to border towns.
Since I grew up in Laredo, Texas, which is on the Mexican border, I have personal experience with this type of tourism. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Laredo was a big tourist destination owing to its easy access to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. People from all over the country, including college students, would come to Laredo just to get a taste of old Mexico by walking across the international bridge in downtown Laredo to downtown Nuevo Laredo. People would go shopping at the market or at stores and then get great Mexican food and beer or tequila at some nearby bar or restaurant.
When I was in high school, we oftentimes took our dates across the river. While there was a drinking age in Laredo, there wasn’t one in Nuevo Laredo. Sometimes (without parental knowledge or consent), we’d go across the river to nightclubs where we would have drinks and watch a floor show.
It was a lot of fun for lots of people. And of course individual Mexicans benefited from the tourist business.
People would also take car trips into Mexico, just for fun. In fact, back in the 1940s my parents drove to Acapulco for their honeymoon. There are beautiful parts of Mexico in the interior to visit. For example, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and Queretaro, which compose the heart of Mexican independence against Spain, are wonderful examples of old Mexico. And part of the fun of a road trip into Mexico was stopping in small towns and villages along the way.
No one worried about kidnappings, drug gangs, and other drug-war violence.
Not anymore. A cousin of mine in Laredo tells me that no one goes into Nuevo Laredo anymore, thanks to the drug war and all the violence it has engendered inside Mexico. The tourism business to Laredo dried up a long time ago. Anyone who goes into Nuevo Laredo for a day of shopping or a night of fun and entertainment is risking his life. It’s just not worth it.
And forget a fun road trip into the interior of Mexico. The odds are good that you’ll encounter a roadblock with a drug-gang members who will kidnap you and request a nice ransom from your family members back in the states.
Even flying into Mexico has its risks. I know people who will not use taxis when they fly into Mexico City and instead hire a driver to take them around during their entire stay.
The U.S. government and its drug war is directly responsible for the destruction of American tourism into Mexico and the loss of tourist revenue for people in the interior of Mexico, especially poor people in small towns and villages who used to depend on U.S. tourism money. The only reason that Mexico has waged the war on drugs is because the U.S. government has waged the war on drugs and has pressured Mexico into waging the war on drugs. If the United States were to legalize drugs, Mexico would immediately follow suit.
Drug legalization would bring an immediate end to drug gangs and drug lords, along with the murders, assassinations, robberies, burglaries, muggings, gang warfare, and official corruption that have come with the drug war. Drug legalization would also restore a sense of normalcy to Mexico and the border regions, which would quickly revitalize American tourism into Mexico and help to reestablish harmonious relations between the people of the United States and Mexico.