The Real Culprit Behind Mexico's Drug War: U.S. Dollars

Unlike Ciudad Juárez, Cuernavaca doesn't feel like a war zone. Small winding roads lead into a historic center filled with colonial churches. Children line up in the Zócalo to skate around the temporary ice rink and street vendors hawk tacos and esquites -- boiled corn with lime and chili.

But on December 17, a week before I arrived in the city of “Eternal Spring,” a shoot-out erupted in the streets between Mexican naval troops armed with frag grenades and members of Arturo Beltrán Leyva's drug cartel. The fighting left seven dead, including Leyva, five bodyguards and a bystander.

The War on Drugs is tearing Mexico apart. And it's U.S. consumers -- and short-sighted national policy -- that's driving it.

An estimated 7,700 Mexicans were killed in drug-related violence last year, and more than 16,000 have died since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006. La Jornada, the nation's leading left-wing newspaper, runs daily headlines on homicides across the nation and lawlessness in northern border states.

In Mexico City earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted the link between Mexican violence and American drug use: “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. . .the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fueled violence sweeping Mexico."

She's right. Nearly 70% of all foreign narcotics enter the United States through Mexico, and this trade generates tens of billions of dollars a year for drug cartels. But instead of cutting off the fuel, the U.S. government has chosen to focus on the fire.

Over the last three years, the U.S. has steadily poured millions of dollars into Mexico as part of the Mérida Initiative -- a multi-year, $1.4 billion dollar plan to combat drug trafficking and activity in Central America. This February, the U.S. government requested $310 million of this fund be allocated for 2011. The initiative includes spending on inspection equipment, helicopters and personnel training.

President Felipe Calderon says U.S. dollars show a willingness for a multinational solution to the pan-American drug problem. The assassination of Leyva, the “jefe de jefes” as he is called by the Calderon administration, has been heralded as a giant victory. Still, though, the death toll shows no signs of slowing down. In Ciudad Juárez, for example, a border town on the front line of the War on Drugs, 250 homicides were reported in the first month and a half of the new year.

Lying directly across the border from Juarez, El Paso is one Texas city that's directly impacted by the drug war. El Paso isn't known for being the most liberal city in the country, but it's taking strides toward the adoption of smarter drug policy. In a meeting on drug violence this month, for example, the City Council discussed a resolution that called for the legalization and regulation of marijuana. The measure, which would be largely symbolic, shows El Paso is ready to tackle the problem at its roots: U.S. users financing Mexican cartels.

When will Washington follow suit?

Photo Credit: Adrián Flores