Is Mexican drug trafficking really our fault?

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recently claimed that the American fentanyl epidemic was caused by “a lack of hugs, of embraces.” Cute that, but nothing new. Whenever the subject of drug trafficking comes up, Mexico throws its arms wide and pleads innocent. The spokespeople for Mexico tell us the problem is in our own backyard. We consume drugs at a prodigious rate, so demand is the issue, not supply.

To listen to them explain it, we’re not only at fault for drug trafficking, but American druggies are responsible for all the drug related carnage in Mexico as well. The journalists killed this year in Mexico? Our fault. The one hundred thirty-two Mexican politicians killed in 2018? Our fault. The seventy-five American tourists murdered in Mexico in 2016? Our fault. The fourteen people killed in a thirty-six-hour period in Cancun? Our fault. The thousands of Mexican civilians killed each year by drug gangs? Our fault.

And what about the million plus deaths by overdose in America since 2000 and the million annual Emergency Room visits involving illicit drugs?

Definitely our fault.

This deflection always sounded hollow to me. These Mexican shills basically claim that we can’t complain about the drug cartels until we clean up the demand side. Except. Do they really believe that American teenagers wake up one morning and say hey, that drug thing, I'm gonna get into that? Do they really believe that the drug cartels are merely reacting to an organic demand for opioids? If we behave on our side of the border, then all will be copacetic, and the bad guys will retreat to a legitimate business? Do they really expect us to believe that line of bullshit?

They do … and we do. When pummeled with alleged culpability, Americans are too willing to blame themselves for others’ transgressions.

Here’s why I don’t buy it. The drug cartels have an expansive salesforce trained on how to seduce our kids. For the most part this sales force is American, but make no mistake, they are employees of the cartels. And there’s an army of them. A big army. They do the cartel’s bidding and they do it to a honed script. A party with drinking? Allow the partygoers to get a little drunk and then offer free samples. Hey, try this, it’s fun. Guys, you want girls? Use this. Scared of local thugs? Join our gang and survive with the benefit of getting high for cheap. Clubbing? Concerts? Sex? Go high. You’ll enjoy it more.

Once hooked, the cartel salesforce reels them in. You need more? No money? No problem. Get me a referral and I’ll give you a freebee. Still need more? You can pay by selling for me at your school … or maybe, hey, sell your body.

Now imagine a United States without this encouraged demand. Drug free? No, but a much smaller problem, with fewer gang related deaths. Gang violence is nothing more than the Mexican cartel wars exported along with their drugs into the United States.

What if we made all drugs legal? That’s how we got fentanyl, the deadliest of all the illicit drugs. With marijuana becoming increasingly legalized, the cartels had to find a new product to fill their established supply lines. Fentanyl is 35 times stronger than heroin. (And they told us legalizing Marijuana would reduce the drug problem.) Legalize fentanyl and the cartels will move something even stronger because the organizational apparatus is in place, and it requires duffle bags of cash to keep it running.

What’s the answer? We must shut down the supply line. In toto. Build The Wall and get ready for the cartels to sneak in by sea or air. Get very tough with Mexico. Force them to help us. We must stop this poison from entering the United States, and enforce domestic laws to arrest the cartel’s neighborhood sales force. Law enforcement needs to stop trying to move up the management chain and start putting the street vendors behind bars. The cartels cannot move their product without a domestic sales force, and they have a prodigious appetite for cash. Dry up their cash flow and their empires will start to crumble.

You can play with the demand side until your kid’s heart stops. It will do no good. It’s time to go after the supply.

Shut it down. Completely.