In America, the War on Drugs isn't a literal war. Mostly, it's a concerted effort by the federal government to take strong police action against the drug trade. People get sent to prison, but for the most part it's not an armed conflict.
The same can't be said for Mexico. Since 2006 and the beginning of Operation Michoacán by the Mexican government, a real war has been raging for the heart of the nation.
Casualties have been staggering. It's estimated that 51 people a day died in 2011. Since its inception, the Mexican Drug War has claimed around 50,000 lives, which approaches the number of Americans lost during the Vietnam War.
Any solution would be a welcome relief for every person in Mexico, where fear is currently the dominant emotion, and some of the political leaders in Latin America have been debating the merits of decriminalizing drugs.
Now, under immense pressure to discuss the issue, Vice President Joe Biden is traveling to Latin America to have a "robust conversation" about security. Considering the majority of drugs from the Mexican drug cartels come to America, it's great to see that we're at least trying to be involved in the solution.
Hold on just a minute, though. The Obama administration has made it perfectly clear that decriminalization or legalization of drugs is completely off the table. Don't bother making any good points; apparently we don't want to hear it.
It's almost like the federal government wants to ignore that there is a debate going on. States have been arguing the merits of decriminalization for some time, but on the federal level it's been a hurdle just to get serious debate going.
Among our editorial staff, we have a number of viewpoints on this one particular issue. As a whole, we agreed that hard drugs shouldn't be legal, but marijuana is different. A plurality of the board thinks it should be decriminalized.
The economic impact would be huge. If treated like alcohol, marijuana would be a massive source of tax revenue for the federal government. Not to mention the money saved by not requiring a massive police force to arrest people with pot, and the reduction in prison population.
Another group of us sees the possible destructive nature of marijuana. Decriminalizing it would make it more acceptable as a society to get high, and setting the standard that getting a temporary good feeling by smoking weed is a good thing could entice children to smoke and waste their lives and time.
Some just really don't care. It's a waste of time to argue about what people do to their bodies, and we have more important things to do and legalizing pot won't solve those problems.
In the end, we didn't agree. Each of us had our points, but we weren't able to see eye to eye.
Thing is, at least we had the debate. The Obama administration wants to pretend that it can put its fingers in its ears and drown out legitimate arguments, rather than actually be engaged in them.
Sure, it's great and all that you sent the national grandpa to check out what's going on with the drug war, but if you're not willing to talk about all the options to helping deal with the problem, you may as well have just stayed home.
