They could deal with their issues IF THEY WANTED TO really get it done - but they've let it go for SO long that it's just exploded.
Errr, no. That's not how it happened.
What happened was that ever since the 1970's, the U.S. federal government decided to crack down on recreational drugs. Prior to the 1970's, marijuana, while illegal, wasn't prosecuted quite so harshly. However, Nixon decided to up the ante as a way to split the Democratic Party voters between blue collar workers and the youth hippie movement on his Law and Order campaign.
During the 1980's, Reagan increased the War on Drugs even further. The reason for this was because of the proliferation of crack cocaine throughout the inner-city urban areas of the U.S. Crack was invented because it was a greater concentration of cocaine in a smaller physical sample which meant that drug dealers could get more bang for their buck by selling it.
Because Central America and South America are natural regions where the plants used in the production of cocaine are grown, the War on Drugs also gave Reagan the causus belli to intervene in those countries. The reason why is because those countries are also prone to socialist and communist movements that threaten the more capitalistic regimes. Because socialist and communist paramilitary movements in Central and South America use the drug trade to fund their activities, Reagan was able to connect them to drug cartels and, in the eyes of the public, was able to justify military intervention in Latin America.
What has been forgotten about the American public, though, is the reason why Marxist guerilla movements have been so prevalent in Central and South America. It is because during the late 1800's and early-to-mid 1900's the U.S. government used its military to defend the business interests of international corporations established down there who profited by supressing the workers who inhabited those countries. These military occupations were known as the Banana Wars, and his experiences fighting in these conflict led Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, to write a pamphlet titled "War Is A Racket" in the 1930's that detailed the military-industrial-congressional complex that led to the U.S. military being used to protect the profits of multinational businesses.
This was why the leftist paramilitaries wound up being established in Latin America, and why Latin America has a strong history of socialist and communist policies - it's because of the abuses they suffered by U.S. corporations about 150 years ago.
Now while these leftist guerilla groups may have started out as political rebellions, they have since evolved into drug cartels out to make profits for themselves.
You see, by keeping recreational drugs illegal drug cartels have a monopoly on the recreational drug trade. And these regions in Latin America are so poor that working in the drug trade is the only way that many of those involved can make money.
And I'm not just talking about those who engage in the violence of the illegal drug trade. Just average guys earn paychecks by delivering the drugs, or by counting the money, or by helping to manufacture the drugs that are sold. The illegal drug trade is a business like any other and, for the poorest regions that have limited ability to develop economically, they see the drug cartels not as criminal organizations but rather as job creators.
That's the way it is in Mexico. Mexico is so full of drug violence because it is a buffer state between the U.S. and Central America. For drugs to travel from Central and South America, they have to do so through Mexico. Therefore, Mexico is a valuable pipeline from the source of drugs - Latin America - to the demand of drugs - the United States.
The Mexican government knows this, and it has honestly tried to crack down on the drug cartels. But it is incredibly difficult. Why?
Because working for a drug cartels can earn an individual much more money than working for their federal police.
Mexico isn't a wealthy nation by any means. Therefore, the ability for the Mexican government to tax its citizens is limited as well. And the Mexican government has to pay for the anti-drug task forces with tax dollars. But it is loathed to increase taxes because doing so will push out the reason why most multinational corporations go there - for the cheaper labor.
Which means the Mexican government does not have the tax revenue to pay for the police forces needed to act as enough of a counter to the drug cartels.
This is made quite clear by how one drug cartel, Los Zetas, came to be founded.
The Zetas drug cartel was founded by several members of the Mexican military. They were soldiers who fought against existing drug cartels and helped to crack down on them. But then they realized that they could make more money by taking over the drug trade than fighting against it. So what they did was use the military training and equipment at their disposal to become a major cartel of their own.
So in this case we have resources designed to help stop drugs being turned against the Mexican government and become a cartel in their own right.
This shows that the War on Drugs is very much an issue of the economy rather than an issue of violence. The people of Mexico and Latin America make so much money on the recreational drug economy. For many who are not part of the violence, it is their only way to make a decent living to take care of themselves and their families.
And many of them don't want to be involved with the violence of being part of a cartel. They don't like that their rivals or even their bosses could shoot them in the back of the head at any time for any reason. But they don't have any recourse. Why? Because the drug trade is such a major part of the Mexican economy and hires so many people.
But the violence is there only because the drug trade is kept criminal. Take the criminalization out of the drug trade and you allow those who aren't criminals to exert more and more control over it. Allow it to be taxed so the Mexican government can pay for essential government services. Allow businesses to deal in it so that competition will be done by market forces rather than by death squads.
It isn't that the Mexican government hasn't tried to do anything about it, because over the course of decades they have. The problem is that the drug trade is such a large part of the economy that they don't have any other economic resources that can compete with it.
And, really, all Mexico would really have to do is legalize all recreational drugs in their own country. That would allow Mexico to become a resort country and a focus of drug tourism from the U.S. But the U.S. government will exert so much pressure that they won't do that.
Which is funny since it's a case of the Mexican government not being able to make it's own internal decision because of outside influence from the U.S.
Either way you look at it, though, the only way out of the drug violence is legalization. Any other solution is only a call to increase the violence, which hasn't worked at all for the past 40 years.
