Whose problem is the Mexican Drug War?

The news is filled with reports from Mexico of drug cartels murdering scores of innocent people, assassinating government officials or holding entire towns captive in fear of open warfare against the military and police. The violence is so common that we in America are numb to it.

We rationalize and blame it all on corrupt police, evil drug lords and of course we remind ourselves that this is America and nothing like this would ever happen. We take comfort in that. We, after all, are the good people. We do not accept any measure of responsibility that our hunger for illegal drugs is Mexico’s biggest headache.

Our drug problem is different, or so we think. We watch television and see that Paris Hilton has been arrested, again, and charged with cocaine possession. We express our concern and reason that she must be very foolish and arrogant to think that she can get away with her habit.

We do not think about the fact that her appetite for drugs, and that of countless thousands of people with too much money to spend, is what fuels the drug lords and keeps this disgusting, inhuman enterprise thriving. We do not think that the teenager who scores some pot today is the one who will develop an addiction to heroin tomorrow. We do not think that the mothers and fathers who turn a blind eye to their children’s “experimentation” is actually a parallel action to pulling the trigger in the mass murder at Tamaulipas in northern Mexico.
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