The reports of the murderous death toll in Mexico directly attributable to drug violence often focus on the cities and towns near our border, where the situation is indeed dire. But it is clear that the problem extends throughout Mexico and that the horror is escalating. The New York Times reports today,
The police found the body of a 4-year-old girl in Acapulco on Thursday who had been shot in the chest, the fifth child killed in drug-related violence in the city in less than a week. The child was in a car next to a woman who had been shot three times in the back, the Guerrero State police said in a statement.
That these dreadful events should be reported on the same day that the Providence Journal has chosen to run a compelling opinion piece on this very topic may seem like quite a coincidence, except that extreme violence occurs every single day in Mexico. The numbers are staggering — the New York Times now has it at 34,000 dead over four years of drug violence. Please take the time to read “End the drug war: Legalize all drugs” by James Keller, a retired Presbyterian minister now living in Jamestown, who is hearing desperate news from friends living in Cuernavaca, where he and his wife lived and worked for 4 years. He makes lucid and compelling arguments, and will surely help many readers see that ending drug prohibition can make our country, and certainly Mexico, a better, safer place.
Until then, we have blood on our hands. Our futile, decades-long war on drugs is the engine driving this situation and we have the power to end it. Let your elected officials know that they need to start discussing this option. Let’s end drug prohibition.