Whack-a-mole: Drugs and security in North America: Mexican waves, Californian cool

Distance helps. There are much clearer heads "across the pond," in the U.K. This editorial from The Economist sees the real issues behind our failed "whack-a-mole" drug war.

Drugs and security in North America: Mexican waves, Californian cool | The Economist: "The maelstrom of drug-related violence that is engulfing Mexico has produced exaggerated, sometimes xenophobic, alarm in parts of the United States. The response in Mexico City has, until recently, been defensive denial.

Both reactions are wrong. The violence ... reflects a double failure of public policy: decades of neglect of the basic institutions of the rule of law in Mexico, and a failed approach to drug consumption (plus lax gun laws) in the United States. These mistakes have helped to create the world’s most powerful organised-crime syndicates. Reforms in both countries could help tame them." Oct. 14, 2010