What Should We Do About the Global Drug Trade?

The U.S. government criticized countries throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Columbia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, for undermining international drug-control efforts.

Follow this link to the original source: "U.S. faults friends, foes in drug war"

The United States State Department, which released the primarily negative report about other countries' efforts to control (or encourage) drug production, is likely concerned that the drugs produced in those other countries will end up on U.S. streets, since even the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) admits that the "illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world."

On the face of things, it would seem logical that in such a case as this, the U.S. State Department would be correct in determining that "their business is our business" and encourage other countries to stamp out drug production and drug trafficking. But such "encouragement" might not be wise for several reasons: the United States will likely be seen as interfering, not encouraging; several of the countries mentioned are blatantly anti-U.S. in outlook, thus we would only be encouraging them to step up production; and such a stance inevitably makes the United States appear extremely hypocritical.

That last one is true because the United States has obvious glaring problems in our own drug-interdiction efforts — such as the failure to control our borders. In 2004, the DEA reported that "approximately 65 percent of cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the Southwest border." Worsening the appearance of the United States is the path the State Department took in making their critique, saying, "Afghanistan's huge drug trade undercuts efforts to rebuild the economy and develop a strong democratic government based on the rule of law." The United States, in refusing to adequately protect its borders, encourages the breaking of federal law by allowing drug trafficking, through permitting mass illegal immigration, by tacitly allowing tax evasion by illegals and undermining its own moral authority.

Realistically, it's foolish to believe that the United States will ever exert control over enough countries to stifle drug production to any significant degree, and so if the United States is going to solve its domestic drug crisis, efforts need to be concentrated here.