North and South of the Rio Grande, border between Mexico and the USA, government policy on drugs is exactly the same. The same as here in Ireland, that is. Huge profits are made by rich people who own breweries and distilleries; millions of people use alcohol as an escape route...to violence, depression and death. But that's OK. Not OK are other drugs, from hash to heroin, which are also a source of huge profits for a few rich people. Anyone involved in that trade faces the full force of the law.
Nothing changes because the whole circus is pitched at the people at the bottom, and how to hammer them. Instead of tackling the causes of drug abuse- why can so many people not face life unless there out to lunch from breakfast to bedtime? - they try to isolate the people using illegal drugs and punish them. The only answer they come up with is more cops, more cells, more laws. Meanwhile those at the top of the heap get richer and richer..
It's pretty much the same story in the countries where the drugs come from. Just like the Irish who were selling food to pay rent during the famine many people in Latin America are forced into growing drugs in order to survive.
According to a study by the daily newspaper, Reforma, the vast majority of the 127,590 Mexicans jailed for drug trafficking during the past eight years are some of the poorest people in the country. According to Reforma's figures, marijuana has become the most important agricultural crop in Mexico, generating 62 billion pesos per year (about $8 billion). According to US State Department statistics, Mexico exports 5,000 tons of marijuana to the US each year at about $1,653 dollars per kilo. The total value of national agricultural production in 1993 (before the crisis) was 110 billion pesos. In visits to communities where "it is drug traffickers, not the State, who provide roads, services, schools and even temples and cemeteries," Reforma interviewed people who make 30-60 pesos per day ($4-8) risking their lives in the production and trade of drugs. (Reforma, 9 September)
The Mexican government has benefited from this situation in three ways. The income from the drugs trade takes the heat off them and their "make the rich richer and the poor poorer" economics. Lots of officials add bribes to their salaries. And the USA, always happy to get involved, sells, lends or gives the Mexican government millions of dollars worth of military equipment and expertise.
Very little of the hardware of repression is used against the drug barons. Just like in Ireland it is used against poor people organising together to take control of their communities and their lives. In Dublin local anti-drugs activists get hassled by the special branch and pregnant women get beaten by riot cops.
In Mexico US made arms and aircraft are turned on the Zapatistas, the poorest of the poor, who dared t stand up for their rights. In Chiapas the soldiers of the Mexican government rape and murder the women and men who demand a decent life for everyone.
There and here, the problems are basically the same. That's why we think the solutions will have to be local and global. People in Oaxaca or Puebla will have different ways of doing things to people in Finglas or Killinarden. But as the heads of government meet to decide their joint strategies and common policies to keep us down, we must link up with everyone struggling for the right to a life worth living. United we stand, divided we fall.