Josefina Vázquez Mota won the nomination of the incumbent National Action Party (PAN) for Mexico’s upcoming presidential election. Most of the coverage in the international media today focuses on how she is the first woman to have a real shot at Los Pinos (the official residence of the president of Mexico). However, the real story should be what new ideas (if any) Vázquez Mota brings to the table. Unfortunately, there’s isn’t much to report.

The same can be said of the other two presidential contenders, Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Perhaps William Booth of the Washington Post sums it up best when he writes about the three choices Mexican voters face in July:

“The popular former mayor of Mexico City with a messianic self-regard [López Obrador]; a telegenic leading man who wrote a book but has been vague about which books he has read [Peña Nieto]; and a perky, gal-next-door type who does a lot of smiling but has been blank on specifics [Vázquez Mota].”

Mexico will face serious challenges in the next six years, not least of which is a crippling war on drugs that kills thousands of Mexicans every year, but also a sluggish economy due largely to the sclerotic effects of public and private monopolies in key industries. This presidential election should be more about substance and less about style.

Mexicans Deserve Substance Over Style in Presidential Race is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Two years ago the Washington Post reported that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency brought dangerous Mexican drug traffickers to the U.S. who, while continuing their criminal activities in Mexico and the U.S., also served as informants to the federal authorities in their war on drugs.

In June, Operation Fast and Furious came to light where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed suspicious straw-purchasers of firearms to buy weapons in the U.S. and smuggle them into Mexico. The purpose was to track the guns all the way to the ultimate buyer—a Mexican drug trafficking organization. Overall, the ATF facilitated the purchase of hundreds of guns by Mexican cartels. Many were later found in crime scenes in Mexico, including one where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was assassinated.

On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been laundering millions of dollars for Mexican cartels. The goal of the undercover mission is to follow the money all the way up to the top ranks of the criminal organizations. However, as the NYT notes, “So far there are few signs that following the money has disrupted the cartels’ operations and little evidence that Mexican drug traffickers are feeling any serious financial pain.”

So there we have it: in the name of the war on drugs, the federal government has provided safe havens to Mexican drug traffickers, facilitated their purchase of powerful firearms, and has even laundered millions of dollars for the cartels.

After spending millions of dollars toward fighting the drug war in Mexico, the United States has little to show for its efforts. It seems Washington is becoming more desperate each year to produce new leads and results. These three incidents display a stunning lack of foresight and borders on the federal government aiding the Mexican drug cartels, with little to show in return. The unintended consequences of these programs aimed at dismantling the cartels would be laughable were it not for the thousands that have died in Mexico’s drug related violence.

It is time for the United States to rethink the war on drugs and consider policies that will successfully undermine the Mexican drug cartels.

Feds Palling Around With Mexican Cartels is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The issue of border security has made its way into the 2012 GOP presidential race and candidates are jockeying to separate themselves from the pack. The topic garnered some attention at the Republican national security debate on November 22. An Associated Press story today examines the candidate’s platforms on the topic and as the title implies, rightly concludes securing the border is impossible. I am quoted in the article and make exactly that point:

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have promised to complete a nearly 1,950-mile fence. Michele Bachmann wants a double fence. Ron Paul pledges to secure the nation’s southern border by any means necessary, and Rick Perry says he can secure it without a fence — and do so within a year of taking office as president.

But a border that is sealed off to all illegal immigrants and drugs flowing north is a promise none of them could keep.

“Securing the border is a wonderful slogan, but that’s pretty much all it is,” said Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Even to come close would require measures that would make legal commerce with Mexico impossible. That’s an enormous price for what would still be a very leaky system.”

The bottom line is the border is simply too big to control. Attempting to fully police the border must pass a simple cost-benefit analysis, and it is not clear that our current policy passes that test. And yet, the candidates all agree securing the border is necessary to combat terrorism, illegal immigration, and drug violence stemming from Mexico.

The candidates have little reason to reexamine that assumption. Not only is it politically advantageous to call for securing the border, but it is a convenient one-size-fits-all solution to those three broader policy issues. They have calculated that this is what voters want to hear.

But it is an illusory solution. Laws protecting the border must exist and be enforced, but it is not clear that this alone, even if done more effectively or efficiently, will prevent terrorists or illegal immigrants from entering the United States. And the “securing the border” panacea certainly will not end the flow of drugs into the United States.

Curiously, while the GOP candidates all express worries about terrorism and illegal immigration, the subject of the war on drugs has hardly been discussed.  Although drug violence in Mexico is the only major security problem the Untied States faces on any of its borders, the issue has not produced serious consideration thus far.  Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has been the only candidate to offer a thoughtful, consistent approach the issue, calling for an end to the failed policy.

The candidates should be pressured to answer why Washington continues to spend billions of dollars to wage the war on drugs each year with little to show for it. The power of the drug cartels has reached the point that the Mexican government no longer controls some areas of the country. And there are worrying signs that the violence is beginning to bleed across the border into the United States.

Our prohibitionist efforts have failed and a new policy is needed. Only by removing the lucrative black-market drug trade and thus effectively defunding the Mexican drug cartels can we begin to end the violence and illegal activity that plagues Mexico and the southern U.S. border region.

That is the substantive discussion that should be taking place in the GOP debates, rather than the posturing and repeated faux policy prescriptions to secure the border.

Border Security, the War on Drugs, and the 2012 GOP Presidential Race is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Beckley Foundation has just launched an important initiative in Great Britain and their new website has a gold mine of research related to drug policy.

On Tuesday, Cato hosted a conference on Ending the Global Drug War (those talks coming online soon).

Related Cato work here and here.  Still more here.

A Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

In the New York Times, Ethan Nadelmann takes aim at the “reefer madness” of the Obama administration, which despite promises and expectations has stepped up the war on marijuana:

But over the past year, federal authorities appear to have done everything in their power to undermine state and local regulation of medical marijuana and to create uncertainty, fear and confusion among those in the industry. The president needs to reassert himself to ensure that his original policy is implemented.

The Treasury Department has forced banks to close accounts of medical marijuana businesses operating legally under state law. The Internal Revenue Service has required dispensary owners to pay punitive taxes required of no other businesses. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recently ruled that state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients can not purchase firearms.

United States attorneys have also sent letters to local officials, coinciding with the adoption or implementation of state medical marijuana regulatory legislation, stressing their authority to prosecute all marijuana offenses. Prosecutors have threatened to seize the property of landlords and put them behind bars for renting to marijuana dispensaries. The United States attorney in San Diego, Laura E. Duffy, has promised to start targeting media outlets that run dispensaries’ ads.

President Obama has not publicly announced a shift in his views on medical marijuana, but his administration seems to be declaring one by fiat.

As bad as the drug war is in the United States, it’s wreaking far more havoc in Mexico and Latin America. That’s why the Cato Institute is holding an all-day conference next week, “Ending the War on Drugs,” featuring:

• the former president of Brazil
• the former drug czar of India
• the former foreign minister of Mexico
• the author of Cato’s study on decriminalization in Portugal
• the Speaker of the House in Uruguay
• plus video presentations by former Secretary of State George Shultz and former Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Check it out. And be there November 15.

Reefer Madness Here and Abroad is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” That is the opening sentence of a report released today by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a nineteen-member panel that includes, among others, world figures such as former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. The report is also signed by the current Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou, making him the only sitting head of government to openly denounce global drug prohibition.

The 20-page report says all the right things: prohibition has failed in tackling global consumption of drugs, and has instead led to the creation of black markets and criminal networks that resort to violence and corruption in order to carry out their business. This drug-related violence now threatens the institutional stability of entire nations, particularly in the developing world. Also, prohibition has caused the stigmatization and marginalization of people who use illegal drugs, making it more difficult to help people who are addicted to drugs. The report also denounces what it properly calls “drug control imperialism,” that is, how the United States has “worked strenuously over the last 50 years to ensure that all countries adopt the same rigid approach to drug policy.”

In the recommendations section, the report praises the experience of Portugal with drug decriminalization, mentioning Cato’s study on the subject. But perhaps more importantly, it states that drug legalization “is a policy option that should be explored with the same rigor as any other.” Until now, similar reports have denounced the war on drugs and perhaps called for the decriminalization of marijuana and other soft drugs, but they also have stopped short of mentioning drug legalization as a policy alternative.

This report is certainly going to receive a lot of media coverage in the upcoming days. It is, until now, the highest profile endorsement of drug policy reform that we have seen at a global level. And, by having Prime Minister Papandreou as one of the signatories, it offers the hope that other top office holders will also call for an end to the failed war on drugs.

Report: ‘The Global War on Drugs Has Failed’ is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• How to identify as a leftist totalitarian.
• How to reinforce the status quo in the Middle East peace process.
• How to learn and understand the Founders’ intent for the United States.
• How to save billions of dollars annually and reduce the deficit:

Friday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Michael Gerson’s predictable, reflexive attack on Rep. Ron Paul in his May 10 op-ed in the WaPo for Paul’s sensible stand in favor of ending the futile crusade called the War on Drugs, makes a curious argument.  He asserts that there is a “de facto decriminalization of drugs” in Washington, D.C.  Curious, because there are few places in the nation where the drug war is waged more vigorously.  Doesn’t seem to be working, does it?

Yet Gerson would expand the effort.  Never mind that the social pathologies in the District for which Gerson’s compassionate conservative heart bleeds are mainly a result of making drugs illegal:  Turf wars with innocents caught in the crossfire; children quitting school to sell drugs because of the artificially high prices prohibition creates; disrespect for the law due to a massive criminal subculture.

Gerson, one of the chief architects of the disastrous Bush II administration, should step away from his obsessive disdain for libertarianism and consider the nationwide decriminalization of drugs undertaken in Portugal in 2001.  Drugs use is down, particularly among young people, and drug-related crimes have dropped precipitously.  There is a reason hundreds of thousands of Mexicans have taken to the streets to call for the end to the war on drugs there that is tearing apart the fabric of Mexican society.  On top of the social aspects of the drug war dystopia, Cato senior fellow and Harvard economist Jeffery Miron estimates that ending the drug war in the U.S. would save $41.3 billion annually.  As usual, Ron Paul has it right.

Gerson Gets It Wrong Again is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Please join us this Thursday, April 21 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern for a book forum and debate on “green energy” policy, following the recent release of the Cato book The False Promise of Green Energy. On Thursday, University of Alabama Professor of Law and Business Andrew P. Morriss (one of the book’s authors) and Center for American Progress Vice President for Energy Policy Kate Gordon will debate the merits of the “green” economic agenda, moderated by Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jerry Taylor. Complimentary registration is required of all attendees by noon TOMORROW, Wednesday, April 20. We hope you can join us in person and for the reception following the event–if you cannot attend in person, we hope you’ll tune in online or on Facebook.
• “Nothing in international law, however, can change the United States Constitution’s procedures for when the United States can go to war — which require the consent of Congress.”
• Nothing says it’s time to convert Medicaid to block grants like letters from 17 governors opposing the idea.
• Nothing would spur economic recovery like a “liberate to stimulate” regulatory agenda.
• Nothing says “failure” like 37,000 dead and climbing.
• Nothing is more complicated and convoluted than the U.S. tax code, which changed 579 times in the last year–more than one change every day:

Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• DON’T FORGET: Our fiscal policy conference, “The Economic Impact of Government Spending,” featuring Senators Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), former Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), Representative Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), and other distinguished guests, begins at 2:00 p.m. Eastern today. Please join us on the web–you can watch the conference LIVE here.
• Atlas Shrugged Motors presents the Chevy Volt.
• The parable of the Good Samaritan teaches us about the moral value of voluntary charity toward the needy–it says nothing about using coercive government programs of the modern welfare state.
• It is not the role of the Court to rewrite laws for Congress.
• The failed “war on drugs” has reshaped our budgets, politics, laws, and society–and for what?

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• They passed the bill, and now we’re finding out what’s in it.
• We’re finding out that the war in Libya could really be about protecting European interests.
• In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand described a world in which government both partly produced and partly subsidized goods; we’re finding out she wasn’t far off the mark.
• We’re finding out that “American exceptionalism” is a cloak for military adventurism.
• The longer America fights a war on drugs, the more we find out about how detrimental it is to our fiscal outlook:

Friday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Shifting America’s focus away from individual liberty is waging war on the future, not winning it.
• U.N. “authorization” is the Emperor’s new fig leaf for war with Libya.
• Why are we fighting Mexico’s drug war?
• David Boaz remembers Geraldine Ferraro, who helped advance the war against gender discrimination in politics.
• Chris Preble eulogizes the Weinberger/Powell doctrine against the backdrop of the Libyan war:

Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

As expected, President Obama’s speech on Latin America, given on Monday in Santiago, Chile, was full of rhetoric but short of substance. He briefly mentioned the willingness of his administration to “move forward” with the pending free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama, but didn’t say when he’s submitting them for a vote in Congress. He recognized (again) that drug consumption in the U.S. is fueling drug violence in Mexico and Central America, but stayed away from saying how his more-of-the-same policies will change anything.

Obama’s only tangible pledge was the announcement that his administration will work to increase the number of Latin American students in the U.S. to 100,000. This is laudable, but still unambitious. According to the Institute of International Education (IIE), last year there were already over 65,000 Latin Americans studying in this country. This poorly compares to other regions and countries. For example, South Korea alone has over 72,000 students in the U.S. Increasing the number of Latin Americans studying here to 100,000 would still leave the region behind China (127,628) and India (104,897). These countries each may have populations greater than that of Latin America, but, as President Obama said yesterday, Latin America and the U.S. share a common history, heritage and values. One would thus expect that the U.S. would be especially open to students from the region.

Of course, the number of Latin Americans studying here doesn’t depend exclusively on the United States. It depends mostly on the ability of people in the region to afford pursuing a degree in a U.S. college or university. However, it’s telling that, despite Latin America’s growing incomes, fewer people from the region come to the United States to study than a decade ago. The IIE shows that in the school year 2001/02 there were over 68,000 Latin Americans studying in the U.S. After 9/11, new visa requirements had a negative impact on the ability of Latino students to come to the United States.

President Obama should be commended for looking at an area where the U.S. can help Latin America. Still, the U.S. should be more welcoming to students from south of the border. The region is at an important stage in its road towards economic development, and having more U.S. educated Latin Americans can have a significant impact on the region’s fortunes. Just ask Chile’s Chicago Boys, for example.

Allow More Latin American Students into the U.S. is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Thursday evening, “Stossel” on FOX Business Network moves to a new time — 10 p.m. ET. This week’s show looks at waste in government, with Rep. Jeff Flake, Cato’s Chris Preble on military spending, and John McWhorter on the drug war.

Set your DVRs. Or, come to think of it, you can still watch TV live.

Cato on Stossel — at a New Time is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Still think the War on Drugs is a good idea, or that it’s working? Decreases in cocaine production in Colombia have been almost fully offset by increases in Peru and Bolivia.
• Why is nobody talking about the right of Wisconsin taxpayers to not deal with unions?
• “If you’re the rare bird who favors limited government at home and abroad, you can hardly expect good news from a poll of this generation’s Tracy Flicks.” (Maybe not.)
• NPR and PBS are using taxpayer dollars to lobby for… more taxpayer dollars. But that’s hardly a new game in Washington.
• Afghanistan: nation-building on crack.
• Saying no to a no-fly zone over Libya should be a no-brainer:

Tuesday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The DEA and San Francisco Police Department conducted a really wrong door raid:

The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman’s insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law…

Soon they may be called defendants in a lawsuit. A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home…

[Officer] Biggs describes 243 Diamond as a “two-story, one-unit” building in the warrant. There’s no mention of Freshman or Larizadeh’s son-in-law or seven-months pregnant daughter who were detained in the downstairs unit that morning. But property records — and a quick visual scan of the property — reveal it to be a three-story, two-unit building. That mistake alone may be enough to invalidate the search warrant.

Read the whole thing. Professor Freshman’s closing quote is priceless. (H/T Uncle)

Really Wrong Door Raid is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Here is a new publication from Cato, “How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America,”  (pdf) by John McWhorter, who is a lecturer in linguistics and American Studies at Columbia University and a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and The New Republic.  Here is his conclusion:

If we truly want to get past race in this country, we must be aware that it will never happen until the futile War on Drugs so familiar to us now is a memory. … The time to end the War on Drugs, therefore, is yesterday.

Read the whole thing.  You can also listen to McWhorter’s speech by clicking here.

For additional Cato work related to drug policy, go here.

The Drug War and Black America is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

From a press release by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:

[A] U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent… was fired for saying in a casual conversation that legalizing and regulating drugs would help stop cartel violence along the southern border with Mexico. After sharing his views with a colleague, the fired agent, Bryan Gonzalez, received a letter of termination stating that his comments are “contrary to the core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication, and espirit [sic] de corps.” Last week, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, Gonzalez filed a lawsuit seeking damages.

I know very little about employment law and have no idea whether the agent has a case. But just consider that even some Border Patrol agents are questioning the War on Drugs — and even when it can cost them their jobs.

If it costs you less to speak out, then please, consider doing so. American patriotism is about speaking one’s mind. Dedication to a failed policy isn’t a virtue. And will the firings continue until the esprit de corps improves?

Patriotism, Dedication, and Esprit de Corps is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Radley Balko writes:

[I]t’s worth remembering that the government initiates violence against its own citizens every day in this country, citizens who pose no threat or harm to anyone else. The particular policy that leads to the sort of violence… is supported by nearly all of the politicians and pundits decrying anti-government rhetoric on the news channels this morning. (It’s also supported by Sarah Palin, many Tea Party leaders, and other figures on the right that politicians and pundits are shaming this weekend.)

I hope Rep. Giffords—and everyone wounded yesterday—makes a full recovery. It’s particularly tragic that she was shot while doing exactly what we want elected officials to do—she was making herself available to the people she serves. And of course we should mourn the people senselessly murdered yesterday, government employees and otherwise: U.S. District Judge John Roll, Dorothy Murray, Dorwin Stoddard, nine-year-old Christina Green, Phyllis Scheck, and Gabe Zimmerman.

That said, I long for the day that our political and media figures get as indignant about innocent Americans killed by their own government—killed in fact, as a direct and foreseeable consequence of official government policy that nearly all of those leaders support—as they are about a government official who was targeted by a clearly sick and deranged young man. What happened this weekend is not, by any means, a reason to shunt anti-government protest, even angry anti-government protest, out of the sphere of acceptable debate. The government still engages in plenty of acts and policies—including one-sided violence against its own citizens—that are well worth our anger, protest, and condemnation.

The worst outcome would be for all dissent to become suspect. “Anti-government” is a concept used, essentially, to stifle debate, by conflating reasonable criticisms with the actions of lunatics. Both — of course! — are “anti-government,” and both are therefore guilty. It should be obvious what sort of agenda this furthers: Everything “government” is good.

Government and Violence is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Mexico ends 2010 with 15,000 illicit drug-related murders for the year—a record for the Calderon administration that began its term four years ago by declaring an all-out war on drug trafficking. Drug war violence skyrocketed since Calderon took office, claiming more than 30,000 lives. Though it is an unwinnable war whose consequences also include the rise of corruption and the weakening of the institutions of civil society, it is being used by drug warriors and skeptics alike to push for pet projects ranging from increased development aid to more military cooperation.

A recent example comes from the Washington Post this week. It editorialized in favor of an Obama administration plan to stem the flow of arms to Mexico, and it ran a story the same day citing the claim that 90 percent of guns in Mexico’s drug war come from the United States (though the Post also noted that the Mexican and U.S. governments refuse to release the results of their weapons traces). My colleague David Rittgers notes here that the proposed gun regulation is unlawful and here he has explained that a more realistic figure for guns of U.S. provenance is about 17 percent. In a Cato bulletin earlier this year, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda calculated a similar figure and explained why attempts at controlling the trade in U.S. arms are a waste of time:

In fact, we only know with certainty that about 18 percent of guns come from the United States, according to Mexican and U.S. sources. The rest is surely coming from Central America, countries of the former Soviet Union, and beyond. And as countries as diverse as Brazil, Paraguay, Somalia, and Sudan attest — all countries with a higher arms per capita than Mexico — you don’t need a border with the United States to gain easy access to guns. Nevertheless, the possibilities of really limiting the sales of weapons in the United States is not imminent, to put it mildly. Moreover, asking the United States to stop arms trafficking from north to south is like asking Mexico to control its border from south to north, whether it is for drugs, people, or anything else. It’s not going to happen.

Another Dubious Record in Mexico’s Drug War is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog