Budget Planning

Felipe Calderón's 2010 budget includes a 37.3 percent increase in money allocated to combating narcomenudeo, or the small retail sales of drugs for personal recreational use. With drug use and narcomenudeo turf wars on the rise, that's a good move on his part. However, even with the increase, the total sum of government cash for fighting narcomenudeo is a mere 412 million pesos (about $35 million), a paltry fraction of the total of the total drug war cash.