Sunday, December 13, 2009

A Couple of Drops in the Ocean

According to Mexican authorities, security agencies have confiscated 20 tons of cocaine this year. Roughly 300 tons of cocaine are consumed in the US every year, somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of which comes through Mexico. Taking 240 tons as an estimate, that means despite all of Felipe Calderón's "historic" efforts to attack the drug trade, the unprecedented cooperation between American and Mexican authorities, around 7 percent of the cocaine traveling through Mexico has been seized this year (even less when you take into account the local cocaine market). A more concise, irrefutable argument against supply-side drug enforcement is scarcely imaginable.

Although I hasten to add that I don't think that Calderón's crime strategy, whatever your opinion of it, is fairly encapsulated by that piece of data.

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