Vargas Llosa on Legalization

Mexican eyebrows were raised by Mario Vargas Llosa's criticism of Calderón's anti-crime stance today:

[I]t doesn't matter how many capos and killers are killed or arrested nor how many shipments of cocaine are captured, the situation will only get worse. The fallen narcos will be replaced by others, younger, more powerful, better armed, more numerous, who will maintain in operation an industry that has extended across the world for decades without the blows against it amounting to any significant wound.

[Break]

Is there, then, no solution? Are we condemned to live, sooner rather than later, with narco-states like that which President Felipe Calderón wanted to prevent. There is. It consists of decriminalizing the consumption of drugs through an agreement of consumer and producer countries...

The piece is good in that it's not a utopian legalization fantasy, but rather paints legalization as the best of two bad options.

However, I see two problems: I'd say that Vargas Llosa underestimates the government's capacity to have at least some influence on that state of affairs. After all, Colombia is better than it was in Escobar's heyday, in large part because the gangs operating there are smaller and less powerful, which in turn is in large part due to the government's having developed the capacity to take down the biggest fish. Similarly, there is no American equivalent to Chapo Guzmán, basically because criminals in the US are arrested long before they gain such notoriety. I agree that winning the war on drugs is a fantasy, but that doesn't mean we are all on an inexorable march toward a world of narco-states.

Furthermore, I think in Mexico's case, it's important to note that legalization is a long-term solution to the nation's criminal problems, rather an avenue to an immediately improved security climate. Personally I am convinced that Mexico, the US, and most of the world would be better off if in 20 years, some drugs were legalized (marijuana certainly, and maybe other drugs as well). But Mexico wouldn't be better off tomorrow if marijuana were suddenly legalized. Organized crime wouldn't just disappear; the gangs would just branch out into extortion, kidnapping, and other estimable endeavors, as many groups already have. Their profits would be smaller, however, and their heirs in the next generation would presumably fewer as a result, which would lead to criminal groups less threatening to the state. Eventually.