Local news (increase in security presence)

This gives a great segue into a conversation that many UnitedStaters don't want to participate in. Much of the violence in Mexico can be laid directly at the feet of our fifty-one-year-old (and counting!) War on Drugs. The U.S. has spent over US$1 trillion dollars and locked up over 1% of its population and drugs are now easier to obtain than they were 50 years ago. As an Orange County, California, Federal prosecutor turned Federal judge said after his retirement, "We couldn't have done worse if we tried." Meanwhile, the collateral damage to the Mexican population and economy has been devastating. Depending upon whose numbers you believe, well over 200,000 have died and tens of thousands are missing and presumed dead.

I wonder how the U.S. would react if the shoe were on the other foot. As Porfirio Diaz is reported to have said, "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US."

An alternative view of the War on Drugs