Wall would help combat Mexico’s ‘War on Drugs’

Many years ago, our nation declared a War on Drugs which was more of a publicity campaign than an all-out war.

Politicians revised penalties for drug possession and sales while creating numerous new authorities to battle the rise in drug usage.

As we hold a national dialogue on the potential for a wall on our southern border, it’s important to see just how Mexico is also addressing the problem of drugs in that country.

So let’s travel back to 2006 when the Mexican government also declared a War on Drugs. Put bluntly, their tactics have been far different than ours.

Since that declaration of war in Mexico, 200,000 people have been killed in battles with government forces and in bloody battles among drug cartel factions in that country.

In 2017 alone, nearly 27,000 Mexican residents died in the drug wars south of the border.

Now throw out all of the other arguments in support of a wall and just focus on the drug traffic that flows from Mexico to America.

Our government estimates that 90 percent of dangerous drugs like heroin, cocaine and others arrive here from Mexico.

No one is arguing that a physical barrier like a wall will stop all of that drug traffic. But everyone agrees it will make a major dent in the illegal trade.

You probably missed the news this week that greeted the President as he toured Texas in support of building a wall.

As the President arrived in southern Texas, Mexican authorities announced that 21 people were killed in a cartel firefight just 50 miles south of where the President was visiting.

The carnage from that drug slaughter is sobering. Most of the bodies were burned, bulletproof vehicles were abandoned and automatic weapons far more powerful than carried by law enforcement were left behind following the blood bath.

So if you’re against the wall, what do you say about this latest — not last — drug war being waged by drug cartels that depend on America to sell their poisonous product?

There are countless arguments to be made in support of increased border enforcement.

But ignore all of those arguments for now and concentrate on the single issue of illegal drugs and their impact on our society.

Progressives focus on the “moral” issue of turning away families fleeing poverty south of our border.

But they put little value in the lives lost or impacted by drugs hauled by the truckloads into this country.

I’m not sure how you clearly define a crisis. But it takes little foresight to see that something must be done to stem this flow of drugs.

Had 21 Americans been killed in a drug battle, it would be the top news of the day and discussed at length for weeks on end.

In Mexico, it hardly made the news.