America’s Role in Mexico’s Drug War

Forty years ago, the United States government began a war on drugs whose cost so far is estimated at $1 trillion, and rising. In 2006, newly elected Mexican President Felipe Calderón began a crackdown on the drug-smuggling cartels a war on drugs that really is a war, involving military troops and weapons and more than 10,000 dead so far. Americans buy drugs from the cartels and sell them guns, and Washington arguably provided an example of the Mexican government’s hard-line tactics. So is America to blame for Mexico’s drug war? That was the topic at last week’s Open to Debate formerly known as Intelligence Squared U.S. debate at New York University.