Drug Users Supporting Terrorism—Again

NPR reporter John Burnett was on The Colbert Report last night saying that recreational drug users are responsible for the gang wars in Mexico. When Colbert responded that maybe this wouldn’t be the case if people “bought local” or voted for Prop 19, Burnett claimed that it was more complicated than this. He pointed out that organized crime didn’t go away after the end of Prohibition. I don’t have time to go into all the reasons that Burnett is stupid and ignorant. Let me just deal briefly with why he’s evil: drug users are not the cause for the gang wars in Mexico. There is no violence associated with the distribution of legal drugs; there is no problem with legal opium production in India. The wars, the violence: that due to policy. And if drug trafficking went away and the drug gangs went into other illegal areas (as Burnett suggests): so what? It would still take most of the profit out of their illegal activities.

It is also interesting to note that Burnett is not suggesting that America outlaw guns, even though all the guns used in these wars come from the US. Burnett isn’t saying, every time an American sells a gun, it could be going to support the gang wars in Mexico. No. Blame the drug users, who are—if anything—the victims in this. Burnett is just using the same Bush logic that said drug users supported terrorists. And this from “liberal” NPR!