TOURISM TRIFECTA

After reading my blog "Mexico To OK Use Of Pot, Coke, Meth And Smack" (6-22-09), a very dear friend of some 30 years sent me an e-mail in which he coined the term "Tourism Trifecta." My friend knows what he’s talking about because he is a retired state police lieutenant who worked on the Mexican border and who met often in Mexico with some of that nation's police officials.

My friend is very concerned about Mexico’s decriminalization of drug use. In his e-mail he wrote, "Mexico will increase its Spring Break tourism 10 fold. Can you imagine the headshop business in Cancun and in the Mexican towns along the U.S. border? Drinking, Prostitution and Legalized Drugs. That’s tourism trifecta!"

Later, he sent me the following e-mail:

"The sad thing about the drug tourism business will be the kidnappings, robberies, beatings, and murders of young Texans that venture across the border to get high.

While stationed on the border I worked with State Department officials who had the gruesome task of retrieving the bodies of young people killed while partying in Mexico. This will only get worse. The same drug dealers that ply their trade will also work hand in hand with Mexican bandits.

I met with Mexican police officials in Matamoras and Nuevo Laredo on several occasions in an effort to curb underage drinking in the Mexican border cities. I was instrumental in receiving federal funds to train police officers on both sides of the border. Sadly, after 911 the funds dried up. Some of those police officials from Mexico that I had worked with were killed or disappeared."

So there you have it from an expert. Soon, American tourists can get stoned in Mexico without worrying about getting busted by Mexican cops driving cars that were stolen in the United States. When Mexico legalizes the use of pot, coke, meth and smack, it will have created a tourism trifecta that will have dire consequences for our party-loving college students and other pleasure seeking tourists from the United States.