OBAMA IS EXACTLY RIGHT ON THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

South and Central America’s drug problems are intertwined with the Mexican drug cartels. I’ve long maintained that the real problem is the deep socioeconomic chasm that divides Mexican 'haves' and 'haves not'. Our southern neighbor has a small number of extremely wealthy people and a small middle class. The overwhelming majority of Mexicans are dirt poor and live in abject poverty. Whenever any country has a divide between the poverty-stricken masses and a small well-off ruling class, it will have an insurgency – in Mexico it’s in the form of gangs and in other countries it’s Marxist militias.
　
So, until Mexico’s socioeconomic chasm is bridged, it will continue to be plagued by deadly gang warfare, corruption, kidnappings and by the killings of office holders, judges, police officials and news reporters. All that spills over into the rest of Latin America. Drugs are not the real problem and the legalization of drugs probably won’t make a peso’s worth of difference.

So when Obama says the answer to the drug cartels is societies that have strong economies, he is exactly right because strong economies build a middle class and take the masses out of poverty.

OBAMA: DRUG LEGALIZATION NOT ANSWER TO CARTELS
President said economics, law, law enforcement is the solution

Associated Press
April 14, 2012

CARTAGENA, Colombia — President Barack Obama says legalizing drug use is not the answer to trafficking in illegal narcotics in the Americas, countering a growing chorus in Latin America to discuss decriminalization as a way to ease deadly cartel violence.

Obama says he is open to having a debate about legalization but he doesn't believe it will lead to an agreement to legalize drugs.

Obama was speaking to an assembly of top executives from the hemisphere as part of the sixth Summit of the Americas here.

The president said the answer to the drug cartels is societies that have strong economies, rules of law, and a law enforcement infrastructure that is sound. He said the responsibility also rests with countries that are big destinations for the drugs to reduce demand for illegal narcotics.