U.S. Tells South America to Shut Up About Legalizing Drugs

by Scott Morgan
StoptheDrugWar.org
Feb. 29, 2012

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has a message for everyone who thinks the drug war is bad: you're wrong, it's awesome.

(Reuters) - Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano defended Washington's drug war strategy on Monday despite calls by some Latin American leaders to consider decriminalizing narcotics.
...
"I would not agree with the premise that the drug war is a failure," Napolitano said. "It is a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs." [Reuters]

Okay, but what do these two sentences have to do with one another? Yes, we know the drug war is "a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs [and marijuana]," but I don't understand what that has to do with whether or not it's been a failure. This is like saying, "I would not agree with premise that asbestos is toxic. It is a material used to insulate buildings."

So in a metaphorical sense, you could say that American drug policy is made of asbestos, and Janet Napolitano has been given the fun assignment of convincing a bunch of frustrated foreign leaders that the sickness and death presently surrounding them was caused by something other than the one thing that's obviously causing it.

It's a ridiculous situation that lends itself to some really ridiculous arguments, such as Napolitano preposterously comparing Mexican Drug Kingpin Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman to Osama Bin Laden:

"It took us 10 years to find (al Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden and we found him, and you know what happened there," Napolitano said.

Yeah, but the fact that these drug lords are as slippery as Osama f#$king Bin Laden ought not to inspire confidence. Seriously, I don't even know what her point is supposed to be, because it's gotta be pretty damn obvious to Latin American leaders that we don't have enough SEAL teams to track down and kill every wannabe drug boss all over the globe. Their services, unlike Bin Laden's, are actually popular with much of the American public.

Calls for legalization in Latin America are going to get louder the longer this idiocy continues, and it should surprise no one that the U.S. government's latest attempts to suppress it are utterly and predictably devoid of substance as always.