Mario Ojeda Gomez has been president of the Mexican medical association. Last February he published an article entitled A war without end in a contrarian sense, claiming new paths as the war declared by that country to drug trafficking was lost.

“The war against drug trafficking – writes Ojeda – is three years old. The death toll, most of which occurred during gang clashes, is over 15,000. The army, which according to the polls is approved by the majority of society, has received complaints of human rights violations. In the meantime, drug consumption in Mexico has increased, drug trafficking to the United States has not decreased, nor has the import of weapons from there to us.” Dr.

Ojeda acknowledges that many believe that Presidio Felipe Calderón declared war on the narcos by mobilizing the army to improve the mediocre image left by the very controversial victory of the elections. But it cannot be said that Ojeda is an anti-system militant: it is a shame that the Mexican from Ararte has investigated and denounced the demasias committed by the military in the war against drug trafficking.

But there comes a time in Mexico where even law-abiding people are beginning to get tired of the terrible consequences of the war on drugs. The rulers are not losing this war, but they cannot win it. And what’s worse, the U.S. in the neighborhood doesn’t get involved as it should because they don’t have it as their problem. In the end, Mexico puts the bad image of the state, thousands of deaths, a terrible political turmoil. On the other hand, in the United States, consumption is still intact; what is worse, the gringos do not put barriers to the trafficking of arms from the United States to Mexico.

There are more and more people who demand the legalization of drugs, with different nuances, but legalization. Mario Ojeda himself recalls that from 1919 to 1927, when all alcohol, including beer, was banned in the United States in Chicago, where 250 gangsters were killed, Al Capone came to possess 700 gunmen under his command. And when it was judged that this bloodshed did not serve to make alcohol disappear, the U.S. authorities dismantled the ban in 1933. “The black market and violence disappeared,” writes Dr. Ojeda, “and the United States was not filled with alcohol.” The need to decriminalize drugs has been internalized in the most luminous minds of the South American elites, and this month in Vienna three former presidents from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia were to present their proposal to penalize drug use, taking advantage of

a congress on AIDS.

It is curious to read to a conservative politician like Carlos Henrique Cardoso in El País: “The war on drugs doesn’t work. We need a new recipe.” The problem is that illegalization is entrenched in prejudices and myths deeply rooted in the brains of the population. It's going to be hard to get rid of them.

A war for whose benefit?

It is still frequently mentioned, when the famous battle against drugs is in question, the following role that the economist and professor of Madrid, Carlos Resa Nestares, launched in 2005:Nine Drug Trafficking Myths in Mexico (from a non-exhaustive list). Unproven is the long road that superstitions can take.

“The illegal drug trade threatens the security of the nation.” Most authorities have been heard in Mexico. Resa believes that the battle language is used to achieve other objectives, whether they are to delight the gringos, to explain the subject in a preoccupied manner or, above all, to involve the military.

“The drug trade is one of the pillars of the Mexican economy,” says Professor Resa. In the 2000 data, it represented only 0.5% of the Mexican Gross Domestic Product. To this should be added, says Resa ironically, everything that both the media and the security forces bill for the drug bill.

“The drug economy is expanding without interruption.” There is no evidence to support this. In contrast, the trend in the US market is reversed: marijuana users account for half of those in the 1970s, cocaine use has declined sharply, and the former heroin epidemic has not resurfaced. Mexican drug exports declined from 1990 to 2000.

“The 9/11 attacks had repercussions on the Mexican drug industry.” This is not shown in the statistics.

“The capture of drugs by the police has consequences for the drug market.” Much has been said about the fact that the repression has caused prices to rise. In Resa’s calculations, traffickers increase production to ensure that they sell at the old price. Consequently, if it does not affect the price and does not affect consumption, the only fruit of the repression is the filling of the prisons.

“Drug violence occurs because traffickers want to control territories.” This seems to be a myth created by the films, because Resa believes that “the export of drugs is the most anti-territorial issue.” Traffickers monopolize customers, not territories. In any case, the territory is the area that a corrupt police officer or official transfers to the trafficker.

“The drug industry is primarily responsible for the violence that Mexico suffers.” Taking into account the data from 2004 – have things changed so much since then? – Resa shows that statistics on violent deaths do not include this. It is true that in the world of drug trafficking violence is very brutal, since the trafficker does not have an official guarantee to collect it because he has to show strength, but it is also not convenient for him to scare away his customers. Comparing the state with forced death rates, he sees in front of the lists some that have nothing to do with drug trafficking, such as Guerrero, Chiapas and others.

“The U.S. government authorized the cultivation of drugs in Mexico during World War II.” Most of Mexico’s drug trafficking stories begin by telling us how in the Sinaloa Mountains they started planting poppies to sell morphine to the gringos for war wounded. It is also said to be without proof of myth. In reality, to explain Mexico’s role as a drug supplier to the United States, there is no need to resort to conspiracies: the gringos are the wealthy consumers, the Mexicans are the poor farmers, and the intermediaries who assume the risks of transportation.

Myths, as Mario Ojeda mentioned at the beginning points out, the more the U.S. fences its way to drugs, the more brutality in Mexico grows. So, Ojeda asks to finish, who benefits from this war?

For more information:
- Mario Ojeda Gómez "El combate al narcotráfico: guerra sin fin en sentido contrario" -
"Nine Myths of Drug Trafficking in Mexico (from
a non-exhaustive list)" -
In the newspaper La Jornada, the United Nations says that there is no end to drug trafficking -
the war against drug trafficking in Mexico on Wikipedia, in Spanish -
In English (much more complete)
- "The war with Cardinal Carthus, the dialogue with Cardinal Cesano in the Vienna Drug Policy magazine,"