Unwinnable War on Drugs: 6k Murders in Mexico

1. WALL STREET JOURNAL -- In the 40 years since U.S. President Richard Nixon declared a "war on drugs," the supply and use of drugs has not changed in any fundamental way. The only difference: a taxpayer bill of more than $1 trillion. A senior Mexican official who has spent more than two decades helping fight the government's war on drugs summed up recently what he's learned from his long career: "This war is not winnable."

Growing numbers of Mexican and U.S. officials say—at least privately—that the biggest step in hurting the business operations of Mexican cartels would be simply to legalize their main product: marijuana. Long the world's most popular illegal drug, marijuana accounts for more than half the revenues of Mexican cartels.

2. WASHINGTON POST -- Senior Mexican officials have begun a sweeping review of the military's two-year occupation of this dangerous border city (Ciudad Juarez), concluding that the U.S.-backed deployment of thousands of soldiers against drug traffickers has failed to control the violence and crime, according to officials in both countries. "The most terrifying question that everyone asks is, 'If the army comes in and can't control the situation, what happens to us now?'" asks sociology professor Hugo Almada.

With more than 2,500 homicides, Juarez accounts for more than one-third of the 6,000 drug-related murders in Mexico this year; since April, when a surge of federal troops brought a brief lull in the death toll, the city has resumed a pace of eight to 10 murders a day. The violence has also spilled over into the suburban neighborhoods of El Paso. In a macabre daily ritual, assassins now appear to time their killings so that they get play on the afternoon and evening television news shows. The city estimates that the violence has created 7,000 orphans and displaced 100,000 people, many of whom have fled across the Rio Grande to Texas.