Updates on America's Shameful War on Drugs, Which Has Spread to Mexico and Killed 55,000

1. George Will's latest Washington Post column highlights the shameful government overreach that is part of America's costly "War on Drugs Peaceful Americans Who Voluntarily Choose To Use Intoxicants Not Currently Approved of by the Government, Who Will Put Users in Cages if Caught."  It's titled "When the Looter is the Government," and profiles a case I featured on CD last October about a 68-year old Massachusetts businessman Russ Caswell who operates a budget hotel that has been in his family since 1955.  Unfortunately for him, he owns the $1.5 million property free-and-clear, and that's one reason the government is motivated to confiscate his property under the civil forfeiture statute of "equitable sharing," which George Will describes as "a process of government enrichment that often is indistinguishable from robbery."

Reason? In the last 20 years, 30 motel customers have been arrested on drug-dealing charges, which represents 1/20th of 1% of the 125,000 rooms that have been rented out during that time.  Mr. Caswell is fighting the seizure of his property and is being represented by the Institute for Justice.  But even if he prevails in court, it's shameful that the case has gotten this far, and even a legal victory for Mr. Caswell would still leave him as another victim of the War on Drugs for all of the personal costs of his ordeal.  

2. America's War on Drugs has exported our drug-related problems of crime, gangs, and violence to Mexico, where more than 8,000 corpses left across the country since 2006 have not even been identified, and where more than 5,000 people who have disappeared during the drug violence sweeping the country have never been tracked down, according to this Bloomberg report.  

"The sheer scale of the carnage makes it difficult for authorities to handle the murder cases. The latest violence has pushed the total number of drug-related deaths to around 55,000 since President Felipe Calderon assumed power in December 2006. Emergency teams have had to confront mass graves with more than 200 corpses, dozens of bodies thrown into mine shafts and massacres such as the 49 headless corpses found last week."

Note that the number of drug-related deaths in Mexico is about the same as the number of American casualties during The Vietnam War, so it makes the use of the term "war" very appropriate.  

3. To get a powerful visual understanding of the impact of the "War on Drugs 55,000 Mexicans Who Have Given Their Lives Because of Shameful, Senseless Government Policies in the U.S. and Mexico," check out this collection of 44 recent photographs from Mexico's drug war and the people so horribly affected by it, from The Atlantic (Mexico's Drug War: 50,000 Dead in Six Years), with this caution:

Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now.