Right Side of the Rainbow

The drug war, reloaded:

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — The United States is closing temporarily its consulate in this lawless Mexican border city after rival drugs gangs clashed with bazookas, hand grenades and heavy machine-gun fire.

“A violent battle involving unusually advanced weaponry took place between armed criminal factions last night in Nuevo Laredo,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said on Friday.

He said he was ordering the consulate in Nuevo Laredo closed for all of next week and would only open it up again if the security situation improved.

Garza called on Mexico to swiftly bring the situation under control.

And how exactly should the Mexicans do that, Tony? By carpet bombing the gawd damn city? The Mexican army already occupies Nuevo Laredo and has since June when gunmen killed the police chief.

The cartels are fighting over smuggling routes, routes made necessary — and fantastically profitable — by our war on drugs. The war itself adds to the drug barons’ riches by inflating the price of their goods. The price of every product that comes to market reflects not only the costs of production, but also the risks undertaken by the producer. The drug war has not stopped the trafficking of drugs. But it has made drug trafficking risky. Risk = markup.

This is not to say that all risk is unappealing. Quite the contrary. Consider, for example, loan sharking banks that issue credit cards to “high-risk” consumers. These banks compensate themselves for risky lending practices by charging exorbitant interest rates. For both banks and drug cartels, the rewards of risk are often attractive.

Like money lending, drug trafficking would of course be profitable even if legal. But we’ve enhanced its profitability such that men resort to bazookas and hand grenades to control supply lines.