How to Win the Drug War

There’s nothing like 4 assassination attempts and taking 10 bullets, including 2 to the head, to help you see things clearly. Or at least so it would seem for Raquenel Villanueva, a Mexican defense attorney. From the article:

Mexican media have dubbed her the “devil’s advocate” for her role in defending a string of senior cartel figures and their hitmen. Last year, she was detained for 90 days, accused her of being a member of the Gulf Cartel. She was freed without charge.

Throughout her career, she’s survived four assassination attempts and taken 10 bullets, two of them in the head.

Her office is crammed with religious iconography: crosses, paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a four-foot-high wooden statue of Saint Jude Thaddeus. Two bullets are encrusted in the effigy after the last attempt on her life in 2000.

“To win the drug war you have to tell the Americans to take better care of their young people, tell them to stop being so cold and materialistic,” Villanueva lectured. “Then you have to end corruption and that means changing the government cabinets of half the countries in the world.”

Villanueva gets it. The true cause of the drug war isn’t about supply (the drug cartels), it’s about demand (drug users). End demand, and the industry would fade away. Of course the question is how. Yes, Villanueva is correct in saying that Americans need to take care of their young people, but who is best equipped to care for young people and educate them in such a way that they won’t do drugs and continue to fuel this drug war? It’s not federal drug prevention programs. It’s not state programs. It’s not city government. It’s not the local school board, or your own child’s school. The answer is a loving father and mother, and unfortunately many of our government programs do nothing to create incentives for fathers and mothers to stay together, nor is our culture promoting healthy family relationships. If you want to end the drug war, start by supporting the traditional family, and that will go a lot farther than the billions we spend on programs and clever slogans that in the end cannot begin to replace what every child really needs.