Mexico

First, as my wife sits near me working on a guidebook to the Yucatan (that’s Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and the Mayan Riviera for you tourists in Mexico), I feel obliged to point out that the Yucatan has a lower homicide rate than Canada. And Canada is safer than America. So not going to Cancun because of violence in Tijuana is like not going to Disneyland because of crime in Detroit. It just doesn’t make sense.

OK… not that I got out of the way… have you see how f*cked up the war on drugs in Mexico still is?! I mention this because one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, murder will go down in Mexico. And when it does, you’ll hear about how great the latest get-tough police leader is. And how now we’re really winning the drug war. Of course that will be B.S. But just like you (I’m certain) I was wondering, “gee, I haven’t heard much about killings in Mexico recently. Maybe things are getting better.

Then I came across this diagram in the BBC:

No. Things are as bad as ever. And now police are shocking the balls of suspected corrupt cops (not all of whom are corrupt). But it doesn’t work. Yet another bit of proof that “getting tough” usually fails. In fact, things are worsethan ever. It turns out that things are twice as badas when this stuff last seemed to be in the news. There are now more than 1,000 killings a month. To put that in some bit of (admittedly not quite fair) perspective, total US casualties in Afghanistan topped 1,000 this year.

In 2006, before Mexico got really tough in the war drugs, there were about 60 drug-war deaths a month in Mexico. Now those were the good old days.

The war on drug increases killing. We know this. People… STOP!