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The recent massacres at drug rehabilitation centers in Mexico represent yet another tragic result of what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called America's "insatiable appetite" for illegal drugs.
The police have reported that two of the country's six major drug cartels have been operating treatment centers and forcing newly recovering substance abusers to join their ranks or be killed. In other cases, cartel members have checked themselves into clinics posing as patients and then taken control by threatening to kill employees, The Huffington Post reported Monday.
While the exact motivations behind the latest attack − in which 19 people were killed at the Faith and Life Center in Chihuahua City − are still unclear, what is clear to Dr. Deni Carise, Chief Clinical Officer of Phoenix House and a Clinical Psychologist, is our responsibility in Mexico's drug wars.
The U.S. fuels Mexico's drug earnings, which now represent a full 10 percent of the country's economy. Every year, a whopping $25 billion U.S. dollars in drug proceeds is smuggled into Mexico from the United States.
Of the roughly 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin, and 110 tons of meth that are sold in the United States each year, the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that the majority of it comes from the across the borders.
Even more marijuana is brought in from Mexico − or grown domestically in fields run by Mexican drug cartels.
It's time for the United States to step up and take responsibility for its role in Mexico's booming illegal drug business and the crime that arises from it. Unless we can diminish our demand for illicit substances in the United States, drug rehab centers in Mexico will continue to be targets of violence − rather than places where those who want to get healthy can go for help.
Fortunately, the United States now has an administration that views the nation's drug problem as a public health crisis, not simply as an interdiction issue. For the first time, the U.S. government recognizes that the best hope of surmounting this crisis is to stop focusing on the criminal justice, public safety, and medical costs of addiction − and expand prevention and treatment options.
This is the first step toward rectifying the misguided "War on Drugs," which − as the tragedies at the Faith and Life Center, Gratitude Refuge clinics and other 'treatment programs' illustrate − has had ripple effects far beyond U.S. borders, Dr. Carise comments.
However, in the words of John Carnevale, an internationally recognized expert in the field of drug policy, "It appears that this historic policy stride has some problems with its supporting budget."
In 2011, U.S. President Barck Obama plans to increase drug control spending to a record high of $15.5 billion U.S. dollars of which the majority (approximately $10 billion U.S. dollars) will go toward interdiction and law enforcement. Once again, treatment and prevention will get the shorter end of the stick.
U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, has acknowledged this discrepancy and reminded the public that "nothing happens over night."
Still, progress will continue − and funding for prevention and treatment will eventually catch up to the new thinking, Dr. Carise says. We owe it to the United States and to our neighbors across the border to do more to reduce our insatiable demand for drugs in an effort to save lives both at home and abroad.
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