The Other War

The War on Drugs has raged in the US for decades. A real war, with gun battles and atrocities is spiralling out of control in Mexico. Just one city, Cuidad, has seen 5000 murders in three years. In an interview with NPR, Charles Bowden gave his account of the problem:
"The drug industry is the future," he says. "The problem is you won't live long, but you can't live very long ... if you work in those factories because the wages are essentially slave wages."

The poverty which contributed to the catastrophe cannot be ignored. Bowden blames the North American Free Trade Agreement, other U.S. policies and the election in 2006 of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who decided to meet the drug industry head-on.

The current state of the War on Drugs in the US is examined in this recent film (American Drug War, 2007):



The film attempts to cover a waide range of issues, including individual freedoms, private prisons, CIA drug operations, whistleblowers and the huge, increasing budgets of agencies involved in the fight.
Has the War on Drugs become part of the problem? And the War on Terror?