MEXICO

There are many places in the world that I would like to visit, but Mexico is not one of them. Well, not just at the moment, at any rate.

The main reason is that it seems to be incredibly violent. On 2 August the country's head of national intelligence said that more than 28,000 people had died in drug-related violence since 2006. Presumably there are other sorts of violence on top of that. Although the drug-fuelled stuff mainly affects bad guys and law-enforcement agents of one kind or another, ordinary citizens can (and do) get caught in the cross-fire. Some of it is also particularly horrific, with beheadings, public hangings from bridges, and the like.

Mexico is the main conduit for the supply of drugs into the United States, For what seems to be a very long time, the U.S. has conducted a "war on drugs", concentrating large amounts of resources in trying to reduce supply, notably in Latin America. However, this doesn't seem to have worked, not least because the street prices of drugs in the U.S. have fallen, which is the opposite of what you would expect. Faced with this unwelcome fact, an increasing number of people have begun to call for the legalisation (or, at least, decriminalisation) of some or all drugs, starting with marijuana. In the same way that prohibition did nothing for the American public's appetite for alcohol, but merely gave control of its production and distribution to criminals, so the same is true of drugs. Better, therefore, for Governments to licence, regulate and tax them, runs the argument.

I have always had some sympathy for this view, not least because I have tried marijuana and it seemed no worse than alcohol (what I didn't like was imbibing it through cigarettes, since I am a non-smoker). However, a more powerful voice than mine has now entered the debate. Shortly after Mexico's current President Felipe Calderon called for a debate on the matter, his predecessor Vicente Fox publicly suggested legalisation. When in office, Mr. Fox felt he had to back down, when faced with President Bush's objections. However, Mr. Bush is now gone, the drugs are still coming, and an awful lot of Mexicans are dying. Perhaps this time, there will be a rethink.

Walter Blotscher