The Border: Our New Narcomarket

The border towns of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, along the Texas/Mexican border have become thriving areas for drug cartels, who have opened their narcomarkets there. Reports indicate that business is booming to the tune of $10,000,000 per day in U.S. dollars. Who's buying? Why, we are. We, Americans are keeping them in business, and helping fund money to terrorists through the cartels.

Not only is this a knotty and hugely embarrassing problem, it has caused some very real grief for law enforcement on both sides of the border, and for the many innocent people trying to make a living. The homicide statistics alone tell the tale: 170 homicides were committed last year alone, in Nuevo Laredo. Included in the death toll, was a police chief, who had held the post a mere 7 hours before being shot 50 times. 13 police officers are included in 2005's death toll, along with a city councilman.

In spite of the police presence, these cartels possess both better weaponry and better communications equipment. Because this is such a lucrative business, run along a highly popular border area for drug smugglers, corruption is rampant.

ABC News reports:

"Each day it is estimated that more than 6,000 trucks carrying 40 percent of all Mexican exports come through Laredo. The cartels use the trucks, the warehouses and the interstate to move most of the cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine that reaches the United States. It's a booming business worth $10 million a day, according to a senior agent at the Drug Enforcement Agency.

"By latest estimates, 92 percent of the cocaine coming into the U.S. comes in through the Southwest border," said the DEA's Rick Saldana."

And we just keep buying. What was once considered more of a public health issue concerning users, has rapidly evolved into an issue of national security. From Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, threats are developing concerning the cartels hooking into a much more lucrative addition to their multi-billion dollar trade-arms and aid for terrorism. This brings the War On Terror right into our backyard.

Here in the U.S., we are already feeling the effects of certain gangs using high levels of violence directed towards innocent people, and an increase in the amount of drugs sold on the streets. It is not a stretch to imagine members of high level cartels living in our country. With it will come increased and more savage violence. And it is our own people helping bring it home, to those of us who only want to make a living and not endure the sporadic and vicious violence of criminals.

We have spent billions of dollars on the War On Drugs. We have numerous programs out there to help the addicted rid themselves of these poisons, we have hundreds of websites and organizations like Join Together Online, The Anti-Drug, Narcotics Anonymous, and loads of health programs available. None of it is working well enough.

Jack Suneson states:

"If I was in Laredo, Texas, I'd be embarrassed because the drug corridor is I-35 all the way to Dallas," Nuevo Laredo shop owner Suneson said. "So if this is an easy, a lucrative corridor, this means these drugs are getting across, and the United States is not doing its job. The demand in the United States, this insatiable demand that exists, is driving this frenzy over here, and that's really the problem."

It is time for all of us to face what is at heart a self-created problem, and start taking responsibility for what these addicts are doing to our country. One solution might be to give an addict the choice of prison or recovery, which of course would need to be monitored. It's no longer just a health issue, but one that will end up hurting every single one of us.

Ask the parents of Yvette Martinez and Brenda Cisneros, two of 15 Americans kidnapped and missing from the area. Or the loved ones of victims, who were shown in video, being doused with gasoline and dying, simply because they got in the way. These cartels are brutal and ruthless, and will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.

After 9-11, we created a huge new Executive Department-Homeland Security, along with an enormous amount of funding to combat terrorism. Our intelligence agencies dedicate, along with law enforcement thousands of hours, and often their lives to keeping us safe. Yet we are the enemy, when we cannot control our need for a product that helps fund, the very thing we fear the most.

What are the solutions? I don't have any, neither do many of us. But we'd better make a start, before it's too late.

ABC News: Special Report
Report on a growing threat