theTrumpet.com

As drug-related crime in Mexico continues to grow, the U.S. Department of Justice has acknowledged that Mexican drug traffickers are also the biggest criminal group threatening the United States.

In its “2009 National Drug Threat Assessment,” released on December 15, the Department of Justice stated that Mexican drug traffickers “represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.” With that statement, says Stratfor, “the Justice Department is acknowledging that Mexican drug cartels are the number-one criminal enemy of the U.S. government—a position held in the past by Irish, Italian, Russian and Colombian criminal enterprises”—a reality that has been extant for some time (December 17).

“Mexico was mentioned prominently in previous threat assessments, but this year’s document uses significantly stronger language in describing the threat Mexican traffickers pose to the United States” (ibid.). Drug trafficking in most U.S. cities is controlled by Mexican drug cartels, the assessment said.

Mexican criminal enterprises’ control over the cocaine industry, says Stratfor, “has helped the Mexican groups to entrench their control further, with cash providing the means to purchase high-powered weapons, bribe officials (in Mexico and the United States) and provide lavish lifestyles for those running the operations” (ibid.). The geographic location of Mexico in relation to the U.S.—and the porous border between the two countries—provides Mexican drug cartels comparatively easy access to the U.S. market.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the United States consumes 44 percent of the world’s narcotics.

It may be easy to look at the problem and simply blame the drug traffickers, but as the late Herbert W. Armstrong would often say, “There is a cause for every effect.” The causes of the huge U.S. drug problem are deeply connected to moral decline.

America’s craving for drugs is what causes demand. Eliminate demand and the market dies. Eliminate the cause and you’ll eliminate the effect. For more on why the world’s greatest superpower is also the world’s biggest drug addict, read “The Drugging of America” and “A Key to Winning the Drug War.” •