Politics Outside US

An inner city council in Melbourne has voted almost unanimously in favor of trialing injecting rooms to deal with what's been described as a war zone where brazen drug deals are an everyday occurrence due to prohibition.

The massacre due to drug prohibition in Guatemala that left 27 people dead at a cattle ranch – believed to be the work of Mexico's notorious drug trafficking organization, the Zetas – has forced a 30-day state of emergency. None of the victims had ties to drug trafficking organizations, authorities said. Rather they were innocent ranch workers and their families caught up in an increasingly bloody prohibition war.

Jeremy Sare of the Guardian says that when it comes to the new wave of legal highs, the UK's politicians are like Amish farmers blinking up at jet planes tearing across the sky. They are wilfully living "out of time" but certain of the virtue of their archaic methods. There is no evidence to suggest making a drug controlled can reduce its use.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon militarized his country's battle to continue drug prohibition in December 2006, more than 34,600 have died in prohibition violence. Along with the violence has grown a pervasive culture of corruption and fear. After the discovery of the most recent mass graves, 16 police officers were detained under suspicion of involvement. Despite the government's promises of security and increased aid, many remain unconvinced, and say that governmental control in the region is visible little, if at all.

An annual report by an independent advocacy group said that Mexico can no longer be considered to have a free press due to drug prohibition violence. According to Freedom House, Mexico was listed aside countries from North Africa and the Middle East as "not free" due to attacks on journalists, self-censorship and a climate of fear that persists in the nation. Reporting on the drug prohibition war is a tough situation for Mexican journalists, with some media outlets setting coverage guidelines and others declaring a blackout on coverage.

Mexicans are paying a high cost for drug prohibition -- the death toll of its drug prohibition war in April was 1,400, the highest number of monthly killings since the campaign began in late 2006. The previous record of casualties was 1,322 killings in August 2010. Attorney General Arturo Chavez says more than 15,000 people died in 2010, making it the deadliest year ever.

The United States has spent over $1 trillion promoting democracy in far-flung Iraq and Afghanistan while friendly neighbor Mexico gets a fraction of that in its prohibitionist fight against drug trafficking organizations. Mexico's frustration with Washington's priorities has plunged ties between the two allies to their lowest ebb in years. Last year alone, the U.S.-backed campaign claimed the lives of over 15,000 people in Mexico -- that is more than double the combined civilian deaths reported in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States has spent over $1.2 trillion in the past decade.

The Economist reports on recent brutal killings and mass graves in Mexico. The killings undermine the government’s claim that drug prohibition war casualties are almost all criminals.