If the war on drugs is concentrated on retail sales (not possession, but sales), upstream prices will collapse. If one country does this, it will no longer pay to produce drugs in that country or import them into that country. If all countries do this, the Mexican, Columbian and Afghan producers and distributors will be out of business.

More: http://is.gd/noreverse .

Ahem... The ColOmbian barons will be out of business too.

Perhaps the easiest way to win this "war" would be to legalise the controlled sale of currently banned narcotics.
Of course this won't happen. Consider the strength of just two of those with vested interests.
In the first category we have the international banksters. All that money is NOT being kept under a bed.
In the second category we have the military/industrial complex - remember them? The police forces of the world are emerging as one of their more important revenue streams.
Those in the first category are loaning money at a profit, money originally deposited by the drug cartels, to those in the second category (and their customers) so they can fight the drug cartels who are depositing money with the first category so they can loan that money to those in the second category to fight...
Talk about a sweet circular deal!
And let's not forget that the cartels are heavily tooled up as well.
It's win/win for banksters and win/win for arms merchants and just too bad for anyone caught in the crossfire.

It isn't necessary to legalize. It *is* necessary to put a bottleneck in the supply chain at the last step before the consumer, so that consumers are deterred by HIGH prices while producers and distributors are deterred by LOW prices. And it *is* necessary to restore the presumption of innocence. The reverse onus of proof in drug-possession trials is incompatible with the rule of law and is therefore unconstitutional in ALL jurisdictions. So, if you are on the jury in a drug case, and if you are told that the defendant must prove that his/her possession was unwitting, it is your civic duty to put the onus of proof back where it belongs (on the prosecution), raise it to the proper standard (beyond reasonable doubt), and hand down a verdict accordingly.

More: http://is.gd/noreverse .

"The battle for control of Mexico's streets will be bloody but should the government not win this war, the global consequences could be too dreadful to contemplate."

It is bizzare that a person who so obviously knows about the situation can be so blind to how it may be resolved. No amount of killing will resolve it. Every time one drug lord is killed or captured, there will be a fight amongst many others to take his place and even more blood will be spilt. In fact trying to crush the cartels only results in more violence, not less. If you manage to turn an entire nation into a prison camp and so stamp out the drug trade there, it will simply move to another country.
The idea that the answer is to stop demand is just ridiculous. The US has half a million people in prison for drug offences and are still the highest drug consuming country in the world.
The answer of course is legalisation. The drugs still get trafficked and sold, but no-one needs to die or get locked up. Judges and public officials can do their jobs without being executed. No money for corrupt law enforcement or public officials. Still, it may render a great deal of law enforcement and draconian legislation unnecessary. Perhaps that is why such a solution would be unthinkable to the likes of Julie Bishop.

We are all victims of America's stupid "War on Drugs"!

One would have thought that we would have learned from Prohibition that it is just not possible to stop criminal activity when faced with such enormous profits. Surely the obvious solution to the drug problem is to legalize the damn stuff; give the government a monopoly, and treat drug addiction much the same as we now treat alcohol addiction.

Mexico is unfortunate to be the gateway into the United States for most drugs. Could the Mexican government somehow reject the American war and go it alone with legalization, i.e. take the trade off the gangs? Or would such a step be considered aggressive by the United States.