Some Brutal Honesty About Some Honest Brutality

I have come to enjoy reading "The Week," a magazine that summarizes many of the previous week's top news stories and what various news outlets had to say about them. This week's "The Week" included a briefing entitled "Mexico's brutal drug war." It included the following passages...

Last month, drug traffickers threatened to kill one police officer in Juarez [a town on the US border] every 48 hours unless Police Chief Roberto Orduna Cruz stepped down. When he refused, his deputy turned up mutilated and dead, followed by another officer and a jail guard. Cruz finally resigned his post and fled the city.

and...

Mexican drug gangs have extended their operations to at least 230 U.S. cities, according to the Justice Department, which calls the Mexican cartels "the biggest organized crime threat to the U.S." In recent weeks, police in Atlanta and Phoenix have blamed a wave of kidnappings and home invasions on the cartels' turf war. "The situation in Mexico is very, very dangerous for everyone, including the U.S.," says former Justice Dept. official Philip Heymann. "The situation hasn't reigstered in the mind-set of Americans, but it will."

According to a related piece in the same magazine, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said last week that Americans' "insatiable" demand for illegal drugs is a major cause of Mexico's bloody drug war.

So here's the honesty:

If you use illegal drugs (yes, that includes marijuana), you are responsible for this. Not wholly responsible, of course, but you are helping make it happen. I don't care if you think drugs should be legal*. I don't care if you rarely use, I don't care if you never sell, and I don't care if you only do it in the privacy of your home. If you are using drugs, you deserve some credit for violence and fear that are rampant in Mexico and becoming more and more a part of life in the U.S. If you use illegal drugs, do us all a favor and don't ever fool yourself into believing that you're not hurting anyone and don't ever let anyone who uses convince you that they're not responsible for this. They are putting you and me and every one of our neighbors in danger.

Hope you're having a great weekend! Check back tomorrow for lighter fare regarding some troubling television commercials.

* If you think drugs should be legal, you should absolutely work to have the laws changed. But disagreement with the law is not an excuse to break it, especially when doing so would contribute to the aforementioned violence and terror.