How to Win the War on Drugs (Illegal Immigration)

1. Reduce U.S. demand for drugs (foreign workers): We could start by increasing emphasis on drug treatment and education as well as enforcing drug laws among both rich and poor…instead of just the poor (enforcing laws against hiring undocumented workers, prosecuting businesses who hire them instead of rounding up undocumented workers and their families in “detention centers”). Politicians, wanting to look “tough”, prefer to appeal to our worst instincts by emphasizing drug interdiction (border fences) and blaming the drug (immigration) problem on “aliens” rather than on our own people’s insatiable appetite for drugs (cheap labor).
2. Improve the living conditions of impoverished coca farmers (jobless peasants who would otherwise immigrate).
3. Decriminalize drugs (guest worker program). George Shultz gets it (so does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce).