International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 154

A Brief Genealogy of Cannabis Policy in the United States
Mexico, which was earlier considered by Anslinger and Nixon to be the major
supplier of cannabis to the United States, underwent a major shift in 1985. On
February 7 of that year, a DEA agent, Enrique Camarena, was abducted in the state
of Guadalajara, as was the Mexican Alfredo Zavala, who worked as a pilot for the
DEA; they were found dead on March 5. 111 These murders were attributed to the
Guadalajara cartel, an organization that dominated drug trafficking at the time.
In reality, this group of “entrepreneurs” came from the state of Sinaloa, which had
long been Mexico’s major cannabis producer.
The Reagan administration exerted strong pressure on the Mexican government
to find its missing men, with the U.S. customs agency taking the unprecedented
initiative of closing the border with Mexico. With cross-border trade wiped
out, bilateral relations at a historical low, and all major American press agencies
heading to Guadalajara to cover the abduction, the DEA was in the eye of a major
diplomatic storm. 112
On February 22, 1985, Reagan promised the president of Mexico, Miguel de
la Madrid, that traffic crossing the border between the United States and Mexico
would return to normal “in the briefest possible period.” In addition, the attorneys
general of the two countries would soon meet “with the end of extending the cooperation
between both countries in the campaign against the traffic of drugs,” De
la Madrid’s office stated. 113
Thirty years later, the only result of this cooperation has been an increase in
the number of cartels in Mexico (as well as in the majority of Central America), in
the number of drug users in the United States (and across the world), in violence,
and in deaths. Mexico is a country threatened by a colossal, unstoppably extending
level of organized crime that not only encompasses the expanding drug market
but has spread more widely in the form of a proliferation of criminal cells that terrorize,
subject to racketeering, subjugate, kidnap, hold for ransom, and massacre
citizens.
Had it not been for the events of September 11, 2001, the war on drugs
would have continued to be the U.S. government’s top priority, and currently, it
continues to be an equal priority to the war on terror. 114
If we take as our starting point the Shanghai commission of 1909 and then
include the successive accumulation of agencies and bodies—those put in place
to wage this war to completion without their having demonstrated the slightest
effectiveness in terms of eradicating drugs yet having nonetheless reached such
proportions that they escape political control by citizens and most elected repre-
111 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920870.
112 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16920870.
113 https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/23/world/mexico-reports-pledge-from-reagan.html.
114 https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/international-drug-trafficking-and-terrorism.
149