New York Times

‹Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,Š [Hillary Clinton] said, using unusually blunt language. ‹Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.Š […]
She came bearing a new White House initiative, announced Tuesday, to deploy 450 law enforcement officers, and new equipment, along the border.
For instance, Mrs. Clinton said, the United States will help supply Mexican law enforcement officers with helicopters and night-vision goggles and other equipment to take on the cartels, which are armed to the teeth.
‹We‰ve got to figure out how to stop these bad guys,Š she said. ‹These criminals are outgunning the law enforcement officials.Š

BBC

“These aircraft will help Mexican police respond aggressively and successfully to the threats coming from the cartels,” she said. […]
[Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano told the BBC on Wednesday that there had been a significant escalation of violence in Mexico, in part because of US efforts to clamp down on trafficking routes.
But, she said: “The most important thing is that the federal government of Mexico is now battling these cartels, and they weren’t in the past. And as a result the violence between the cartels and the government of Mexico has really increased.”

NY Times:

[Clinton] mentioned the litany of failed efforts, going back to First Lady Nancy Reagan‰s ‹Just Say NoŠ campaign. She talked about a shortage of drug treatment centers. And she said a lack of health insurance prevented many drug addicts from getting proper treatment.
‹Clearly what we have been doing has not worked,Š she said. ‹It is unfair for our incapacity to have effective polices that will either better interdict drug traffic or lower demand for the illegal drugs, or intercept the weapons, to be creating a situation where people are holding Mexican government and people responsible.Š

Sigh…
No. I don’t expect our government to have the political will at this time to step up and say that it’s prohibition that causes all this grief.
Conservatives blame the druggies. Liberals blame themselves for their failure to come up with the right programs to stop the druggies.
But the druggies don’t exist. Oh, sure, there are people who use and people who abuse drugs, and individually you can interact with them.
But the concept of “the druggies” that is in the mind of the politician is a fantasy. It’s the notion of a limited and specific set of players that can be targeted, appealed to, cured, and/or apprehended. Total nonsense.
Drug use is. You can’t appeal to it, arrest it, or treat it. You may as well try to stop the rain.
So while these politicians think that they’re dealing with “the druggies,” they’re actually battling the laws of economics, which are no more amenable to their pleas, threats, or interventions than the law of gravity is to a request to keep the rain from falling.
So yes, we’re sending helicopters to battle… what?