R.J. Godlewski's The Independent Counterterrorist. I, Militia. June ...

of the weapons that crossed the border each month. 131
Speaking anonymously, U.S. officials have conceded
that, given the comparative laxity of U.S. gun laws,
the difficulty of tracing weapons acquired through
pawn shops or gun shows, and the porous nature of
America’s southern frontier, seeking to staunch the
flow of guns with a few dozen extra ATF agents is a
quixotic quest. 132 “If you can’t deal with the issue of
guns,” one U.S. congressional aide involved in the
drafting of the Merida Initiative admits, “you’re not
going to see much progress.” 133
The Merida Initiative is thus not being partnered
with any real efforts to ramp up prevention, treatment,
or other demand-side programs in the United States.
Rather, the money spent on the Merida Initiative
seems to have come at the expense of such programs.
The budget for anti-drug-use advertising in the
United States fell by more than half (from $140 million
annually to $60 million) under the Bush administration,
and the approval of the Merida Initiative occurred
concurrent with a $73 million cut in domestic treatment
programs. 134
This is a short-sighted strategy. The GAO has recently
released a study concluding that the U.S.-Mexican
border is so porous that constricting cross-border
drug flows is virtually impossible as long as a lucrative
market for these products exists. “Given the temptation,”
says Garcia Luna, “there are people who are always
going to play the game, whether by airplane or
helicopter, by land, by sea, because there is a real market.”
135 The Merida Initiative thus violates the inescapable
mandate required of effective counternarcotics
strategy: that while supply-side programs are politically
popular and produce attractive statistics, unless
they are paired with demand-side initiatives, they tend
to produce few long-lasting gains.
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