Mexico’s Drug War - BAKER INSTITUTE VIEWPOINTS

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BAKER INSTITUTE VIEWPOINTS

Viewpoints is a Baker Institute Blog feature that provides an array of expert views on a single issue. Each installment runs daily for up to a week as institute fellows, scholars and guest writers offer informed perspectives on the selected topic. A recent Viewpoints series on the possible legalization of marijuana in the United States drew thousands of readers and hundreds of comments.

Click through to the posts below to catch up on the Baker Institute Viewpoints series to date.

October 2012: Despite taboos and lost legitimacy, armed groups around the world engage in extreme acts of violence, symbolic and otherwise. What is their motivation and how do they justify their acts?

• “The use of symbolic violence in Mexico’s drug war,” by Nathan Jones, Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy.
• “The extreme violence of Uganda’s militant LRA,” by Michael Hampson, a University of  California, Irvine, political science doctoral candidate writing his thesis on the Lord’s Resistance Army.
• “Extreme narco violence in Mexico” by guest writer John Sullivan, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant writing his dissertation on criminal insurgency.

September 2012: Should marijuana be legalized in the United States?

• “Marijuana: A case for legalization,” by William Martin, director of the Baker Institute Drug Policy Program.
• “In a contest with alcohol and tobacco, marijuana wins,” by guest writer Sylvia Longmire, an author and expert on Mexico’s drug wars.
• “Legalization of marijuana: When, not if,” by Baker Institute nonresident drug fellow Gary Hale, former chief of intelligence in the Houston Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
• “Regulations work: Lessons from California’s experience with medical marijuana,” by guest writer Tom Heddleston, Ph.D., whose dissertation examined the formation and development of the medical marijuana movement in California.
• “Marijuana won’t be legalized anytime soon,” by Tony Payan, visiting Baker Institute Scholar for Immigration and Border Studies.
• “Why legalizing marijuana is a bad idea,” by Joan Neuhaus Schaan, fellow in homeland security and terrorism at the Baker Institute.
• Marijuana: A case against legalization," by guest writer Kevin A. Sabet, director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, College of Medicine.

August 2012: Recent shootings at a movie theater in Colorado, a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and the Empire State Building, as well as the Operation Fast and Furious controversy, have revived debate about the role of guns in our society. Baker Institute experts discussed gun control, Texas gun running, and why the political conversation about guns is unlikely to change anytime soon.

• “Corruption: A lethal weapon, too,” by Baker Institute nonresident drug policy fellow Gary Hale, former chief of intelligence for the Houston field division of the Drug Enforcement.

• “Gun-related violence: A broken link,” by visiting Baker Institute Scholar for Immigration StudiesTony Payan, an associate professor of political science at The University of Texas at El Paso.
• “Why the ATF should be bigger,” by Nathan Jones, the Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy.
• "Is a proposed arms trade treaty a threat to the 2nd amendment?" by Joan Neuhaus Schaan, fellow in homeland security and terrorism.

July 2012: Baker Institute experts debated the prospect of a paramilitary force to fight drug cartels, as Mexico’s President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto has proposed:

• “A strategy shift in Mexico’s drug war?” by nonresident drug policy fellow Gary Hale, former chief of intelligence for the Houston field division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

• “Not your father’s National Guard,” by information technology fellow Chris Bronk, a former state department diplomat whose postings included Mexico.
• “Recycling a failed idea in Mexico,” by visiting Baker Institute Scholar for Immigration StudiesTony Payan, an associate professor of political science at The University of Texas at El Paso.
• “Mexico, drugs and a possible way forward,” by Nathan Jones, Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy.