Death toll in Mexico this last year: a stunning 12,000, according to WAPO.
Yes, some will write it off as only "professionals" dying, but the same is largely true in all conflicts.
We supply the money and the guns, and then demand that the Mexicans fight it out to the last man standing.
It's a wonder that all Mexicans don't hate us all the time.
Decriminalize drug use and you deny the cartels the big money that fuels their warfare. You also stop US states from spending so much on jail time for small-time users and peddlers. You also medicalize our response, which is how the rest of the intelligent world deals with debilitating drug abuse.
End the drug war, Mr. President, and truly earn the Nobel, because that would take some political courage.
We can only hope that a second-term Obama, hemmed in domestically by a GOP House and Senate, will escape to some suitably radical foreign policy (back-dooring some sensible domestic policy changes). This would fit that scenario, but I have little hope of Obama making such a call.