The Holy Innocents

It seems hard to believe that the United States, the world’s leading consumer of illegal drugs, does not have control over its own market.

Sergio Muñoz Bata is a distinguished Mexican journalist who lives and works in the U.S., where he has been a member of the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times and professor of science journalism at the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, California. He is a regular columnist for El Tiempo and of 10 or 12 more newspapers across the continent and habitually conducts seminars at the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation. He has just published — in El Tiempo and in 12 other newspapers — a harsh article that sets the record straight for those of us who dare to nurture the disrespectful suspicion that the U.S. may have something to do with drug trafficking. As it turns out, to many people’s surprise, the U.S. has nothing to do with it. They are just innocent consumers, victims of the malice of foreigners.

Muňoz Bata went to the trouble of calling the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to assure himself beyond a doubt. He asked, “How are drugs distributed in this country?” The answer was emphatic: “The monitoring system is based in Mexico. But the Mexican cartels have networks of wholesalers who, in turn, have networks at various levels — up to street drug dealing.” Muñoz Bata, diligent researcher, insisted (not in vain, as is he professor of science journalism), “Does this mean that Mexicans control all drug sales in the U.S.?” The definitive answer: “Yes, because the majority of marijuana, amphetamines and cocaine come from Mexico and are distributed through the networks of which we spoke.”

A mediocre journalist would have been satisfied with that: an answer from the DEA, no less. But not the indefatigable Muňoz Bata, who continues narrating the vicissitudes of his investigative work.

“Searching for a different perspective, I also spoke about the issue with the former Colombian President, César Gavira, who had to deal, successfully, (admiring emphasis is mine), with the fearsome Pablo Escobar.” “Do you know the names of the drug lords in the U.S.?” I asked him. “No, he answered.”

Muňoz Bata did not inquire further. If even a former Colombian president does not know the names of the American bosses, nor the DEA, itself, which is in charge of pursuing them, it is because they obviously do not exist. But I was not persuaded. Perhaps I am one of those whom Muňoz Bata describes as “individuals who, through ignorance, ideology, or ill-temper, write nonsense” for the purpose of “spreading misinformation.”

But I find it hard to believe that the U.S., not only the primary consumer of illegal drugs in the world — and, in passing, the leading producer and exporter of marijuana, apparently unknown to the DEA agent who spoke with Muňoz Bata — but the inventor of its mass consumption (Vietnam, the hippie counterculture), who then banned it (Nixon), thereby ensuring its enormous profitability — I find it difficult to believe that the U.S. doesn’t have any involvement in its own market. The U.S. controls the distribution of many things throughout the entire world (to start with, of course, within its own territory): automobiles and cereal, soft drinks and computers, movies and weapons, soldiers, prisoners, dollars, information, misinformation, counter-information; and they do not control drug distribution?

This huge market, in that vast country, with its borders protected by concrete walls with armed watchtowers and coasts protected by the most powerful naval forces in the world — is it really in the hands of foreigners, of a handful of Afghan rebels, of Colombian guerrillas and Mexican Mafiosos? Not a single gringo? Not one gringo customs official, not one gringo politician, not one gringo policeman, not one gringo judge, not even a gringo banker? And that, under the nose of the DEA, FBI, FTA, Border Patrol, Army, Navy and Air Force with its hundreds of military bases; under the nose of the Los Angeles Times journalists, sharp as lynxes? I truly don’t believe it.

I find it easier to believe that Sergio Muňoz Bata, distinguished professor of journalism science, has written nonsense, either through ignorance, ideology, or ill-temper.