The Merida Initiative for Mexico and Central America: The New Paradigm for Security Cooperation, Attacking Organized Crime, Corruption and Violence
![handle is hein.journals/intnlwrv5 and id is 111 raw text is: THE MRIDA INITIATIVE FOR MEXICO AND
CENTRAL AMERICA: THE NEW PARADIGM FOR SECURITY
COOPERATION, ATTACKING ORGANIZED
CRIME, CORRUPTION AND VIOLENCE
Steven E. Hendrixt
The M6rida Initiative (the Initiative) offers the United States, Mexico,
and Central America the opportunity to deepen mutual commitments to
each other and join together to attack a common enemy: organized crime
and corruption.
Why Should We Care?
As Americans, we must both confront and admit that our citizens have a prob-
lem with narcotics. In 2007, approximately 24,000 Americans died because of
drugs - a figure approximately eight times the number of victims from Septem-
ber 11, 2001.' One in four families is affected by substance abuse.2 About one
million Americans are heroine addicts.3 Drugs have a $200 billion negative ef-
fect on the U.S. economy.4 Roughly eighty percent of all persons in prison in the
United States are either drug traffickers, or they committed a crime while on
drugs, or they committed a crime to get money to buy drugs.5 There is no school
district in the United States, no Congressional district for that matter, which is
not affected by drugs.
Mexico also has serious narcotic problems expanding beyond issues with our
joint border.6 According to the United States General Accounting Office, Mex-
t Mexico and Central America Desk, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and
Senior Research Fellow, De Paul University College of Law, International Human Rights Law Institute.
The author would like to thank Julie Bulgrin, Steve Tupper, Roberta Jacobson and Ellen Leddy for their
help with this article.
I Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Presentation by Robert Bobby Charles, Assistant
Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, Washington, DC, Nov. 8, 2007
available at http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.1584/transcript.asp [hereinafter Charles].
2 See generally Common Sense for Drug War Policy, Drug War Facts Dec. 31, 2007, available at
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prisdrug.htm.
3 Charles, supra note 1; Drug War Facts, supra note 2 at 49 (noting that a National Survey on Drug
Use and Health 2005 estimated that the US population aged twelve and over frequently using heroin was
very slight).
4 Charles, supra note 1.
5 Id.
6 See Alfredo Corchado, Exclusive: Drug Cartels Operate Training Camps Near Texas Border Just
Inside Mexico, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, March 29, 2008.
Volume 5, Issue 2 Loyola University Chicago International Law Review 107](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/intnlwrv5&div=12&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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