by Gustavo Gonzales-Baez

About the author: Gustavo Gonzales-Baez is political affairs adviser to the Embassy of Mexico in Washington, D.C.

The production, trafficking, and consumption of illegal drugs is one of the most serious problems faced by humankind today, both in terms of the damage done to our societies and the breakdown of government institutions. This disastrous double outcome represents a serious public-health challenge, and a threat to national security.

Both government and society are the victims of this terrible and corrupting scourge that kills and destroys. Transnational organized crime stops at nothing to control all the elements of this deadly business—from the harvesting of the drug in Asia and Latin America, to its retail sale in cities and schools in the consuming countries and the inevitable money laundering of drug profits.

The international community...