Despite the enormous resources poured into the fight against drugs and drug trafficking, officials estimate that the drug supply in America increases by twenty-five hundred tons every year. In 1999 there were an estimated eight thousand agents protecting the border between the United States and Mexico, but officials claim that an average of five to seven tons of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine enter the United States every day. Drug trafficking along the border has not only increased crime and violence in border cities, but has also negatively affected international trade.

The inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 transformed Mexico into the largest exporter of illicit narcotics to the United States in the world. NAFTA not only opened up trade between Canada, Mexico, and the United States, but also created trade routes for South American drug traffickers...