Drugs prohibition is the real problem

IN response to Ryle Dwyer’s column headlined ‘El Chapo – the Mexican drugs czar whose influence we should all fear’ (September 4), it should be noted that drugs did not spawn Mexico’s organised crime networks.

Just as alcohol prohibition gave rise to Al Capone in the US, it was drug prohibition that created the violent drug-trafficking organisations behind all the killings in Mexico.

With alcohol prohibition repealed in the US, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings. Mexico’s upsurge in violence only began after an anti-drug crackdown created a power vacuum among competing cartels.