To the Editor:
Re ''Remember the War on Drugs?'' (editorial, Nov. 19):
No one can deny the severity of drug-related violence in Mexico. Something must be done, and as the country that consumes most of the drugs coming from Mexico and sells most of the arms flowing into Mexico, the United States has a moral responsibility to assist our neighbor.
We sincerely hope that the proposed aid package for Mexico will not just be another short-term drug war strategy. Even if we are successful in Mexico and Central America, the drug traffickers will merely go elsewhere, and the logical place seems to be the Caribbean. We must stay one step ahead in our counter narcotics efforts, particularly in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two countries particularly vulnerable to the drug trade.
If we are serious about reducing domestic drug use, then we must also develop a more robust drug demand reduction strategy to complement our efforts on the supply side.
Eliot L. Engel
Dan Burton
Washington, Nov. 19, 2007
The writers are, respectively, chairman and ranking member, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
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