I have been following Latin American developments for more decades than I care to remember. My sense of Latin America at the beginning was ambiguous—I found the region culturally fascinating, but economically and socially deficient.

Mexico and the United States have an antinarcotics arrangement. Each side contributes funds to this effort, the United States close to $500 million a year under the Mérida Initiative (the institution that defines the arrangement) and Mexico around $4.3 billion a year.

I am working on a project dealing with U.S.-Mexico narcotics traffic and this has given me new cause to think more about the subject. The report that I am preparing deals primarily with four drugs that are now illegal to produce, sell, and use in the United States—cocaine, heroin, ...