This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 20, 2009. I'm Caleb Brown.

The violence gripping Mexico can be traced directly to the international war on drugs being prosecuted by so many countries at the behest of the United States.

Federal policy has changed only slightly in the last 30 years.

So why be optimistic about the prospects of drug policy reform now?

Ethan Natalman, head of the Drug Policy Alliance, is optimistic.

We spoke following yesterday's Cato Policy Forum, Mexico's drug war,

the growing crisis on our southern border.

If you look over the last 30 or 40 years,

what you tend to see with these outbreaks of violence

related to drug prohibition and illegal drug trafficking

is at some point they begin to they begin to to moderate you know for whatever

reason the government begins to get the upper hand it goes to an extra

length uh the traffickers begin to burn out on the violence and reach their own truces

you know collective elements of society just say enough's enough. We saw that with what happened with crack

cocaine and all that violence in America in the 80s. We saw it in Burma,

Afghanistan, other parts of the world. So I think obviously the Mexican

president in Calderon has to take some strong steps.

Maybe he needs more help from the US Intelligence Agencies.

He needs to get the upper hand on this high levels

of organized violence.

And I think they eventually will. But of of course that's not going to solve the long-term problem either for Mexico or is it going to keep it from popping up somewhere else so long as we continue with the current drug policy.

Newt Gingrich was on this week with George Stephanopoulos.

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