This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, August 20th, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The drug war in Mexico rages on and the United States seems ill-prepared to face the reality of the situation as the

war's costs spill over into the U.S.

Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,

says it's well past time for a national debate

on American drug prohibition.

The Mexican drug war is turning from bad to worse.

The number of fatalities is now over 28,000 since Felipe Calderon took

office as president. Clearly, public opinion in Mexico is turning against his confrontational tactics and

there are increasing calls for a different approach including a rather notable blog post by former President Vicente Fox,

a member of President Calderon's own National Action Party calling for an end to the prohibition of strategy,

drug legalization, and effectively defunding the cartels.

And this has really ignited a major debate in Mexico.

Now this is just the headline from a piece from the Washington Post from Saturday.

The US is turning away from Mexico's failing drug war. There is no possible way it seems

for Mexico to get a good handle on its drug problem without the US.

It's absolutely essential for the United States to make major changes in its own drug

policy because the US remains the primary market.

It's not the only one by any means, but it is the primary market for drugs coming from Mexico.

As long as the United States pursues a prohibitionist policy, the huge black market

premium for illegal drugs will pour billions of dollars each year into the coffers of the Mexican drug cartels.

...