When I was a company grade officer in the Army, one of the challenges I had was trying to keep drugs out of the barracks. This was particularly true when I was the duty officer for the Battalion over a weekend, and especially over a payday weekend. Somewhere I still have the underground newspaper that vilifies me on the front page for busting people for dope.

That said, I never really cared that much about whether somebody used the crap or not. Even today, I think there are some arguments from an economic point of view of legalizing some substances. Let's regulate and tax the s**t instead of spending tax dollars trying to protect people from themselves. Let's let the sh*t be sold in 40 pound bags. The sooner the users overdose and die, the sooner we'll be rid of them.

What I really cared about (to get back to my original point) was keeping the substance out of the barracks so long as it was illegal. If the substance(s) were in the barracks, then you always had an undercurrent of dissension in the unit. Soldier X may know that soldier Y is using, but can Y trust X not to rat him out? So, does Y and his friends threaten X to keep his mouth shut? And, if Y does that, what impact will that have on unit cohesion?

Read Oscar Fraley's book about Eliot Ness--The Untouchables. Prohibition gave us the same kind of headaches over alcohol consumption.

These are some of the thoughts I had reading the following article from the Washington Post about the drug trade in Mexico (and especially after going to see No Country for Old Men last weekend.

The article also leads to thoughts about the fact we need security for our southern border for more than the purpose of stemming illegal immigration.

Here's a link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23656496/page/4/