Since the Mexican government initiated a military offensive against its country’s powerful drug cartels in December 2006, some 50,000 people have perished and the drugs continue to flow. The growing violence has created concerns that Mexico could become a failed state, and U.S. political leaders also worry that the corruption and violence is seeping across the border into the United States.

In his compelling new book, Ted Galen Carpenter details the growing horror overtaking Mexico and explains how the current U.S.-backed strategies for trying to stem Mexico’s drug violence have been a disaster. Boldly conveyed in The Fire Next Door, the only effective strategy is to defund the Mexican drug cartels by abandoning the failed drug prohibition policy, thereby eliminating the lucrative black-market premium and greatly reducing the financial resources of the drug cartels.

https://​www​.cato​.org/​s​t​o​r​e​/​b​o​o​k​s​/​f​i​r​e​-​n​e​x​t​-​d​o​o​r​-​m​e​x​i​c​o​s​-​d​r​u​g​-​v​i​o​l​e​n​c​e​-​d​a​n​g​e​r​-​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​-​h​a​r​d​cover

Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg.