I've been thinking about my old friend Jorge Castañeda lately. In case you don't recognize the name, he's the former foreign minister of Mexico under President Vicente Fox. Turns out he's also a clairvoyant. I met him during the late '80s, when he was a professor and political analyst. As we discussed the end of the Cold War, I remember asking him what he thought would replace it in Latin America. “Drug wars,” he answered. There's a man with vision, or with inside information. Whatever it is, he was right, and now we are witnessing the dramatic effects of the drug wars.

They say Mexico is the new Colombia. Colombians don't like the comparison, and neither do Mexicans. However, it is clear that although the drug business is still alive and kicking in Colombia, Mexico has become the new center of distribution, and Mexican drug lords, not Colombian, now run the show and lead the war. And it is a dirty and bloody war.

The Mexican government has poured all its resources into combating the drug cartels. Dozens of cities are militarized, and in some cases, federal police forces have taken over the duties of local police. But the manpower has led only to more killings, more bloodshed. In fact, more than 12,000 people have died as part of this war in Mexico -- more than in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined during that time period.

But this is no longer just Mexico's problem. An investigation by The Associated Press shows that Mexican drug traffickers have spread their tentacles to some 47 countries. In our hemisphere alone, they have gone to Argentina to obtain raw materials for methamphetamine. They have taken advantage of Argentina's weak judicial system and financial oversight to set up fake companies to import ephedrine from India and China. In Peru, the world's No. 2 cocaine-producing country, after Colombia, Mexican traffickers are bribing customs officials and laundering money. In Honduras and El Salvador, Mexicans have been arrested for drug smuggling, and in neighboring Guatemala, authorities are struggling with the infiltration of the Zetas -- one of Mexico's deadliest drug gangs -- into their territory.

Here in the United States, Mexican drug cartels have gone beyond the border states and have spread to at least 230 cities, including Chicago, Houston, Denver and Los Angeles. According to the Justice Department, in 2008, authorities confiscated $70 million cash in drug profits in Atlanta, of all places. 

The war against drugs in Mexico is a very difficult one to win. At the core of the problem is the culture of corruption that has existed for decades in that country. Law-enforcement agencies have been infiltrated by organized crime to the point where Mexicans no longer know who they should fear more: the delinquents, or the police. In recent months, there has been evidence that it is law-enforcement agents who have helped drug smugglers break out of jail, and police officers have been linked to a series of massacres.

Then there is the problem of access to weapons that flow from the U.S. to Mexico and end up in the hands of drug traffickers. In Texas, Arizona and New Mexico alone, there are some 7,000 gun shops where one can easily purchase weapons, some of which are more powerful than those used by Mexican law-enforcement agents.

But possibly the biggest obstacle to winning the war on drugs is an economic one. While so many industries are hurting from the worldwide financial crisis, drug smuggling is a  
multibillion-dollar business, in which all those involved can make exorbitant amounts of money for very little work. In the U.S. alone, some 20 million consumers invest $64 billion in illegal drugs. Some believe that the solution to ending the drug-related violence is to legalize drugs and take the business away from organized crime.

My good friend Castañeda was right -- the drug war is the new Cold War: power struggles, double agents, clandestine operations, secret hideaways, massacres. But this is not a battle over ideology, but over lucrative smuggling routes. It is a worldwide problem that requires a worldwide solution. Until then, the bloodshed will continue.

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(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER'S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www .mariaesalinas.com)

© 2009 by Maria Elena Salinas

Distributed by King Features Syndicate