Mexican war on drugs, stop 1.

     So this week we're all kind of individually researching policies that interest us, and meeting with people in DC to learn more about it. My policy is of course, the Mexican war on drugs.

     Monday, for my first meeting about the subject, I went into my Congressman's office and met with the woman who deals with foreign policy in the office, Mariana. I met her last year when I came to DC with my temple confirmation class, and lobbied for the DREAM Act. So of course we caught up for a little while and talked about the DREAM Act. Unfortunately, getting it passed isn't looking too good :(

     We then started to talk about the Mexican war on drugs. We talked about how many Americans don't really care, because they think this is just a Mexican issue. Wrong. This is not just a Mexican issue. The drug cartels get most of their money, hundreds of billions of dollars, from Americans who buy their drugs. It is Americans that are keeping the Cartels running for the most part. We also talked about how most of the weapons that the Cartels have come from...THE U.S. OF COURSE! There was a ban on exporting guns to other countries that just expired. President Obama doesn't really want to renew it because of pressure from organizations like the NRA, who think it would limit their gun rights, but it really doesn't.
     We talked about alot of other aspects of the Drug War too, and the Mérida initiative. We even talked about Afghanistan and Israel too! Mariana is awesome. So down-to-earth and knowledgable, I loved meeting with her.