Hermila Garcia Quinones was murdered in Los Garcia, Mexico on Monday morning, November 29, 2010. She had taken the position of Chief of Police of Meoqui on October 9 because no-one else would.
While un-named gunmen carried out the murder, it is the direct result of US and world policy enforcing a modern prohibition against Cannabis.
Buried in an article with a double digit body count, the Washington Post barely noticed the murder pausing only to say:
No one was arrested and no suspects were named.
According to CBS, Mayor Garcia Quinones' death comes amid a growing trend of women taking on Mayorships. It also comes as the number of Mayors murdered in Mexico rises to a round dozen this year, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
The responsibility for these, and the 28,000 other deaths in over 3 years since Calderon initiated his campaign against drug traffickers, rests on the US Drug Czar and on the policies he has inherited that call for enforcement of the untenable prohibition against the cultivation and regulation of Cannabis.
This prohibition threatens to turn the border states on both sides into a veritable Afghanistan as Secretary of State Clinton likens the drug war to an insurgency (UPI.com).
Much as the repeal of the 18th Amendment reduced the reach of organized crime associated with illegal production of alcohol, the way to solve this problem is to change to laws regarding the production and use of Cannabis.
The International Narcotics Control Board should convene a conference to amend the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.
It is the only way that more deaths like that of Mayor Garcia Quinones can be avoided.