On September 30, 2008 the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer aired an essay by Richard Rodriguez titled “Mexico’s Violent Drug War Wreaks Havoc on Innocent Lives,” in which Rodriguez characterized the relationship between foreign trafficking and the U.S. drug market as “Third-world despair meets post-modern despair.” The essay did not, however, mention that the illicit drug consumption fueling the Mexican cartels has significantly decreased in recent years. In fact, the most recent social science data suggest a different characterization of the current drug culture: first-world despair meets post-modern pharma.

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