During the past 15 years or so of drug warfare in Mexico, there have been around 200,000 deaths resulting from drug war violence. 200,000 people, dead. Not because of drugs, but because of the drug war.

That's not all. There are also more than 70,000 people, including Americans, who have simply disappeared in Mexico.  Here one day, and gone the next. Their bodies have never been found. That's not because of drugs. It's because of the drug war.

Some of the deaths and disappearances were brought about by drug gangs. Others were brought about by drug enforcement personnel. Either way, it's the drug war that caused those deaths and disappearances. If there had been no drug war, those people would not have had their lives snuffed out or disappeared by the drug war.

The deaths and disappearances, of course, have not come to an end. The drug war continues to produce more deaths and disappearances on a continuous basis.

How can anyone actually defend the drug war knowing this? How do they sleep at night knowing that they are supporting a program that brings death and disappearance to multitudes of innocent people? How do they go to church every Sunday and not be wracked by a crisis of conscience for supporting a program that wreaks so much death and so many disappearances? How do they live with themselves?

Of course, many drug-war supporters respond, "Jacob, we mean well. When we support the drug war, we don't want it to kill or disappear people. We just want to rid society of drugs."