Two days after our vacation began in Puerto Vallarta, the US State Department issued a travel alert for tourists in Mexican areas outside of Puerto Vallarta where violence has erupted from popular President Calderon’s assault on drug cartels. Under reported is that Calderon has balanced his enforcement with 300 treatment centers financed through drug money seized by Federales. Threatened cartels have attacked the centers, murdering 43 addicts and health care workers in Juarez.

Imagine the two fisted power of smashing drug distribution from cartel criminals while reducing demand through treatment centers for the 22 million drug addicts in the U.S.

Enforcement is getting headlines while treatment centers in other nations are getting results. For the past decade Switzerland has proven that administering a pharmaceutical heroin (diamorphine) to addicts is much more effective than any other program, including methadone treatment. In 2008 the Swiss research agency for treatment centers confirmed that addicts are much more likely to stay in the experimental program, stay out of jail, reduce criminal activity, improve their health, get employed, and get off the drug.

Imagine the satisfaction of a Swiss citizen who voted with the 68 percent majority to expand the program nationwide.

Imagine the pride of a German citizen in 2009 when years of results from treatment programs in seven participating cities propelled the program nationwide.

Imagine the frustration of British doctors who are authorized to prescribe heroin treatments, but rarely do. Britain has no treatment centers or supervised research to evaluate results, so doctors are demanding for support.

Imagine the hope of a Vancouver BC family suffering with an addict for five years who’s dropped out of at least two other treatments, who becomes one of 251 addicts offered heroin maintenance in an experimental program. Eighty-eight percent of them stayed in the treatment from 2005 through 2008.

Imagine the excitement of program director Martin Schecter from the University of British Columbia who said, [We] "can attract those most severely addicted to heroin, keep them in treatment, and more importantly, help to improve their social and medical conditions."

Imagine his sorrow as politicians debate that program which cut criminal activity more than half and cost far less than the $45,000 per year an addict costs a community. Imagine the sadness of being a health care worker who turns away addicts because the study has ended.

These nations are discovering these and other ways to treat addicts instead of criminalizing them. Other ideas have not worked well. The Netherlands permitted Cannabis coffee shops for legalized marijuana use, but local authorities have been closing them because customers cause problems when they leave. Rick Steeves reported in the Seattle PI that European "needle parks" where addicts could safely exchange needles were abandoned because they became public nuisances.

Steeves campaigns for humane treatment programs because conversations with Europeans have convinced him that humane treatment is one of the reasons their illicit drug usage is half our usage.

Imagine clear skies communities offering humane treatment centers that cut usage, which cuts demand. If we cut demand, we cut drug prices. If we cut prices, we cut profits in Mexican Cartels. If we cut profits, we cut community and border problems. And no one would have to vacation in Puerto Vallarta under travel alerts.