What? You haven't heard about this? Or if you have heard something about it, did you know that it is the biggest news story in the Mexican media, on the front page of virtually every daily newspaper in the country?

A sea change has occurred in Mexican public opinion. The people have turned definitively against the use of the Mexican Army to combat against drug traffickers. The cry from every city square yesterday was for the Army to return to its barracks and go back to doing the job it was formed to do; protect Mexico from foreign invasion and provide human aid relief in case of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Since President Felipe Calderón unleashed the Armed Forces, four years ago, to combat drug trafficking organizations, the violence between it and the competing narco organizations has led to a daily body count, widespread human rights abuses against civilians, and more than 40,000 deaths, so many of them of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and used by all sides in the armed conflict that still has no winners, that never will have any winner.

What? You haven't heard about this? Or if you have heard something about it, did you know that it is the biggest news story in the Mexican media, on the front page of virtually every daily newspaper in the country?

A sea change has occurred in Mexican public opinion. The people have turned definitively against the use of the Mexican Army to combat against drug traffickers. The cry from every city square yesterday was for the Army to return to its barracks and go back to doing the job it was formed to do; protect Mexico from foreign invasion and provide human aid relief in case of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Since President Felipe Calderón unleashed the Armed Forces, four years ago, to combat drug trafficking organizations, the violence between it and the competing narco organizations has led to a daily body count, widespread human rights abuses against civilians, and more than 40,000 deaths, so many of them of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire and used by all sides in the armed conflict that still has no winners, that never will have any winner.

For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed - falsely - that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse. They may have trouble wrapping their little brains around this:

The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don't have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate.

Just for fun, let's compare the Netherlands to California. With a population of 16.6 million, the Dutch prison population is about 12,000. With its population of 36.7 million, California should have a bit more than double the Dutch prison population. California's actual prison population is 171,000.

So, whose drug policies are keeping the streets safer?

For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed - falsely - that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse. They may have trouble wrapping their little brains around this:

The Dutch government is getting ready to close eight prisons because they don't have enough criminals to fill them. Officials attribute the shortage of prisoners to a declining crime rate.

Just for fun, let's compare the Netherlands to California. With a population of 16.6 million, the Dutch prison population is about 12,000. With its population of 36.7 million, California should have a bit more than double the Dutch prison population. California's actual prison population is 171,000.

So, whose drug policies are keeping the streets safer?

Forty years. One trillion dollars. Hundreds of thousands of lives.

That's the cost of the U.S. war on drugs. And the tab continues to rise.

Last week, President Barack Obama announced that he will send 1,200 National Guard troops to boost security along the U.S.-Mexico border. He also will request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement. That's a lot of Benjamins for a failed policy.

Like President George W. Bush before him, Obama is sending in the troops to secure the border against illegal immigration. And, like Bush, he's trying to steer cautiously through the election year minefield that is immigration reform.

He's not likely to get comprehensive reform done this year. The troops are the backup plan. He has to show that he's doing something about the problem. In 2006, Bush sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the border. He, too, wanted comprehensive immigration reform. But it was an election year.

Beyond the immigration issue, however, is the drug issue. As in 2006, a major role of the National Guard is to support efforts to block drug trafficking. In fact, the Mexican government issued a statement saying it hoped the troops would be used to fight drug cartels and not enforce immigration laws.

The troops sent under Bush, however, didn't quell the drug-trafficking violence. There's no reason to believe that the outcome will be any different under Obama.

Mexican drug cartels wouldn't exist if the U.S. decriminalized drugs. There would be no drug wars. And far less drug violence. Sure, it sounds radical. But isn't it insane to keep doing what we've been doing and expect different results?

Consider that in the 1920s, prohibition of alcohol simply created a huge illegal market for alcohol. Drug prohibition has created the same illegal market for marijuana, heroin and cocaine, the majority of which comes from Mexico. By the end of the 1920s, there were more alcoholics and illegal juke joints than before Prohibition. There also was more crime.

Prohibition was repealed because the paradise envisioned by a country without alcohol didn't materialize. And during the Great Depression, the government realized that it needed the money from taxing alcohol.

The war on drugs also has not produced a crime-free society. The U.S. has the highest rate of marijuana and cocaine use in the world. And as history repeats itself, the Great Recession has states such as California eyeing the money it could get from taxing marijuana.

In 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, replacing jail time with the offer of therapy.

In the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens declined; rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing dirty needles dropped; the number of people seeking treatment more than doubled.

Obama promised to "reduce drug use and the great damage it causes" with a new policy that, like Portugal's, treats drug use more as a public health issue than a criminal justice one. It's also been a stated priority of Gil Kerlikowske, a former Port St. Lucie, Fla., police chief who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to get the country to focus more on treatment than incarceration.

"We must be smarter about our nation's drug problem," Kerlikowske said at last year's conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. "It's time to recognize drug abuse and addiction for what it is — not just a law enforcement and criminal justice issue but also a complex and dynamic public health challenge."

The Obama administration, however, has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels — $10 billion of the $15.5 billion drug control budget. Where is the change Obama promised? I don't expect him to call for the decriminalization of drugs. That would be too bold and politically risky. I do expect him to put our money where his mouth is.

Rhonda Swan writes for The Palm Beach Post. Her e-mail address is rhonda_swan@pbpost.com.