U.S. agencies continued to work with their counterparts as before. Meanwhile, Mexico, the principal transshipment country for U.S. cocaine and a producer of heroin and marijuana, has never been decertified, though its drug control has been riddled with corruption at the highest levels for the past four years. In 1998, its top drug official was convicted of taking bribes from the principal trafficker. Persistent corruption has deep roots in the political history of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and in the country's rural poverty. U.S. pressure for change can't be expected to be more than a minor influence on either, particularly if that pressure is seen as adversarial rather than supportive.
Certification rests on a common-sense moral claim.
Drugs that damage our society are produced elsewhere. If foreign countries could stem the flow, the United States would be less harmed. Tough policies may affect which countries produce and distribute the drugs, but they have little prospect of reducing the flow to the United States. If, however, we could cut demand, then the whole Latin American industry would decline. Producer countries argue that they are the ones hurt by the U.S. failure to curb demand, since trafficking breeds corruption and creates violent gangs with a strong economic base.