Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Wednesday that America’s drug epidemic is as much the fault of Americans’ demand for the product as it is the cartels smuggling the substances into the U.S., according to a DHS statement issued Thursday.
“The profits that come out of that drug market are fantastic and as a result the countries to our south, Mexico and further south, suffer terribly because of the violence and the trafficking, and the production,” Kelly said during a discussion at the Aspen Security Forum.
“As Americans we should be ashamed of ourselves that we have done almost nothing to get our arms around drug demand ? to try to influence the lives of folks who live in places like Central America, we work very very hard to inject investment,” Kelly added.
The former commander of United States Southern Command has previously said confronting transnational criminal organizations are a priority for DHS under his leadership. But dealing with the cross-border problem has a lot to do with reducing the drug demand in the states, according to Kelly.
On Thursday, the House overwhelmingly passed a first-ever reauthorization for the department.
