Canada does well because the US is her trading partner, in spades. It makes me sick to think the the drug users in the US fund so much of the corruption and murder in Mexico. The Cartels are global now but would they have ever reached that level were it not for the US market? Legalization would be a great blow to the illicit trade but it would have a negative impact on the US nonetheless in terms of wasted human potential, dangerous conduct while intoxicated, broken homes, etc., etc. No, Mexico is not a failed state yet but dangerously close to it.

The so called "Wild West"? More crime goes on in just one major US city in a week than in the entire period of the westward expansion. Settlers pushed into areas where no state existed, no laws. Those settlers became all things necessary for the settlement of the west and when bad people fled the law in the civilized areas, those same settlers had to rely on themselves to handle the bad folks as well as any other problems. And they succeeded! Failed? No, not hardly.