For years, the Western Hemisphere has been plagued by violent Latin American cartels that move dangerous drugs northward into the United States in return for cash profits and military-style weapons. Now Latin American leaders are lashing out at Washington for not doing enough to curb American drug consumption.

“Our region is seriously threatened by organized crime, but there is very little responsibility taken by the drug-consuming countries,” Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom said during a meeting of Latin American leaders this month in Caracas, Venezuela. Colom further stated that the entire hemisphere was paying the price for drug consumption in the U.S.

At another regional summit, held this week, Latin American leaders from 11 nations convened in Mexico City and issued a formal statement accusing the U.S. of being the number one consumer of illicit drugs in the world and calling on Washington to revise its current drug policies.

According to the 2011 National Drug Threat Assessment report by the U.S. Department of Justice, the overall demand and abuse of heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine has only increased. “It seems that Latin America ends up with all the deaths and guns, and others end up with the drugs and the money,” stated Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Referring to the almost $700 million of aid that the U.S. has invested in Mexico to fight drug traffickers, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said: “All the money, regardless of by how much it’s multiplied, and all the blood, no matter how much is spilled,” would not curtail the drug trade “as long as the north continues consuming.”

On this issue, President Ortega is right. America is hooked. Its ravenous appetite for deadly drugs—cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and others—is fueling what the United Nations estimates is a $142 billion-a-year business. Until America gets a handle on this problem, drug cartel violence across the entire Western Hemisphere will only get worse!

To learn more about America’s drug problem and about the Bible’s view, read “A Key to Winning the Drug War” and Gerald Flurry’s booklet No Freedom Without Law.