Why was my son murdered ? He was 24 , and he had never tried drugs . He did n't even smoke . He had paid half his university costs with a sports scholarship and was working as administrative staff at a cardiac clinic in Morelos , Mexico . Why then was my son suffocated by hit men from the Gulf Cartel ? Why did his six friends , just like him , die at his side ? The answer , you may tell me , is obvious . `` Because drug traffickers are bad , and must be stopped . '' The answer , however , is not that simple . If it were I would not be leading a caravan for peace across the United States . Let 's pose the question differently . If Mexico 's President Felipe Calderon had treated drug abuse as a question of public health rather than a matter of national security , might my son and his friends still be alive today ? If instead of declaring war on drug trafficking , Calderón had pursued a bilateral agenda with the United States to decriminalize drugs and regulate their use , is it possible that they and tens of thousands of other young people killed in the last six years would be still be with us ? Declaring a war obliges one 's enemy to build up defensive armies . And if the principal tactic of that war is identifying and taking out crime syndicate leaders , it leaves their decapitated , but ever profitable , organizations adrift . President Calderon went on the offensive against cartel `` capos . '' The result was a proliferation of criminal gangs . My son , Juan Francisco , and his friends were kidnapped , tortured and killed by one of those new splinter gangs , who did the hit for just $ 25,000 and two pickup trucks . Why ? One of the young men killed with my son had complained about a theft in the valet parking of a bar that turned out to be managed by one of the criminal gangs untethered after drug lord Beltrán Leyva was killed and his lieutenants scattered . `` Comandante H , '' a former Beltrán Leyva confidante , was recently apprehended by authorities , telling his captors , `` I was quite outraged when they murdered Sicilia 's son and his friends . Murdering innocent people is not our business . Our business is drugs . But I was fleeing , and I could not do anything . '' The horrific story of my son and his friends is one of thousands like it in our country . More than 60,000 people have been killed and 20,000 have disappeared because of the myopic war strategy Felipe Calderon and the Mexican security forces have pursued since 2006 . Some murder estimates are even higher . That is why I stopped writing poetry and took to the streets with thousands of other grieving Mexicans to make my son , and other victims like him , visible . Now , I 'm traveling across the United States with members of dozens of families broken by violence to seek common cause with Americans whose communities , especially the African American and Latino communities who have so warmly hosted us , that have been battered by the violence and the criminalization that this same counterproductive war inflicts on the U.S. side of the border . Poet 's pain over son 's cartel slaying leads to movement for peace . The path of peace must be taken by both our nations in concert . We know that President Calderón would not have declared his war without U.S. sponsorship , money and military advice . Drug traffickers would not be able to fight this war without the high-powered assault weapons which , legalized in the United States , now flood over the Mexican border . Drug lords could not afford their wars without massive illegal drug profits and collusion by international banks to launder their money . Forty-plus years after U.S. President Nixon declared the drug war , it is time to concede it has n't worked any more than alcohol Prohibition worked back in the 1920s . This is why , after traveling in two caravans across Mexico and , talking twice with President Calderon on live television , our movement of war victims called for a caravan across the United States . We started in San Diego on August 12th and we will end in Washington , D.C. , on September 12th . With each mile traveled , we seek to raise awareness and spur the good conscience of the people of the United States , while reframing the issues of war and peace on the bilateral agenda of Mexico and the United States . We implore the governments of Mexico and of the United States to accept co-responsibility for ending the disastrous drug war . We 've been encouraged by the warmth and breadth of support we 've experienced on our journey , from thousands of Americans , including grieving moms who 've lost their children to drug addiction and top cops who have decided to speak out against the destruction wrought by prohibition . Yet even as we are carried forward by the momentum of this fresh dialogue , another voice echoes . Every time I close my eyes I see my son 's gaze moments before his death . He is afraid , very afraid , and behind his fear I hear a horrible question . `` If drugs were legalized , and there were no weapons , would I be here , just about to die ? Go , dad , leave all your things behind and tell everyone that this war is destroying more people than the drugs themselves . Tell them that no prohibition is worth the death of any person . Go tell them that we need to find peace , so that no other father will have to see his son die like this , and no son will again suffer what I am suffering . '' This is why we have come to the United States . If we do not make peace together , we will never find it . Follow @ CNNOpinion on Twitter .
Mexican poet Javier Sicilia 's son and six friends were killed by drug cartel hit men . Sicilia gave up writing and started a movement for peace and an end to war on drugs . Comment: 60,000 slain since war on drugs began in 2006 , with no end to drugs . Sicilia leading a peace caravan in the U.S. to end the drug war ravaging both nations .