Former U.S. President Bill Clinton apologized for drug cartel violence in Mexico because of America's war on drugs.

"I wish you had no narco-trafficking, but it's not really your fault," Clinton said to Mexican students and entrepreneurs at the Youth and Productivity Summit, a conference on the future of education in Mexico, according to Fusion. "Basically we did too good of a job of taking the transportation out of the air and water, and so we ran it over land. I apologize for that."

Clinton was referring to the U.S. drug enforcement policy that began under Former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Huffington Post reports. The policy shut down the Caribbean Sea, since it was the route used for trafficking drugs between the U.S. and South and Central America. Although the smuggling stopped in the water, dealers shifted to trafficking drugs over land through Mexico. Plus, Clinton's administration opened the border to Mexico, empowering the country's drug dealers and leading to a spike in violence.

Now, the country has about six powerful and violent drug cartels, causing mass murders and government corruption in Mexico.

"These devastating consequences are typical of militarized strategies -- like the drug war strategy enforced in Colombia during and after the Clinton years," Daniel Robelo, research director at the anti-drug war advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance, wrote in a blog post. "Such policies are not only ineffective at reducing drug use or supply, but are also proven to increase violence related to the drug trade. And lest we forget, it was prohibition that created the illicit drug trade in the first place."

Robelo said that Clinton's apology was better than pretending "he did nothing wrong at all."

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