The Dark Side Of Mexico

Here lies a stale lifeless body after a drug cartel raids a small town, just south of the Texas border. In December of 2006 and still ongoing, the Mexican Drug War has resulted in the death of tens of thousands of individuals. Mexico believes that in order to put an end to the Drug Wars, America needs to control its need for drugs. The first call to action involves new policies and restrictions on the exports and imports of drugs in between the United States and Mexico.

Due to drugs-related gang violence since 2006, when Mexican President Felipe Calderón entered office, more than 100,000 people have been killed (CNN Library, 2017). Among the major Mexican cartels - Los Zetas Cartel, Gulf Cartel, La and La Familia Michoacana, the Sinaloa Cartel is the most dominant drug trafficking organization in Mexico with an increasing presence in the United States. Roughly 80% of illegal substances like heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana are supplied by the Sinaloa Cartel (Woody, 2016). There have been several attempts of increased pressure from both the U.S. and Mexican governments to disrupt drug trafficking organizations and this has led to significant instability and violence escalating into a national security crisis.

They are mostly situated near the northern, west coast, east coast, and southern border regions. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Gulf Cartel are two main examples of this. They have set up and taken over trafficking cocaine produced in Colombia and exporting it to the rest of the world. However, what makes Mexico unique from Colombia is that there is an ongoing constant struggle for power between rival cartels. Over time one weakens, and another topples it, effectively taking over the business and becoming the next major enemy of the state. Currently, there are about 7 major cartels that include; Los Zetas, La Familia, Juarez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel, and the Knights Templar. This staggering number of Cartels all within close proximity of one another, creates an environment hostile to everyone that resides or finds themselves in these heavily contested areas. These include, but are not limited to innocent civilians, tourists, to politicians and even police officers. Certain cartels have different values, targeting specific people and willing to do certain things to express and convey a message in order to gain the attention that they crave.

The War on Drugs has devastated Mexico’s socio-economic infrastructure while failing to stop the manufacturing and trafficking of drugs, both domestically and internationally.

As stated by David Lunhow and José De Cordoba, in the year 2008, 6,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico, the U.S.’s second biggest trading partner. The cartels now operate in 230 cities and towns around Mexico, and commit crimes in the U.S. as well, such as in the case of Phoenix, where 370 kidnapping cases were reported in 2008 (De Cordoba & Lunhow). As many as 90% of the people killed in Mexico are said to be linked to trade in some way and in President Felipe Calderon’s six-year term, there were 153 fights

The extent of drug cartel’s economic dependency on U.S. and other foreign buyers shields individual empires from oppression and the threat of rival groups. As the percent of cocaine being transported into the US raises from 77 percent to more than 90 percent, drug cartels are becoming stronger and more widespread (Lee n. pag.). With the rapidly escalating number of U.S. cocaine sales, Mexican mafias profit immensely. These cash profits fund all cartel activities including the

Duran-Martinez article addresses the question of the wide range of variation in drug violence found in countries associated with drug trafficking. She argues that the interaction between cohesion of state security and criminal competition in the illegal market can be used to determine incentives to use violence. The author conducts case studies to compare the patterns of drug violence from 1984-2010 in five cities in Mexico and Colombia including Cali, Medellin, Ciudad Juarez, Culiacan, and Tijuana. The results show that “frequency of violence increases as

The Mexican drug trade is a very lucrative business, resulting in numerous factions fighting for territory and profit to be had. The United States populace is the largest consumer of illicit drugs in the world and the demand is never-ending. The main Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) continue to provide the service of manufacturing and distributing illegal drugs and in turn earn billions of dollars each year in profit. Violence and greed from the drug trade has turned Mexico into a war zone for the foreseeable future with no end in sight.

In ten years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 6,335 US soldiers have been killed in combat. In less than half that span of time, from December 2006 to December 2010, approximately 38,000 Mexican citizens were killed by cartel related violence. Even without counting the many thousands of Mexicans who were killed before December 2006, the War on Drugs, over ten years, will be fifteen times deadlier than the War on Terror. The level of violence near the border is unacceptable and the United States must share the blame. The rising death toll serves as the proof of what certain people have been saying for years: both the Mexican and American governments need to change their strategy in order to minimize the presence of drug cartels and to

There is clearly a high demand for recreational drugs in the United States, and because of this drug cartels all through Mexico and South America have thrived for decades. This essay will explore some of the reasons why Mexican Cartels have thrived in the new Millennium creating a drug trade that is estimated to bring The Cartels over 3 billion dollars in profits this year alone. It will also explore the tactics used by both the United States and Mexico in combatting the illicit drug trade and the cartels that have their hands firmly in their control.

Mexico is currently the largest foreign supplier of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin to the United States. Corruption in Mexico’s political system has allowed drug trade operations to flourish and for cartels to become lethal and powerful forces. Along with the influx of drugs, the wave of violence that followed President Calderon’s declaration of war on drug trafficking in 2006 has taken an estimated 164,000 lives as of July 2015.2 The United States has been waging a war on drugs for over 40 years. President Nixon was the first president to declare a war on drugs in June 1971 to combat a rise in

This was a very interesting article about how the Drug Cartel in Mexico is on the verge of turning one of the United States bordering countries into a "failed state." But from what I read that should have been expected when the cartel and the government were working together in the early years before President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in 2006. The relationship between the two before allowed cartels to knock off their competition in a quiet discreet manner. Now Mexico is in a full out war with the cartel, even going as far as activating 45,000 troops to aid in the

The international drug trade from Latin American states is having an impact on a global scale. The trafficking of drugs along with corruptness and murder is an international conflict that is being fought daily. There are many aspects of the drug war from Mexico and other Latin American states which have effects on United States policy as well as policies from other countries that participate in the global suppression of illegal drugs.

During the early 1990’s Colombia being one of the biggest exporters of narcotics in history, led by Pablo Escobar, who had a wide range of organized crime affiliations throughout Latin America. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and he smuggled narcotics all the way to South Florida as when authorities tried to capture him. One of Pablo Escobar’s most important alliances was that of the Mexican-based traffickers. Escobar knew that this was an important trade route because of its geography and how it would be easier to smuggle the narcotics into the United States. This allowed a smuggling partnership between both countries and Mexico was to eventually lead their own drug based trafficking system with the help of Pablo Escobar. From the distributed drugs, cartels would take a certain amount of profit, and would use that money to bribe Mexican officials. By bribing Mexican officials it was insured that if smugglers were to be arrested they would either be let go, the case would be dropped or taking action against a rival smuggling group by giving away information about the rival’s plan to carry

As stated throughout this essay, Mexico has taken a hit with the outstanding homicide cases due to this drug war.