The Mexican President Felipe Calder

The problem of drugs coming over into the United States from Mexico is not new, but it is serious and in spite of many efforts by American law enforcement and border authorities, it continues day after day. This paper reviews the problem from several perspectives and brings to light attempts the U.S. has made to stop drug trafficking on our border with Mexico. The biggest issue regarding border security is the power of the drug cartels, and the majority of emphasis in this paper is directed towards the cartels.

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.

An increase of troops will help make the border more secure and help to stop cartel control. Joaquin Guzman, is the

Intelligence Question: Is the southwest border law enforcement's biggest problem when trying to put an end to illegal drugs being smuggled into to US by Mexican cartels and does it lead to more violence?

The War on Drugs attempts to solve the supply side of narcotics with crude and unnecessary punishments for a demand side issue. The United States fails to realize that Mexico is not the problem,

Shirk, David. The Drug War in Mexico : Confronting a Shared Threat. New York City, 2011. E-Book.

The article “Killing for Kudos – the brutal face of Mexico’s 21st Century war” by Ed Vulliamy reports the violence, massacres

The report by the group of narcotics control that govern the democrat and republican party, Grassley also criticized the environment in Mexico that favors the activity of criminal organizations. “In spite of endeavors to build aversion and treatment programs, the united states remains the largest consumer of illegal drugs on the planet,” said the study. He clarified that in the country they are 22.6 million registered older consumers in the range of 12 years in the study made in 2010, representing 8.9 percent of the US population. The report, entitled “Responding to violence in Mexico,” Guatemala and Honduras were other countries who have also harshly been affected by drug trafficking organizations because of the high consumption of drugs in the united states said the study. The report highlighted the high rate of homicides in Mexico the last year, which averaged 77 murders per 100,000 people in the year 2010. This was a well written report showing the reason people have come to the conclusion that the main reason to the drug war and the one to blame is actually not Mexico but the united states. Another of the main reasons of the drug war in Mexico are the weapons brought from the united states to Mexico. After a decade of decline in the national homicide rate, Mexico today suffers an epidemic of gun violence. At least 120,000 people have been shot dead since 2006. Most of these murders are not committed with assault rifles, but rather pistols and revolvers. Many are perpetrated by gunmen linked to narco cartels, but also in clashes with soldiers and police. Most importantly, most of the weapons that cause chaos on the streets of Mexico are manufactured in the united states. Curiously, despite its destructive power, no one seems to know exactly how many firearms are in circulation in the

As Americans, we seem to embrace love for Mexican music, Mexican beaches, Mexican architecture, interior design, and Mexican films. However, we haven't really focused, and don't seem to much care about, the innocent victims killed every day in Mexico. Just in the past few years. 80,000 people were murdered directly by the Mexican Drug War. An ongoing low-intensity asymmetric war between the Mexican Government and various drug trafficking syndicates. Since 2006, when intervention with the Mexican military began, the government's principal goal has been to put down the drug-related violence. Additionally, the Mexican government has claimed that their primary focus is on dismantling the powerful drug cartels, rather than on preventing drug trafficking. One very brave journalist Anabel Hernandez, has uncovered exactly how deep the rot of corruption and dirty money has penetrated into every level of Mexican institutions. She is the author of the ground-breaking expose “Los Senored Del Narco”. Every day she lives under guard in a secret location, the threat

This article presents a great example of just how dangerous the mexican drug problem has gotten. Last week, one of two drug raids carried out by Mexican military resulted in a armored gunship killing eight of the suspects. Commanders performing the operation explained that the helicopter was unleashed in order to reduce the number of civilian casualties that are usually caused by street gunfights. The drug cartels have tremendous influence in many of the cities in Mexico and often cause violent conflict between themselves and the Mexican authorities. That being said, it is still quite rare to see a force of weaponry like a military gunship unleashed in an urban area such as this one. The other raid took place next to the cities airport and resulted in 4 suspects dead of the same gang. One of these suspects was later found to be tied to an attack on Mexican army troops last September, which killed five and left ten injured.

In 2006, Mexico began to crack down on drug trafficking operations in union with the United States. Why all of the sudden? In regard to that question, my paper will include a history of events leading up to this sudden crack down on drug trafficking, from its start in the 1960’s until today. After the history of the drug war, I will discuss the main states involved like the United States and Mexico itself. Along with their main goal of eliminating drug trafficking all together, although it is a very high expectation. Mexico has sent out 50,000 soldiers that are being paid less than a burrito vendor, in attempt to lessen the

Large organizations called cartels reign over the illegal drug economy in Mexico which are in constant violent competition against U.S. law enforcement officials and members of the Mexican government. According to Campbell (2008), there are four main cartels including the Chapo Guzmán Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and the Juárez Cartel. Attempts to control the multi-billion dollar drug trafficking trade leads to dangerous and often fatal circumstances that have evolved from the “informal, unregulated, underworld nature of smuggling” (Nordstrom 2007) created by pressures from the Mexican government and the United States’ “War on Drugs”.

On December 11, 2006, Calderón sent 6,500 soldiers, marines and the federal police to the state. The plan was to “take back” that has been taken over by organized crime. That was ten years ago, till this day, the drug war still rages on. The drug war has left people over 150,000 people dead and 30,000 people have gone missing since 2006. Even with all the death and missing people, the drug flow remained steady north to the United States. As Romero has noted, “the world’s largest consumer of cocaine (United States); 84% enters via the Mexican border.” Mexico has spent at least $54 billion on security and defence with the help of the US donating at least $1.5 billion. Mexico has began trying a new tactic to stop the drug flow by using their own armed forces, but ends up hurting more than helping. “The armed forces have been turned against the Mexican people, and have gradually established a record of violating human rights” (Romero). Since Calderon’s has become president, the number of citizen abuse complaints about 541 more. Even the police couldn’t be trusted. The president knew “90% of Mexicans feel are corrupt” (Romero) and to undertake his crusade. Also about estimated “99% of crimes go unsolved” (Romero) due to the corruption of the police. “Calderón would be only the second Mexican leader who did not hail from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which had ruled for most of the 20th century”

Carpenter, Ted. "Undermining Mexico’s Dangerous Drug Cartels." Cato Institute. N.p.. Web. 23 Jul 2013. <http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/undermining-mexicos-dangerous-drug-cartels>.

Every day the U.S. border patrol has to constantly keep an eye out for the smuggling of drugs by Mexican Cartels. There has been much violence due to this drug problem that has left many people near the border killed and is allowing more criminals to obtain these weapons. A lot of this attention goes to the U.S. because many of the weapons utilized in the “drug war” are U.S. made and is interfering with trading relations amongst both the U.S. and Mexico. With this current violent situation in Mexico this has transformed the flow of weapons to an even larger scale.