Mexico’s Drug War In 2006, former president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, launched a massive crackdown against drug traffickers. This escalated a conflict that would contribute to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in drug-related violence. To help with the matter the United States has supplied funding and intelligence to increase Mexico's institutional capacity to address drug trafficking. With its primary focus has been on stanching the flow of drugs into the country and domestic law enforcement (Lee, 2014). While unsure of how to address Mexico’s festering strife, analysts agree that the United States was on drug is a failure and necessitates a new approach. The United States are gradually moving toward legalization and decriminalization of marijuana, which is one of the primary substances involved in the drug war. “The Collapse of Mexico, its Civil War Comes to America” discloses that the battle between Mexican drug cartels threatens to turn America’s southern neighbor into a failed nation-state and has spilled deeper into U.S. territory than anyone has imagined (Newsmax, 2011). Many would say that Americans are addicted to drugs. According to the U.S. State Department, 90 percent of cocaine enters the U.S. through the Mexican border. These cartels also manufacture 80 percent of the crystal meth that is sold in America, 14 percent of the heroin and a majority of the marijuana. The U.S. Department of Justice, Mexico is a major supplier of heroin to the U.S. market and it is the largest foreign supplier of methamphetamine. It is said that these productions have increased since 2005 (Lee, 2014). Mexico’s drug war was reported to have claimed nearly 40,000 lives since 2006 in the nightmares of beheadings, mass graves, as ... ... middle of paper ... ...ly visible “foot soldiers”. Brookings Institution’s, Vanda Felbab-Brown advocates aggressively targeting the middle layer, which is intrinsic to the operational capacity and is not as easily replaceable (Lee, 2014). Vanda also supports a more hierarchical approach to targeting traffickers, prioritizing those that are most violent, rather than "lashing out in an indiscriminate manner whenever any intelligence comes in.” References: CNN World. (2014). Mexico Drug War Fast Facts. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas/mexico-drug-war-fast-facts/ Lee, B. (2014). Council on Foreign Relations. Mexico’s Drug War. Retrieved from: http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexicos-drug-war/p13689 Newsmax (2011). Mexico Drug War Spills Across US Border. Retrieved from: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/mexicodrugwar-usborder-violence-immigration/2011/06/14/id/400068/
In the Documentary “Mexico’s Drug Cartel War”, it displays a systematic approach of drugs and violence. The Drug War has been going on since the United States had a devastating impact on Mexico after the recession where it nearly doubled its interest payments. Mexico could not afford the interest payments but did have many agricultural imports. This created the trade between the United States and the land owned by the two million farmers. It spread the slums to Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez to work in maquiladoras (assembly plants just across the border) (Jacobin, 2015). This paper will focus on explaining how drugs are related to violence in Mexico, how drug enforcement policies influence the relationship between drugs and violence, and how battle for control in their own country.
Mexico has been fighting drug cartels and their violence since December of 2006, since then, the activity between these organizations and crimes have been on the rise. In Mexico, over 70,000 people have lost their lives in crimes and violence associated with the leading cartels of Mexico. These leading cartels include: The Beltran Leyva, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and the Tijuana/Arellano Felix Cartel. One of the most important effects of these cartels is in the social life of the citizens. Most of the citizens are terrified of these cartels, to the point where streets seem vacant because the people are too scared to roam the streets. These cartels impose fear with acts such as that of September 15, 2008, when grenades were thrown into crowds in Morelia town square in an independence day celebration killing eight people. The soci...
A drug cartel is a combination of drug manufacturing and drug transportation organizations under one person’s leadership. While there is numerous drug cartels around the world the Mexican cartels have arguably more power than most in regards to territory and membership. This power has allowed them to have main control in not only Mexico but in the United States as well making them a key player in the drug trade. In 2006, the Mexican government challenged multiple drug cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel, The Los Zetas, and the Gulf cartel, beginning the Mexican Drug War. This war has gone on for the past ten years and is still continuing today, causing the death of 10,000 people a year on average. The Mexican Drug War is having a negative impact
When the Mexican drug cartel first started out in the 1950’s and 60’s there were not many cartels, but since then there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cartels and the cartels have had a significant impact on the U.S. Throughout the drug cartels’ existence, an estimated 60,000 drug cartel members have been killed fighting other drug cartels for territory. Mexico is a main supplier of marijuana and methamphetamine in the U.S. and nearly 90% of the cocaine that enters the U.S. transits through Mexico. The top Mexican drug cartels take in between 19 and 29 billion dollars annually from U.S. drug sales.
Relations between the United States and Mexico have become increasingly strained, due in part to American’s contribution to ever-growing cartel violence in Mexico. The United States has been the main contributor to the cartels’ takeover of Mexico, and the current policy approach of limiting the United State’s role has failed. History has exhibited our inability to make peace with Mexico, and without considerable reform to our approach to the “War on Drugs” relations between the countries will not improve.
The power that the drug cartels have over the Mexican government and civilians has risen, terrorizing the country as a whole. With the fear the cartels have drilled in the civilians in Mexico, the United States has taken action to aid its neighboring country. In many cases Mexican civilians have had to move for their safety; “people move after their source of income has declined or become less sustainable as a result…of violence [from the cartels] and insecurity” (Albuja 29.) The Mexican military and the United States marines have come together to create safety to the civilians in Mexico. Both the Marines and the military govern over the streets of specific parts of the th...
The Mexican drug war began in the 1960s, with America’s love for illegal drugs fueling the fire. Narco-violence has claimed the lives of thousands of citizens in recent years. Drug cartels have become comparable to Mafia figures, and have resorted to Mafia-style violence to prove to the Mexican government that they remain in control. The violence caused by drug cartels is rumored to lead Mexico to become a failed state. George W. Grayson, regular lecturer at the United States Department of State, has made more than one-hundred and twenty-five research trips to Mexico, and is considered an expert on U.S.-Mexican relations. A recent book by Grayson, Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State, describes the depressing situation provoked by drug cartels, and debates the controversial argument of whether Mexico will become a failed state. Narco-violence in Mexico will be analyzed by the severity of the drug problem and the executives’ influence on the drug war, to determine if Mexico will reach the status of a failed state.
The war over drug routes and power between rival cartels has left Mexico in a bloody war. The violence occurring throughout the country only seems to escalate. In part, the United States has a role in this war because of the exploitation of weapons. Unfortunately, a lot of people are being killed every day because of the drug war. Action from Mexico must be taken swiftly to avoid any further casualties by collaborating with the United States on how to stop the smuggling of guns, building trust between the community and the police, and deciding on a plan to the help the economy for their citizens.
“Despite continuing increases in the amount of cannabis produced domestically, much of the marijuana available within the United States is foreign-produced…Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) have relocated many of their outdoor cannabis cultivation operations in Mexico from tradi...
The “War on Cocaine” has been trying to fight a battle on two fronts. The first objective of the American government is to deter the consumer from using illegal products. The genesis of punishment against users is sited in the 1914 Harrison Act, in which addicts and others that possessed drugs were punished for buying or possessing cocaine or heroin without a prescription (Bertram, 26). This act began a trend that still today allows law enforcement to arrest the user along with the supplier. The supplier (drug trafficker) is the key in this type of police action, because most of the time the user will be unaware of the exact origin of the substance or have any knowledge as to where it was purchased or manufactured. The main problem with this type of arrest is that 70 to 75 percent of the narcotic arrests per year are for possession and only 25 to 30 percent are for actual drug trafficking offenses. Although the user should not be overlooked, a greater emphasis ought to be focused on the supplier in order to reach the actual manufacturer of the illegal substances.
A former director of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency’s Mexican office once stated:” The heroin market abhors a vacuum.” The truth in this statement can be extended to not only the heroin trade but also the trade of numerous other drugs of abuse; from cocaine to methamphetamines, the illicit drug trade has had a way of fluidity that allows insert itself into any societal weakness. Much like any traditional commodity good, illicit drugs have become not only an economy in and of themselves, they have transformed into an integral part of the legitimate global economy. Whether or not military or law enforcement action is the most prudent or expedient method of minimizing the ill-effects of the illicit drug trade is of little consequence to the understanding of the economic reality of its use in the United States ongoing “War on Drugs”. As it stands, not only has the illicit drug trade transformed itself into a self-sufficient global economy, so too has the drug-fighting trade. According to a CNN report in 2012, in the 40 years since the declaration of “The War on Drugs”, the United States Federal Government has spent approximately $1 trillion in the fight against illicit drugs. Additionally, a report in the New York Times in 1999 estimates that federal spending in the “War on Drugs” tops $19 billion a year and state and local government spending nears $16 billion a year. Given the sheer magnitude of federal, state, and local spending in the combat of the illicit drug trade, one would reasonably expect that the violence, death, and destruction that so often accompanies the epicenters of the drug economy would be expelled from the close proximity of the United States. While this expectation is completely reasonable to the ...
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
The United States has a long history of intervention in the affairs of one it’s southern neighbor, Latin America. The war on drugs has been no exception. An investigation of US relations with Latin America in the period from 1820 to 1960, reveals the war on drugs to be a convenient extension of an almost 200 year-old policy. This investigation focuses on the commercial and political objectives of the US in fighting a war on drugs in Latin America. These objectives explain why the failing drug policy persisted despite its overwhelming failure to decrease drug production or trafficking. These objectives also explain why the US has recently exchanged a war on drugs for the war on terrorism.
Over the last decade, Southwest border violence has elevated into a national security concern. Much of the violence appears to stem from the competing growth and distribution networks that many powerful Mexican drug cartels exercise today. The unfortunate byproduct of this criminality reaches many citizens of the Mexican border communities in the form of indiscriminate street gang shootings, stabbings, and hangings which equated to approximately 6,500 deaths in 2009 alone (AllGov, 2012). That same danger which now extends across the border regions of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California has the potential for alarming escalation. Yet, despite the violence, evermore-brazen behavior continues to grow, as does America’s appetite for drugs. Even though drug-related violence mandates that law enforcement agencies focus on supply reduction, the Office of National Drug Control Policy should shift its present policy formulation efforts to only drug demand reduction because treatment and prevention efforts are inadequate and strategy has evolved little over the last three decades.
Drug related violence “has been exploding” and a pentagon report likens “the Aztec nation to the terrorist infested basket case Pakistan”-Time Magazine. The different drug cartels fighting between themselves has created problems for Mexico. According to both the NYDT and Time corruption is present “in all law enforcement agencies” and has been described as “endemic to Mexican politics”. Further to this NYDT has obtained information of gruesom...