International Drug Trafficking in Mexico
Throughout all of history, people have used mind-altering substances for diverse purposes such as magic, religious ceremonies, medicine, and war. After World War II, many people discovered that narcotics can be used to amass fortunes and maintain a steady stream of income. Groups of people, known as drug cartels, have created a business of trading and processing drugs, in which, the material of the drugs are grown, processed into drugs, smuggled across foreign borders, and sold to the common public. This process is known as international drug trafficking. Drug trafficking has led to drug addictions due to drug abuse, which can lead to violence, and inevitably the death of an individual who uses these drugs. The socioeconomic costs to a society are devastating. Law enforcement, imprisonment, and rehabilitation have high costs to governments and its society.
The international drug trade is deeply routed in the global economy. The drug business is protected and run by drug cartels, who make huge profits in a multi-billion dollar industry. This industry has humble beginnings with poor farmers in lower income societies. An example of this type of society is Mexico. Unlike America, not as many drug laws are enforced in Mexico. As a result, more drug materials are grown here. Farmers start by growing and processing the plants that make the drugs, and then they illegally ship them across foreign borders. In some areas of Mexico, crops that produce drugs can be the most profitable, explaining why a decent amount of farmers work for drug cartels. Though neighboring countries look for solutions, there is a problem with trying to reduce the drug production in foreign countries like Mexico. It ...
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...g cartels stimulate local economies making it difficult for governments to stamp out the illegal drug trade. Many solutions have been tried and failed, but this does not end the constant attempts to end drug trafficking world-wide. The world continues to combat drug trafficking, even when failure is of great odds.
Works Cited
Birns, Larry, and Alex Sanchez. "The Government and the Drug Lords: Who Rules Mexico?" Council on Hemispheric Affairs , April 10,2007.:
"Drug Cartels Threaten the Rule of Law in Mexico." Drug Trafficking. Ed. Julia Bauder. New
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Farrell, Courtney. The Mexican Drug War. Edina, MN: ABDO Pub., 2012. Print.
Morris, Evelyn Krache. "Think Again: Mexican Drug Cartels." Foreign Policy 1 Dec. 2013:
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Sherman, Jill, and Sanho Tree. Drug Trafficking. Edina, MN: ABDO Pub., 2010. Print.
Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bDEDBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA196&dq=mexican+drug+cartels&ots=8goVXKwGf_&sig=UkmUGWh_lIrl9krS6hWNRCtzjoQ#v=onepage&q=mexican%20drug%20cartels&f=false "Drug Trade and Trafficking." Teen Health and Wellness, Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. June 2015. Accessed March 21, 2018. http://teenhealthandwellness.com/article/134/drug-trade-and-trafficking.
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
Recognized as one of the most fearless and violent cartels in all of Mexico, Los Zetas was brought forth by a need for personal security in the Gulf Cartel. This former hit man/security style operation, active since 1997, has since grown into its own ruthless and violent organization becoming the second most powerful cartel and easily the most feared in all of Mexico. Heavily trained and armed, members of Los Zetas are set apart from other cartels because of the level of brutality they are willing to administer to those who cross them, though they had initially hoped that by being more intimidating they would have to fight less. It is their command of the drug market, their lack of fear in using violent tactics, and the sheer level of brutality used by their members that sets this cartel apart from all others. It is their disregard for human life and their ties to the United States drug markets that cause Los Zetas to pose a significant danger to border communities across the southern border of the U.S.
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.
Over the last several decades, violence has consumed and transformed Mexico. Since the rise of dozens of Mexican cartels, the Mexican government has constantly been fighting an ongoing war with these criminal organizations. The cartel organizations have a primary purpose of managing and controlling illegal drug trafficking operations in Central America and South America to the United States. Violence on a massive and brutal scale has emerged due to the nature of the illegal drug trade. Because the drug trade is vastly widespread, cartels are often fighting one another and competing in business. Mexican authorities count at least 12 major cartels, but also talk of an untold numbers of smaller splinter groups. (Taipei Times). Five cartels from Mexico have risen to become the extremely powerful amongst all the drug organizations operating in Mexico. The Guadalajara Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel. These organizations, along with other distinguished Mexican cartels, have plagued Mexico with violence, terror, and fear due to the essence and nature of illegal drug trafficking.
Beith, Malcolm. “The Current State of Mexico’s Many Drug Cartels.” Insight Crimes. n.p., 25 Sep.
Drug trafficking has been a massive concern between the borders of Mexico and the U.S. “since mid 1970s” (Wyler, 1). Drug trafficking is “knowingly being in possession, manufacturing, selling, purchasing, or delivering an illegal, controlled substance” (LaMance, 1). A dynamic relationship exists amongst Columbia, Mexico, and the U.S. the informal drug trafficking economy. This growing informal drug economy leads to many individuals creating a substantial living through this undercover market. These individual drug cartels monopolizing the trafficking market are a growing problem for the U.S economy and need to be located and controlled. If this trafficking continues, the U.S. informal economy will crush the growth of legal industries. The trafficking and abuse of drugs in the U.S. affects nearly all aspects of consumer life. Drug trafficking remains a growing issue and concern to the U.S. government. The U.S. border control must find a way to work with Mexico to overpower the individuals who contribute to the drug trafficking business. This market must be seized and these individuals must be stopped.
Mexican drug cartels rise to dominance. THE WEEK Publications, 25 January 2014. Web. The Web. The Web.
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...
Since it’s beginning, the war on drugs has been a series of lost battles. Failed expectations in Panama, Colombia and Bolivia provide glaring examples.
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.
Beith, Malcolm. (2013, September 24). The current state of Mexico's many drug cartels. CTC Sentinal
In some cases paramilitaries have chosen to take a more low-profile such as threats and forced disappearances. In many countries the profits are large enough that they will use any means even using authorities to break the laws (Sanchez-Moreno 5). Criminal groups all over would start seeking other criminal sources if they can’t continue to trade illicit drugs (Sanchez-Moreno 6). The illicit drug market has suppliers, consumers and distributors of the goods just like other markets but with one difference, violence. Since illicit drugs are usually an underground black market there is no court or other legal process to resolve conflicts which leads to violence (Jenner 906). Mexico has the most headlines with regards to violence when it comes to drug markets (Jenner 907). Cartels will do anything to make money just like their Columbia predecessors. It was reported that in 2008 that 6,290 drug trafficking related murders happened in Mexico which is approximately forty-one percent more deaths than the casualties from the War in Iraq (Jenner 908). United States had over 31,000 deaths from drug related issues in 2007 which is about double the U.S. murder rate. This is why the United States is more concerned about the domestic problems than the international crisis of drug trafficking (Jenner 911). Organized crime can have negative effects on the public health. It can cause bribing of officials, slow economic prosperity and undermine the rule of the law (Reynolds, McKee 2). Organized crime is more likely to happen when the rule of the law is weak (Reynolds, McKee 11). United States is the largest consumer of illegal drugs worldwide even though it is only 5 percent of the world’s population. In 1996 the United States consumed 60 percent of the world’s drugs (Jenner 924). The majority of users in United states that buy illegal drugs are not just
As the common person may know, drugs are very expensive. Prescription drugs, although still expensive, are one of the cheaper routes to go. However it can also be dangerous, because it’s easier for doctors to notice the abuse. It is said that Americans pay more for prescription drugs than any other country in the world (Brym and Lie). Other routes a drug addicted person can go is through the illegal drug trade, otherwise known as the black market. For example, cocaine can go for around $1500 per kilo in Colombia, which is around two pounds. Often times the price of cocaine in America can go for a retail price of around $66,000. These prices even for just cocaine are what keep the drug cartel’s ...
Many people know of cartels and drug trafficking, however, they do not realize how serious of a problem it is becoming. Every day there are hundreds of drugs transported into the United States from Latin America, mostly coming from Mexico and Columbia. These cartels are becoming smarter and more creative with their ways of smuggling drugs. They have become ruthless and will do whatever it takes to get their supplies into the country. To better understand how cartels work, you must understand their ways of transporting drugs and how creative they have become with it. Cartels will go as far as using tunnels, boats, planes, vehicles, donkeys and mules to transport all of their drugs.