Introduction to the Mexican Drug War

By Jon Nelson

The Mexican Drug War was officially announced in 2006 when Felipe Calderon was elected president of Mexico. Much of the violence is caused by the fight against illegal drug trafficking throughout Mexico, and attempts to smuggle drugs across the border to sell to people in the United States. To make matters worse, "dirty cops and double-dealing politicians" (CNN) in Mexico are assisting the Cartel by turning their heads the other way and helping traffickers safely elude drug enforcement. It is said that over the last 5 years, 48,000 people have been killed in"suspected drug-related violence" and in the first three quarters of2011, the Mexican federal attorney general announced that almost 13,000 people died due to it. 5,000 people are also currently missing and thousands of children have become orphaned because of the violence. 

The problem is not only in Mexicobut along the U.S. side of the border as well. Many cartel traffickers have been spotted on college campuses in the United States looking for recruitsbecause they primary look for younger people to help them out with the moves.The reason these cartel are so ruthless is because the top organizations areestimated to make 39 billion dollars annually from trafficking drugs and willto anything to eliminate those standing in their way of money. "South ofthe border it costs $2,000 to produce a kilo of cocaine from leaf to lab, theDEA said. In the U.S., a kilo's street value ranges from $34,000 to $120,000,depending on the ZIP code where it's pushed" (CNN). 

 The 2011 U.S. Department of Justice report suggests thatMexican traffickers "control the flow of most of the cocaine, heroin,foreign-produced marijuana and methamphetamine in the UnitedStates." Drug transportation in Mexico is controlled by six different cartels: the Sinaloa, the Gulf, the Juarez, the Knights Templar, the Tijuana, and the Los Zetas. The Los Zetas Cartel is known for being the most violent and has been linked to setting fire to a casino causing 52 deaths, shooting 72 people dead on a Tamaulipas farm, a couple of mass graves, and many other treacherous acts. Although some progress has been made in the war against the Cartel, there is still much resistance and it doesn't help that there are crooked police officers and politicians. One of the next big coming events in this is the 2012 Mexico Presidential Election, which will determine who takes control of the country and how the rest of this war will be fought.