Mexico's+Drug+War

**By: Hannah Dickhaus**
 * Drug War in Mexico**



Drug trafficking in Mexico has been present for many years. The Drug War didn't formally start until Felipe Calderón became president and declared war on drug traffickers. There were many operations that were launched to stop drug trafficking but it was resulting in many deaths including soldiers and police officers. There has been a constant battle in the United States and Mexico to stop or at least decrease the trafficking. The violence has continued on to the present day. The situation is also making it very difficult on Mexican immigrants trying to come to the United States. This is obviously an issue that needs to be stopped as soon as possible but it is not as easy as it soun ds.
 * __Introduction__ **

 The Mexican Drug war is like cancer, everyone either knows someone who survived from it or has died from it. The drug cartels in Mexico are extremely powerful and are constantly fighting each other for regional control. The Mexican government is now claiming that their primary goal is to pull apart the powerful drug cartels, rather than focusing on prevention of the drug trafficking itself. Drug cartels have been around for a long time but are now more powerful than ever. Mexican drug cartels now dominate the illegal drug sales in the United For the United States trying to help out with the growing drug problem, they attempt to help Mexico out with preventing the drug trafficking. For the US, there is only so much we can do for Mexico. The White House claimed that “they would continue its historic level of cooperation with Mexico to protect people on both sides of the border.” (BBC, 1). The US also isn't really able to deploy military forces on Mexican territory without there being conflict. The United States isn’t able to help with the ongoing problem as much because the Mexican constitution also places strict limits on foreign intervention. According to the BBC article, “Mexican President Felipe Calderon has been pressing the US to do more to reduce demand for drugs among its citizens and to reduce the flow of weapons from the US to the cartels”. (BBC , 2) This is an issue because those things are also difficult for us to control.  Because the drug cartels constitute a large part of Mexico’s economy, it has been largely affected by the drug war. Drug trafficking is an estimated $50 billion a year business in Mexico. According to Global Envision, one study reported “the loss of the drug business would shrink Mexico’s economy by 63 percent”. (Hazard, 1) These statistics are just another reason for Mexico to keep the drug trafficking present. Since Mexico is already a poverty stricken country, they mi ght not be able to afford losing such a huge part of their countries income.
 * __Corruption__ **
 * __Economy__ **




 * __ Issu __ ****__ es __ **

There have been some current issues with the Mexican drug war which includes the U.S. being accused of laundering the drug cartel money. In Mexico, some of the weapons were used in murders. The feds said they were using the gun runners to track down ranking members of the drug cartels and other criminal enterprises. There were a series of investigations to figure out if it was true or not. There have also been reports of this happening again. The federal government, in its rush to help Mexico fight the drug cartels, they didn’t do a good job of separating the line of legal and illegal. It turns out that some members of the DEA “laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds”. All of this happened in the quest for the identity of the cartel leaders. Every few weeks, local news outlets announce dramatic drug seizures and the arrest of local, regional and even national cartel leaders (Lerner, 1). A recent article in the Los Angeles Times by Ken Ellingwood and Tracy Wilkinson, reported from Mexico, comments on a dirty little secret known to many there: drug money shines “in gleaming high-rises in beach resorts such as Cancun, in bustling casinos in Monterrey, in skyscrapers and restaurants in Mexico City that sit empty for months. It seeps into the construction sector, the night-life industry, even political campaigns” (Lerner, 3). Without drug money, the country of Mexico would be even more poverty stricken.

According to the Washington Post, currently in Mexico human rights activists accused Mexico’s military and police a few weeks ago of engaging in widespread torture, including the use of cattle prods and water boarding. The Human Rights Watch also reported that they spoted the participation of Mexican security forces in more than 170 cases of torture, 39 “disappearances” and 24 extrajudicial killings in five Mexican states since Calderon began his military-led assault against the powerful crime groups in late 2006 (O’Connor, 1). Apparently the president of Mexico has sent out 50,000 troops to help fight the drug cartels. This is said to have little impact on the ongoing violence, which has left more than 46,000 dead ( O’Connor, 2).
 * __Current State__ **

Works Cited:

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> "BBC News - Rick Perry Suggests US Military Role in Mexico Drug War." // BBC - Homepage //. 1 Oct. 2011. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15140560>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Hazard, Leah. "Mexico's War on Drugs: A War on the Economy? | Global Envision." // Global Envision | The Confluence of Global Markets and Poverty Alleviation //. Mercy Corps, 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. <http://www.globalenvision.org/2008/09/08/mexicos-war-drugs-war-economy>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Lerner, Gabriel. "Mexican Drug War: U.S. Accused Of Laundering Drug Cartel Money." // Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post //. Latino Voices, 12 June 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/mexican-drug-war-us-accus_n_1130917.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> O'Connor, Anne-Marie, and William Booth. "Torture Surges in Mexico's Drug War, Rights Group Says - The Washington Post." // The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post //. The Washington Post. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/torture-surges-in-mexicos-drug-war-rights-group-says/2011/11/09/gIQAphSI6M_story.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Smith, Phillip. "Mexican Drug War | StoptheDrugWar.org." //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px;">StoptheDrugWar.org | Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Prohibition //. Stop the Drug War, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://stopthedrugwar.org/topics/drug_war_issues/source_countries/mexican_drug_war>.