Mexico’s War on Drugs

Drug cartels have been a leaking problem, not only to the United States but especially in Mexico going back to the 1900s when Mexico began to smuggle Marijuana into the United States. Later, from the 1950s to the 1970s Americans sought out more lethal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth, this caused the birth of the first drug cartel in the 1960s called The Guadalajara Cartel. Violent cartels carry violence and greed wherever they go, with all the problems they cause, both the United States and Mexico would benefit from their removal.

President Felipe Calderon became president of Mexico in 2006 and his first course of action was to send out thousands of military personnel to replace the local policemen in Mexico. His goal was to try to put an end to drug cartels or at least put an end to the drug-related violence they cause that continues to brutally kill thousands. I believe his protest action of sending more experienced fighters onto the local streets to handle the cartels was very effective in managing the economic problem.

One reasoning behind my claim of the protest’s effectiveness is it is helping to prevent the mass amounts of violence caused by these cartels. In the time of his 4 year reign, President Calderon successfully captured 25 out of the 37 most wanted drug lords. With this said, “150,000 intentional homicides since 2006 were organized crime-related” (CNN), and many bodies are believed to have been uncounted due to mass graves dug by cartels. With that many of the drug lords captured/killed the violence rate would go down and undoubtedly save thousands of lives every year. Although, others could say that the “Kingpin strategy splintered the organizations creating 80 new smaller drug cartels” (CFR). This shows that the strategy isn’t very full proof in its intentions to get rid of the cartels, it is just creating a larger problem. While that may be correct, I believe that with the key leaders of the drug cartels gone it will be far more difficult for these smaller groups to function and it will become easier to capture cartel members.

Another reasoning is it protects U.S. profits. According to CNN “drug cartels take between $19 billion and $29 billion annually from the U.S.”Drug cartels have been a leaking problem, not only to the United States but especially in Mexico going back to the 1900s when Mexico began to smuggle Marijuana into the United States. Later, from the 1950s to the 1970s Americans sought out more lethal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and meth, this caused the birth of the first drug cartel in the 1960s called The Guadalajara Cartel. Violent cartels carry violence and greed wherever they go, with all the problems they cause, both the United States and Mexico would benefit from their removal.

President Felipe Calderon became president of Mexico in 2006 and his first course of action was to send out thousands of military personnel to replace the local policemen in Mexico. His goal was to try to put an end to drug cartels or at least put an end to the drug-related violence they cause that continues to brutally kill thousands. I believe his protest action of sending more experienced fighters onto the local streets to handle the cartels was very effective in managing the economic problem.