Mexico was not always the hot spot for drug trafficking, cartels, violence, and crime. In the 1970’s and 1980’s, 80% of cocaine, the main drug of interest, was coming from Colombia and being brought into the U.S. through south Florida, mainly Miami (Gootenberg). Notorious drug cartels, Medellin, lead by the infamous Pablo Escobar, and Cali, lead by brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, took advantage of the Caribbean transport routes and the large population of Columbians that lived in Miami at the time. As gang warfare in Miami began to dramatically increase, President Reagan started an ‘anti-drug offense” overseas and across all of Florida. Militia, the DEA, and the feds all worked together to gain control over the cocaine business that had taken over the Southern Florida coastline.
In the late 1980’s, the Colombian drug traffickers were retreating, and the United States was certain they had won the war against these cartels. In 1993, Escobar was gunned down by police commandos, and in 1995, the Cali brothers were arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison in the United States. These two cartels were weakened after their leaders had been taken care of, but this gave Mexican cartels the chance to take control of the drug trade, known as the “Blowback.”
In 1989, a third of cocaine that came to the United States traveled through Mexico; by the early 1990’s, that number increased to half, and by the late 1990’s, that number went from 75% to 85% (Gootenberg). Cocaine soon became Mexico’s leading export, taking in 10 billion to 30 billion dollars annually and beating Mexico’s largest legal export, oil, which brought in about 7.5 billion dollars a year. Cartels in Mexico, such as the Guadalajara Cartel led by Miguel “El Pardino” Ángel Félix Gallardo, began to befriend politicians, businessmen, and journalists, making the drug business corrupt and hard to control. Others started to slowly start their own drug operations. The Jaurez cartel, lead by Rafael Muñoz Talavera, emerged with the help of the local federal police commander and ties with the government of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (Gootenberg). Instead of just transporting the drug, Mexicans started to become involved with the actual wholesale of cocaine, allowing themselves to make a real profit and take over the Colombian control of cocaine distribution.
Starting in the mid-1990’s, different drug gangs increasingly became more violent, fighting to be on top, and gain more control and territory. After Gallardo was arrested, his lieutenant, Joaquin Guzman, started a war with other drug-lords that has since claimed over 20,000 lives.(Kellner) Little was done about the violence, and for a while, there were not even stories in the papers about these horrific and gruesome murders. 
When Felipe Caldaron took office on December 1, 2006, 6,500 troops were quickly sent to stop the violence in Michoacan, but the effort was a unsuccessful(Kellner). Many members of the police and army were captured and brutally murdered, their bodies left on display for the towns to see. Although Calderon has put in more of an effort than presidents in the past, over 34,600 drug-related murders have occurred since he was put in office, and the numbers of deaths are increasing year by year (Hidalgo). 45,000 troops are fighting the war against drugs, but cannot seem to gain control over the powerful arms of the cartels (Kellner). Mexican cartels have used their immense amount of income to corrupt Mexican officials and members of the police and militia. Many are paid off to overlook crime so that drug cartels can operate and smuggle drugs without much harassment. So how can we stop the crime and prevent drugs from crossing the borders in to the United States?
First we must look at how cocaine is being smuggled into the country. Most Mexican DTO’s (drug trafficking organizations) typically use commercial, private, or rental trucks to cross the border at 25 different “Points of Entry” from Mexico into the United States. Sometimes, they will cross over through desert and mountainous terrain in between these “Points of Entry.” DTO’s change their routes when certain areas of the border are put under tighter security so that they are not easily tracked down. The primary routes that have been discovered recently are Tiujana to San Diego, California; Sonora to Phoenix, Arizona; and Chihauaha to El Paso, Texas. At the San Ysidro port, the busiest along the border, Port Director Oscar Preciado states that they seize five to ten loads of drugs per day. They use hidden compartments or mix in the drugs with actual goods and products in order to pass inspection.(National Drug Intelligence Center)
Although smuggling drugs over by sea and air are not as popular, Mexicans sometimes use these methods to avoid being inspected by law enforcement. Self-propelled semi submersible vessels are used because they are very hard to detect, especially at night, and can carry large amounts of cocaine. Another way of getting past the borders is by underground tunnels. Over 100 have been found since the early 1990’s. Border patrols find cell phones, radios, and tracking devices making them believe that drug runners that travel through these tunnels have very good communication with drug cartels. (National Drug Intelligence Center)
Corruption is another huge factor when it comes to controlling these powerful drug cartels. "Corruption throughout Mexico's public institutions remains a key impediment to successfully curtailing the power of the drug cartels," states Calderon on his efforts to fight the drug violence in his country. In 2009, evidence of this was found in a car of an associate of the drug lord, Guzman; papers that included agent’s names and numbers, references to U.S. intelligence data, and payroll for police commanders(Stevenson). Juan Garcia Abrego, another drug lord, was found with a notebook that included a list of payoffs: 1 million to the national commander of Mexico’s judicial police, $500,000 to the force’s operations chief, and $100,00 to the federal police commander in the city of Matamoros (Andreas). A study done by the Autonomous National University in Mexico City shows that cocaine traffickers spend over 500 million a year on bribery (Andreas).
In order to stop the drug trafficking and violence, Mexico and the United States must work together to gain control and stop the corruption of the government. One thing the United States must do is start to make thorough inspections at the border when people are leaving, and not just coming into the United States. Weapons of all kinds are being bought in the United States and brought over to Mexico for the drug cartels. About 90% of weapons that are confiscated have come from the United Sates (O’Neil). They also need to be searching for large amounts of money. $15 to $25 billion is believed to cross over the border annually and given to the drug cartels (O'Neil). The United States and Mexico must target illicit funds, arrests are not enough. People are easily replaced, but money is how the cartels thrive.
The U.S. also needs to look at how the drug cartels and trafficking are affecting them. Marc Thessen, former Chief speechwriter for President Bush states, "There's a three pronged approach. You have to take care of the demand problem, which is real, you have to help people struggling with drug problems, and you have to go and help our allies in Mexico." Thessen is exactly right; the reason that the drug cartels are prospering, becoming more powerful, and are so hard to control is because there is such a high demand for drugs in the United States. The estimated number of cocaine user in the United States in 2009 was 3.6 million (National Institute on Drug Abuse). If the United States was to really start helping addicts rather than prosecuting them for using, the abuse of cocaine would most likely decrease, lessening the demand for drugs, and therefore weakening the cartels in Mexico. Once we do this, the United States must work with Mexico to gain control over the cartels, closely monitor the borders, and continue lessening the demand for drugs.
The problem in Mexico has become so extreme that there is no way to fix it overnight. It is going to take years and a huge effort by both countries to overpower these forceful cartels. The corruption at the border, in the government, and throughout the police has to be controlled so that there are not any loop holes or payoffs that the cartels can use in order to continue running their "business" like they do. Eventually, they will be stopped, and the citizens of Mexico will no longer live in fear of murder and violence everyday. Bodies will not scatter the streets, enemies of cartels will not be seen hanging from trees and street lights, and the paper headlines will not be about the most recent body beheaded or person kidnapped. Mexico was, and s till is a beautiful place, and one day everyone will see Mexico for what it truly is, and not for the drug controlled, hateful place that it has become.
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