Dieli 1

Catherine Dieli

Professor Jamey Dunham

English 1201

4 August 2019

Mexican Cartels: A Threat to North America

For over thirty years, the United States has been involved in The War on Drugs. Most of

these drugs enter the country through the southern border. Mexican cartels control these routes.

They use violent tactics to dominate the Mexican people ensuring their drugs cross into America,

the world’s largest drug market. The cartels will bully, bribe, and intimidate Mexican and

American citizens in order to traffic these drugs. The media often downplays these issues to

make it seem as if this is a Mexican problem, but when reading about the history of the migration

of the drug trafficking organizations, the drug traffickers have been making their way closer and

closer to the United States each year. Some say that the Cartels have already crossed into the

United States. The impact of this encroachment is mostly in the southern half of the United

States. The drug epidemic in the United States might be portrayed as a separate issue from the

threat of Mexican cartels but in fact they go hand in hand. It is simple economics if The United

States and to a lesser extent Canada have an incredible demand for illicit drugs there will be a

criminal organization to supply that demand. Transportation and logistics of goods is a big

business, illicit or otherwise. The United States and Mexico must come up with multiple

solutions to combat the present, menacing, looming threat of Mexican cartels, but before

discussions on solutions begin, people need to know more about the history of how the Mexican

cartels became a big influence in North America. The problem of Mexican Cartels and their

effects is complicated it cannot be solved by a simple solution.

 Dieli 2

Cocaine’s Long March North, 1900-2010 by Paul Gootenberg appearing in the Latin

American Politics and Society Journal in 2012 explains the geopolitical shifts that brought drug

trafficking and violence closer to the United States. This point is very important to understand

the gravity of the threat to the American people. It began in the late 1800’s, when German

pharmaceutical firms promoted and produced cocaine as an anesthetic. This drug was widely

used in anesthesia and pain relief until about 1910’s when the United States and the League of

Nations marked the drug as a narcotic. This was ultimately brought on by many people becoming

addicted and seeking the drug outside of its intended medical purpose. The United States dried

up the country of all medicinal cocaine and until the 1940’s the U.S. struggled to convince the

producers of cocaine of the dangers and health concerns. As concern grew for the drug’s usage,

the industry shrank to the hub of the Huánuco Province in Peru. After World War II, the U.S.

began a mission to eradicate all drugs and in 1948, criminalized South American cocaine in Peru

and then in 1961, in Bolivia. (Gootenberg 163). This criminalization began the illicit culture of

cocaine in the Huánuco Province. Transshipment began in Havana and Northern Chile and in the

1960’s, cocaine or “coke” was very popular in Argentina and Brazil and was also found in big

cities like New York and Miami. (Gootenberg 164). In 1959, Cuba’s Fidel Castro began a social

revolution that spread the availability of cocaine through South America, Mexico, and the United

States. In 1961, the universal UN single convention drug treaty internationally eradicated the

Andean coca cultures (Gootenberg 164). This is what scattered the drug throughout the

Caribbean and South America.

In the modern era cocaine got the attention of the United States and governments allied to

the United States. In the 1970’s, U.S. drug authorities were alarmed by the rise in this new illicit

drug trade, although up to this point the trade has been relatively nonviolent and contained to one
 Dieli 3

region, South America. After the 1970’s, Columbians began to play a role in the cocaine trades.

There are two events that caused this shift north: one being Chilean General Augusto Pinochet’s

campaign against major Chilean cocaine traffickers. The second event was President Nixon’s

“War on Drugs” mainly targeting marijuana and heroin. This caused a market shift towards

cocaine, as it was safer and more profitable to smuggle across the border. By the mid 1980’s,

millions of U.S. consumers were using cocaine. The U.S. pressured police forces to get rid of the

drug. This caused an increase in smuggling skill as well as an increase in price associated with

the risk. As this new illicit business grew and competition rose, violence rose concurrently.

As the trafficking business expanded in the early 1990’s, the cartel’s need for legitimate

avenues grew as well. Drug lords, specifically Pablo Escobar, ran for office, financed candidates,

offered truces and supplied charities and social services. This caused corruption throughout the

regions affected. As the Department of Justice came to realize this influence, they ousted the

traffickers through staging assassinations and coups. Then the attacks in Columbia against

officials cooperating with the prohibition efforts came, thus earning it the moniker the “World

Murder Capital” (Gootenberg 167). The cartels began to move their businesses to Cali, located

on the western part of Columbia, to avoid the Caribbean basin, which led to more effective drug-

trafficking organizations. In 1992, Harold Ackerman busted the Cali Cartels, causing alternate

passages through Panama, Central America, and northern Mexico (Gootenberg 168). This shift

caused a powerful boost for the local Mexican Drug Lords, who started demanding shares of the

foreign cocaine, thus began wholesale and retail outlets across the U.S. border and shoreline. By

mid-1990’s the most profitable site for cocaine was Mexico. As profits grew, so did bribery from

the traffickers to federal agents and police. (Gootenberg 174). Corruption was rampant in the

government until 2006 when Felipe Calderon was elected as president. Calderon demanded for
 Dieli 4

an all-out Mexican Drug War. This was not like the United States’ War on Drugs. Mexico

militarized its police force. The Cartels with all their profits from the drug trade did the same.

This caused open violence to break out. To keep up with the brutal killings by the Cartels the

government was put into a position where there were human rights violations. The Cartels used

tactics of terror to keep the local populace from cooperating with policing efforts. Most residents

consider this to be Mexico’s worst social violence since the 1920’s. This researcher may go so

far as to call it a civil war.

The history of the drug trade is long and increasingly violent as it is lucrative. The trade

did not start off in Mexico. By the mid-1990’s, the income generated by the drug-exports in

Mexico are between $10 billion to $30 billion, therefore, being a critical force throughout the

Mexican political economy (Gootenberg 172). This is a problem throughout North America

because with more money comes more power. The Mexican cartels have been growing their

power and can control and dominate more law-abiding people by either bribing or threatening

them. The involvement of the cartels in the Mexican people’s lives is not a one-off interaction.

This is something that the impoverished people of Juarez, Tijuana, Baja and Yucatan must deal

with daily. The influence of Mexican cartels throughout North America is brought on by the

demand for drugs in the United States. This is a billion-dollar business that is controlled by

violent criminals who will not willingly turn themselves into authorities and the authorities fear

for their lives and their families facing such a formidable foe. In order to combat this issue, the

United States should legalize and regulate drugs to minimize the influence of the violent

criminals on Mexican people. That way the Mexican people would be employed and could tax

the legitimate forms of legal drug trade to focus on bigger issues in the country.
 Dieli 5

Majority of the violence is caused by the cartels trying to claim territory where the ports

of entry into the United States are located. The most dominate drug trafficking organization in

Mexico is the Sinaloa Cartel. They control the routes throughout western Mexico and the Baja

Peninsula (Beittel 13). The leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, led the Sinaloa cartels to

dominating the western parts of Mexico until he was extradited to the United States in 2017. This

extradition caused a violent competition from a different cartel, the Cartel Jalisco-New

Generation (CJNG) (Beittel 10). CJNG served as an enforcement group for the Sinaloa Cartels

until 2013 when they split from the group and is now considered, by the Mexican government,

one of the most dangerous cartels in the country and one of two with the most extensive reach

(Beittel 22-23). They have fought with many other cartels for control over ports and have caused

much of the violence in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. Ciudad Juarez is where the Carrillo Fuentes

Organization (CFO) is based and controls the smuggling between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Tx.

The Arellano Felix Organization (AFO) controls the route between Baja California, Mexico and

southern California which is in the border city of Tijuana. Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana are both

prime locations to smuggle in drugs and great locations for drug trafficking organizations to

dominate, which is why there is so much violence in these two cities. Another cartel of great

concern is the Los Zetas, because their main goal is to organize violence. Los Zetas started with

former elite airborne special force members of the Mexican Army who became hired assassins

for the Gulf cartel. In order to gain control of territories, they intimidate the Mexican security

forces through social media outlets by posting pictures of bodies (Beittel 17). The crimes of

cartels against other cartels are ongoing and will get worse before it gets better as the cartels gain

more control over the region. The United States has thrown gasoline onto the fire with the

implementation of the “Fast and Furious” campaign under the administration of Barack Obama
 Dieli 6

who shipped firearms to the cartels. As cartels accrue more money and with that, more power,

the Mexican military forces will get smaller and weaker, which is something people see

happening already.

Fig. 1. This map shows the areas of influence from the Mexican Cartels (Shapiro).

Paul Gootenberg explains that, “Ninety percent of U.S. cocaine now flows across the

long and intractable Mexican- U.S. border, handled by homegrown trafficker groups, who reap

an estimated $23 billion from drug exports (Gootenberg 160).” That cocaine goes directly into

the hands of drug dealers and gangs who cause violence throughout the United States. American

citizens are affected by the acts done by the street gangs who are supplied by Mexican Cartels. If

the gangs are not doing what pleases the Mexican cartels, then the cartels will wipe them out

mercilessly. This leaves a power vacuum in the locality which is often met with more violence.
 Dieli 7

The Cartels are further incentivized to enlist the help of undocumented migrants to perform these

acts of violence as it is unlikely that they could be traced. It is a constant circle of violence that

affects many innocent bystanders.

The drug war is not only being fought in Mexico. When Ed Calderon talked with Joe

Rogan on the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast, he mentioned that in the 90’s Drug lords were

having children in the United States (50:00-51:00). Those individuals used the “Anchor Baby”

loophole in the system to provide citizenship to make a better life for their children. Those

children, now coming of age as United States citizens, are being influenced by their parent’s life

choices of drug trafficking and may see this as a chance to traffic drugs inside the United States.

Though it is illegal these children could see the lucrative aspect of the drug trade as appealing.

This could bring the violent drug war on United States soil. Yet again another step closer north

for the drugs, and it is something that United States law enforcement needs to be looking out for.

Mexican cartels will also partake in kidnapping for money. Tomas Kellner and Francesco

Pipitone, in their article about Mexico’s drug war, mentioned that the Los Zetas Cartel would

kidnap children of prominent businessman and would torture the children until their parents pay

a ransom (Kellner and Pipitone 33-34). The fear of having a child kidnapped affects many

parents in Mexico. Never knowing the next move of Mexican cartels and potentially being the

victim of a horrific crime puts many in distress. They do all of this for money and power. These

are the negotiating tactics used by the world’s most violent criminal enterprises. If families

cannot pay these victims will likely end up in a human trafficking ring. When a child’s life is at

stake, it becomes a serious matter, and this should not be taken lightly.

The United States and the Mexican government are both trying their best to fight the

Mexican cartels. The DEA posted a news article on their website about “forty-three indicted
 Dieli 8

members of a methamphetamine distribution network tied to the Sinaloa Cartel for drug

trafficking and money laundering (DEA).” The distribution center was based in San Diego and

distributed the drugs through Fed-Ex and the United States Postal Service with fraudulent

account to hotels, Airbnb’s and residence locations. The DEA was able to track down the

network through physical surveillance and phone records. This is one example of many others

that shows how the United States can stop Mexican cartels from trafficking drugs although their

techniques are becoming more sophisticated. The Mexican military has tried to stop the threat of

Mexican cartels throughout Mexico by increasing the military involvement, but all that has done

is increase the violence throughout Mexico (“Narco State”). The Mexican cartels have so much

power in Mexico that it has become hard for the even the Mexican military to control them. This

tactic also escalates the conflict to the point that the cartels are armed with .50 caliber sniper

rifles with armor piercing rounds, and anti-aircraft ordinance (“Narco State”). The country of

Mexico is nearly in all-out war to stop the cartels who are fighting back with the force of another

nation. The Mexican government has gone so far as to arrest entire police departments for

corruption. This is something that the Mexican military will likely not be able to handle alone.

The United States military should offer assistance logistically and strategically if they are going

to keep the cartel’s threat from increasing.

Some people may say that the United States needs to build a wall to keep the Mexican

cartels from smuggling drugs. This seems like a logical solution at first, but as technology

advances and people get more creative, the wall will not be able to keep the drugs and people

from being smuggled across the border. The DEA posted a news article about a tunnel they

found. Federal officials found what was believed to be the largest drug smuggling tunnel ever

discovered. The size of the tunnel was about eight football fields long. The tunnel stretched from
 Dieli 9

Tijuana to Otay Mesa industrial park, which is five-hundred yards north of the U.S.- Mexican

border (“Feds Seize Longest Tunnel on California-Mexican Border”). There are no boundaries

that the Mexican cartels will not cross. The wall cannot keep anything from crossing either by air

or underground. Ed Calderon also mentions another way to smuggle drugs or humans across the

border is to fly them by airplane to Canada and walk through the U.S.- Canada border (51:30-

52:45). Therefore, it is difficult to keep the cartels on one side of the border. “The Wall” is far

too simple of a solution for what is a multifaceted complex geopolitical economic and

humanitarian crisis.

The solutions suggested to combat the influence of the Mexican cartels are very few and

hard to implement. The Drug Trafficking Organizations have so much power over Mexican

territory and they has been growing for years. The ratio of people who are willing to risk their

lives to stop the drug traffickers versus those who want to stay to themselves out of fear is vastly

disproportionate to the latter. Although the Mexican people elect governments who promise they

have the answer. The history of how the drug trade has inched closer to the border is a sign that it

is only going one way, and that way is north. It also tells us that the people who have been

struggling to fight this huge problem are exhausted and need help. This type of violence

associated with the trade has moved north at a steady pace and it is at our doorstep today. So,

what does the United States need to do to prevent the violent Mexican cartels from gaining too

much power throughout the country?

Before we answer the question of what the United States needs to do, we need to look

back and recap. In the early 1900’s, the drug trade was an innocent thing. No one was getting

hurt and there was no huge threat from any drug organizations. South American farmers were

trying to make a buck on something they knew how to grow very well, that being, the coca plant.
 Dieli 10

This is when the industry was regulated and legal. Cocaine is addictive; the United States started

developing ways to get rid of the drug completely through a smear campaign and thus started the

prohibition of the substance. Much like the prohibition of alcohol and other substances violence

began to be commonplace in the trade. The governments banned the growth of the plant in Peru

and Bolivia causing the coca plant growers to move north, to Columbia. This is when the drug

trade started to get violent and dangerous and started making its way even more north to Mexico.

President Nixon decided to declare a war on drugs mainly for marijuana and heroin, and the

cocaine trade started booming. Since Mexico is so close to the border, they were able to develop

routes to smuggle in drugs more efficiently than Central and South America. Mexico took the

trade to a whole other level and started making billions of dollars. This is what caused the

different drug trafficking organizations and the violence between them for control. The violence

was bad but got worse when Filipe Calderon took office and declared a Mexican war on drugs

and militarized the whole situation. A lot of violence broke out on both sides. The cartels were

trying to take control of different ports of entry while the military was trying to take control of

the country, this caused for a lot of fighting and death. The start of the escalation goes back to

government interference after the attempted prohibition efforts.

To keep the Mexican cartels from gaining more power, money, and influence, the U.S

should make most, if not, all drugs legal. The history of the War on Drugs proves that the United

States needs to change their plan of action by legalizing the drugs. When President Filipe

Calderon declared the War on Drugs in Mexico, drug violence steadily increased, from 300

executions in 2007 to 3,111 in 2010 (Gootenberg 177). This is over 100 times increase.

Continuing to fight in a combat scenario over drugs has only made matters worse and repeating

what has failed every time it has been tried in the past should not be the solution that we should
 Dieli 11

try anymore. The war on drugs has not prevented the drugs from coming across the border and it

has not prevented people in the U.S. from buying them. The War on Drugs has produced untold

horrors and a rising body count. The billion-dollar illegal drug industry shows that the citizens of

the United States will continue to buy drugs even though they are illicit. Instead of allowing the

Mexican cartels to profit from this industry and cause violence across North America, the United

States needs to get involved legalizing and regulating the industry, charging tariffs on the trade

routes to the companies that would be in place, and taxing the sale of the product. This way the

United States can profit. This will also take the drug trade out of the underground and

subsequently put it into the light and what was once conducted in seedy bars may be brought to

board rooms. The cartels as we know them will no longer be fighting for border control because

the United States will have regulated trade routes along the border. The violence in Mexico and

along the border needs to be viewed as a transnational issue instead of a Mexican issue. This

violence affects everyone in North American not just the Mexican people.

Although this may seem like a solution to some, others disagree. People say that this will

worsen the drug epidemic throughout the United States. People may say that there will be too

many people doing drugs, and this will affect the functionality in the country. While this is a

possibility, people who want to do drugs will find them illegally if they want them. Education

and treatment are the answer for both sides if drugs are legal or illegal. We need to educate the

public about the dangers and risks of different drugs and be honest and not use scare tactics.

Many students respond well to the education on drugs and others do not. It depends on the

person, but most people avoid doing drugs that will ruin their life forever. If drugs were legalized

tomorrow would there be a line of first-time users out the door? I think not. Also, treatment for

addicts is of the utmost importance to mitigate the damage to peoples’ lives and their
 Dieli 12

community. There is a difference between the habitual drug user and the recreational drug user.

If a person wishes to use their time in life to abuse drugs, then in a free society they should be

able to do that without the fear of being arrested or ostracized. What if people are afraid of

getting treatment because they fear incarceration? I am not certain, but I feel as though that may

be a percentage of the issue. Treatment and education are the answer any way you slice it. Let’s

slice it in a way that takes the money away from criminals and moves it to the public, and what if

that increase in revenue could be funneled toward those education and treatment efforts. Ideally

these would be funded completely by this new revenue.

If the United States legalizes drugs, both sides of the border will be able to focus on more

serious matters, like gun violence and human trafficking perpetuated by the remnants of the

criminal cartels. The violence coming from the cartels is mostly from the guns that they are

purchasing in El Paso, Tx. The cartels will hire people to purchase very dangerous guns for them

and smuggle them to Mexico (“Narco State”). The guns that the cartels are purchasing are more

powerful than the guns that the Mexican military have, and this is a reason the cartels have

become a prominent threat in Mexico. There could be some more common-sense gun control

laws in areas close to hot zones like El Paso. There is no reason that there should be 3 guns sold

for every 1 resident in El Paso (“Narco State”). The situation at the border is a unique one.

Picture if you will the world’s largest drug market inside of the world’s largest gun market on

top of the road that everyone wants to use to transport both. You do not have to have a degree in

geopolitical dynamics to realize that this will be a problem.

There is also the issue of disappearing people in Mexico and the United States. If the

United States was able to focus more on human trafficking instead of chasing drugs around, they

may be more successful at finding those who have disappeared. People are kidnapped by cartel
 Dieli 13

members dressed as law enforcement and those people are never seen again. It’s hard to measure

the exact impact of human trafficking as most of its victims are never seen or heard from again.

All in all, Mexican cartels use a variety of tactics to control Mexico, the people, and the

border. Mostly using fear and force, they have been able to turn a once peaceful place into an

unpredictable war zone with the highest murder rate of all time with no sign of decreasing.

Repeating history by declaring another War on Drugs has failed to protect the citizens of Mexico

and it could be assumed that these actions of escalation have made it worse. Mexico may have a

chance at a peaceful home if the United States were to legalize drugs in our country. This would

stop the influence of Mexican cartels by cutting their income at the root. It would also give both

countries the opportunity to focus their efforts on more serious matters that are more detrimental

to humanity and dignity of the Mexican people and United States Law Enforcement. Truth be

told through my research I found how incredibly complex this problem is. Its scope is even

broader than the basic information I present in this paper. There is no single solution that will

stop the violence, but I think we can all agree the violence needs to stop. With a look back into

history we can more fully understand the progression of this problem. There is one thing that is

certain, what we are doing now and have been doing since the 1970s is not working. I truly care

about our neighbors and I want them to have a successful, bountiful life that is not bound by the

fear of a criminal organization which is more powerful than their government or even in some

cases it’s the same thing. I believe people in the modern age have enough outlets to occupy

themselves as well as the information available to make smart decisions about drugs. The cost of

the War on Drugs should not be a measure of confiscations and busts, but a human cost, of

bodies and opportunity. The Cartels have a stranglehold on an entire region of the continent and

the result is what looks like unending bloodshed.

 Dieli 14

Works Cited

Beittel, June S. Mexico: Organized Crimes and Drug Trafficking Organizations. Congressional

Research Service, 2018, pp. 9-24.

“Feds Seize Longest Tunnel on California-Mexican Border.” United States Drug Enforcement

Administration, U.S. Department of Justice. 2016. www.dea.gov/press-

releases/2016/04/20/feds-seize-longest-tunnel-california-mexico-border. Accessed 30

June 2019.

Gootenberg, Paul. “Cocaine’s Long March North, 1900-2010.” Latin American Politics and

Society, Vol. 54, no. 1, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 159-180. doi:

11.1111/j.1548-2456.2012.00146.x.

Kellner, Tomas and Francesco Pipitone. “Inside Mexico’s Drug War.” World Policy Journal,

Vol. 27, no. 1, Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 29-37. doi: 10.1162/wopj.2010.27.1.29.

“Major Takedown Dismantles Multi-State Methamphetamine Network Tied to Sinaloa Cartel.”

United States Drugs Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice. 2019.

www.dea.gov/press-releases/2019/05/21/major-takedown-dismantles-multi-state-

methamphetamine-network-tied. Accessed 30 June 2019.

Narco State. New York, N.Y.: Films Media Group, 2009. https://digital-films-

com.sinclair.ohionet.org/p_ViewVideo.aspx?xtid=52894.

Shapiro, Jacob L. “Mexico’s Drug War Is No Closer to an End.” Geopolitical Futures, 3

February 2018. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/mexicos-drug-war-no-closer-end/.

Accessed 27 July 2019.

“1302- Ed Calderon.” YouTube, uploaded by Joe Rogan Experience, 22 May 2019,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=11hb2ymtsw8.