Drug-related Violence Shakes Mexico

Mexican troops at a controlled burn of 23 tons of cocaine in Manzanillo (November 2007) Photograph by Alfredo Estrella/AFP

Since his 2006 inauguration Mexican President Felipe Calderon has increased pressure on his nation's drug lords. The cartels have pushed back hard.

According to Mexican reports released this week there were 443 drug-related murders in June and nearly 4700 since President Calderon assumed office. Murder victims have included the federal police chief and, in the first half of 2008 alone, over 400 other police. As violence escalates it has increasingly swept up ordinary citizens not involved in law enforcement or the drug trade (See Houston Chronicle July 19 report).

In a July 12 interview with the Financial Times, the Mexican intelligence chief explained that the drug cartels are "trying to take over the power of the state." A report by the Mexican Attorney General's office found that at least 80 municipal governments are already under the control of the drug cartels.

According to the Congressional Research Service over 90 percent of the US cocaine supply transits Mexico. Roughly 35 million Americans have used cocaine in their lifetime. Regular US users are estimated at 2.4 million (US Department of Justice figures). The 2006 US street price ranged from $9000 to $52,000 per kilogram. Unofficial 2008 estimates suggest an average price of about $20,000 per kilogram. Crack cocaine, a popular derivative, is priced from $5 to $100 per "rock". The total value of the US market for the cocaine trade exceeds $70 billion per year.

On June 30 President Bush signed Congressional legislation providing $465 million for the so-called Merida Initiative to assist Mexico in combating drug trafficking. According to a US State Department statement, "Daily developments on the ground in Mexico and Central America demonstrate the urgent need for action. The criminal organizations, under great pressure by law enforcement agencies, are behaving in increasingly violent ways. Our partners in the region are confronting transnational gangs and criminal organizations at great personal and financial costs. It is in the national security interest of the United States to support our partners’ fight against this scourge, prevent further violence from spilling over our border, and make our streets safe once again from drug and gang-related crime. They are doing their part – we must do ours."

The same Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) fighting against the Mexican government are major drug retailers in the United States. In April 2008 the US National Drug Intelligence Center reported, "Mexican DTOs are the most pervasive threat to the United States. They are active in every region of the country and dominate the illicit drug trade in every area except the Northeast. Mexican DTOs are expanding their operations in the Northeast and have developed cooperative relationships with DTOS in that area in order to gain a larger share of the northeastern drug market." More details are available from the NDIC.

The increase in violence is claimed by some as indicating the desperate state of the Mexican drug cartels. But others argue a government victory is far from inevitable. "They are accelerating the violence. We've never had this kind of conflict in the country," said Samuel Gonzalez, the head of Mexico's anti-organized crime unit in the late 1990s and now a professor at Mexico's ITAM university.

"The cartels have an infinite capacity to recruit hitmen. The violence will keep rising with one extra factor: the state is losing force all the time as it spends money on the army, while the others are getting income from drugs," he said. (More from Reuters).

(The New York Times maintains a helpful collection of news reports and external resources on Mexican drug trafficking.)