Mexico: Background of the Drug Problem

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Mexico: Background of the Drug Problem

As asserted, one of the major issues that affect the city of Mexico comprises drug trafficking. Accordingly, factors such as weak policing and legislative institutions have been attributed to the longevity of the practice in the respective city. Additionally, the immediacy to the globe’s most substantial consumer economy has facilitated the growth of the Mexican drug network into a convoluted web. Currently, efforts have been applied in order to crackdown against the outlawed practice. However, such endeavors have bred considerable violence leading to the demise of thousands of individuals in drug-based violence. While America has provided financing and intelligence towards the amplification of Mexico’s organizational capacity to control drug trafficking, much of the focus lies on curtailing the movement of drugs into the state and local law enforcement (Lee 2). Over the last decades, organizations engaged in drug-trafficking utilized Mexico’s ingrained political framework in order to establish a corruption-based network that guaranteed the rights to distribution of the product, access to the market, and formal government protection for persons responsible for the supply and allotment of the drug in exchange for profitable bribes. Despite this, the success of the Mexican drug network became notable after the destruction of the Colombian drug cartels after the death of Pablo Escobar in the 1980s (Lee 3). Accordingly, with the Medellin Cartel and its respective affiliates in shambles, drug cartels in Mexico were capable of exploiting the space left hence ascending to prominence that they currently exude. Additionally, the fall of the Colombian drug network influenced the Mexican gangs’ shift from courier duty to wholesale (Lee 3). Presently, Mexico operates as one of the major distributors of heroin to the American market. The country’s traffickers also double in the largest supply of marijuana and methamphetamine overseas (DrugWarFacts).

Works Cited

DrugWarFacts.org. “International – Mexico: Basic Data, Laws, and Policies.” DrugWarFacts.org. DrugWarFacts.org, n. d. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. <http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Mexico#sthash.1xBbsY1J.dpbs/>

Lee, Briana. “Mexico’s Drug War.” Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, n. d. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. <http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexicos-drug-war/p13689/>