Mexico's Drug War - Page 26

(CNN) -- A trio of Democratic U.S. senators called for tougher firearms laws and regulations after releasing a report that showed a large number of weapons used by Mexico drug gangs originate north of the border.

More than 70% of 29,284 firearms submitted to the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for tracing by the Mexican government during 2009 and 2010 originated in the United States, according to the report.

The report, released Monday, is the latest element in a debate over how large a role the United States plays in arming the ruthless Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for more than 34,000 killings since 2006.

Proponents of stricter gun controls say that the staggering numbers of U.S. weapons that end up in Mexico show that something must be done to control arms smuggling.

But others say that the numbers are skewed, arguing that Mexico asks the ATF to trace only weapons that it believes are from the United States.

MEXICO CITY – Federal authorities have detained an ex-police officer accused of leading the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel in northern Mexico.

Marco Antonio Guzman was captured Wednesday in the U.S. border state of Chihuahua along with two alleged accomplices. Guzman is known by several aliases, including "El Brad Pitt."

He was brought to the Mexican capital Thursday and paraded before the news media.

Police say Guzman was involved in the car bombing of a Ciudad Juarez federal police station in July.

They also accuse him of being involved in drug-trafficking operations across Chihuahua. The state is one of the worst-affected areas of the drug war, with an estimated 3,000 people killed in 2010 alone.

On June 16 2011 03:38 vnlegend wrote:
I read an article on Yahoo the other day about how the drug war has begun to spread to Monterrey, Mexico's richest area. I don't understand how the government let the cartels grow so large and powerful? Now they've become huge and deeply rooted in society with all the corruption. They also have huge armies to fight the government. Mexico is a place where a lot of drug trafficking goes through so there will always be drugs, money, and guns.

How can Mexico can ever come out of this?

On June 17 2011 06:46 Voltaire wrote:


Drug legalization. All of a sudden the cartels would have no way to make money.

On June 16 2011 03:38 vnlegend wrote:
I read an article on Yahoo the other day about how the drug war has begun to spread to Monterrey, Mexico's richest area. I don't understand how the government let the cartels grow so large and powerful? Now they've become huge and deeply rooted in society with all the corruption. They also have huge armies to fight the government. Mexico is a place where a lot of drug trafficking goes through so there will always be drugs, money, and guns.

How can Mexico can ever come out of this?

Violence from Mexico’s drug war continued to plague Monterrey this week as two bodyguards of the governor of Nuevo León were found dead Wednesday in the city’s streets along with a threatening message.

The bodies were wrapped in sheets and left near a supermarket in Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico’s richest city. The Nuevo León state government confirmed the deaths but did not give more details.

“To Governor Rodrigo Medina, here are two of your bodyguards,” said a message left near the bodies. “Let’s see where the hell you can hide.” The note also said that the bodyguards had taken money from the Zetas drug cartel and said that Medina favored a rival drug cartel.

Medina, a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been pressed by citizens to put an end to the spiraling drug violence and he vowed to not give into the threats.

On June 17 2011 06:51 RoosterSamurai wrote:

More like all of a sudden cartels emerge as new enterprises, and are able to focus extra income on other shady things, like arms trafficking or the sex trade.

On June 17 2011 07:15 Voltaire wrote:


Extra income? The price of these illegal drugs is ridiculously inflated because they are illegal in the first place. The prices would plummet as legitimate businesses enter the market and the cartels would lose their main source of income. Currently there are millions upon millions of dollars being wasted by the Mexican government trying to battle this drug war and if drugs were legalized some of these resources could be allocated to fighting arms trafficking and the sex trade instead.

On June 17 2011 07:35 RoosterSamurai wrote:

You're naive if you think the cartels don't have millions of dollars tied up in paying off officials and cops, paying runners, and otherwise hiding all of these drugs from authorities. Not to mention any drugs that ever get confiscated by police- which wouldn't otherwise happen if they were legal.

Also, who's to say that drug prices would go down? Companies aren't out there to be a charity, why would they undercut people who have been in the business and already know how to manufacture it drastically?
You seem to think that if a kilo of heroin costs, say, $50, that some white knight corporation is going to come in and sell it for $5 and there will no longer be any profitable business- And that, I'm sorry to say, is absurd to think that. These guys are already in the market, and they know what people want. They know how high of quality, and how low of quality they can get away with before people get hurt, or go buy somewhere else.

On June 17 2011 07:35 RoosterSamurai wrote:

You're naive if you think the cartels don't have millions of dollars tied up in paying off officials and cops, paying runners, and otherwise hiding all of these drugs from authorities. Not to mention any drugs that ever get confiscated by police- which wouldn't otherwise happen if they were legal.

Also, who's to say that drug prices would go down? Companies aren't out there to be a charity, why would they undercut people who have been in the business and already know how to manufacture it drastically?
You seem to think that if a kilo of heroin costs, say, $50, that some white knight corporation is going to come in and sell it for $5 and there will no longer be any profitable business- And that, I'm sorry to say, is absurd to think that. These guys are already in the market, and they know what people want. They know how high of quality, and how low of quality they can get away with before people get hurt, or go buy somewhere else.

On June 17 2011 09:24 Voltaire wrote:



Corrupt officials have nothing to do with my argument. You don't understand how CAPITALISM works. A legitimate business that doesn't have to spend millions of dollars hiding drugs from authorities will be able to undercut the drug cartels. They will, but not by much at first. Over time more and more companies will get involved and they will all be undercutting each other because as it currently is the cost of producing a ton of cocaine of heroin is something like 1/10,000th of the price it sells for. Companies will also be able to produce a more pure form of the drugs because they'll be able to set up manufacturing labs with high tech equipment without having to worry about drawing attention. Consumers will want to buy from these companies rather than drug dealers because they know exactly what they are getting.

On June 17 2011 09:24 Voltaire wrote:



Corrupt officials have nothing to do with my argument. You don't understand how CAPITALISM works. A legitimate business that doesn't have to spend millions of dollars hiding drugs from authorities will be able to undercut the drug cartels. They will, but not by much at first. Over time more and more companies will get involved and they will all be undercutting each other because as it currently is the cost of producing a ton of cocaine of heroin is something like 1/10,000th of the price it sells for. Companies will also be able to produce a more pure form of the drugs because they'll be able to set up manufacturing labs with high tech equipment without having to worry about drawing attention. Consumers will want to buy from these companies rather than drug dealers because they know exactly what they are getting.

On June 17 2011 09:56 RoosterSamurai wrote:

So, you think that by sweeping the drug issue under the carpet, it will turn these cartels into nice guys? They already murder and steal, so why would drugs being legal make this "unstoppable force" stoppable all the sudden? There is absolutely NOTHING AT ALL stopping them from creating a legitimate drug manufacturing/distributing corporation if it were legalized, and if competition was too strong for them in Mexico, who's to say they won't interfere with violence? Stealing from the people undercutting them, or attacking board members?

On June 17 2011 09:46 Nailpolish wrote:

Pretty sure the drug cartels will just kill off anyone that uncuts them.

On June 17 2011 11:11 Voltaire wrote:








It won't turn them into nice guys overnight, but it would eventually cut off nearly all of their current income. Most of the drugs that these cartels move end up in North America and Europe. If these drugs were globally legalized and produced in North America and Europe the cartels wouldn't be able to compete in the international market. Their existence would become unnecessary. They may try to turn to other criminal ventures but there is a much much smaller market for sex trafficking. As for weapons trafficking in Latin America it mainly exists for the purpose of arming these cartels against the drug war in the first place.

It doesn't matter if there is nothing stopping cartels from creating a legitimate corporation once drugs are legalized. They already use as much violence as they can; there is no way a corporation would be able to kill on the scale that these organizations do. The problem would be weakened, and this way it could be eventually phased out. The way it is currently going it will never end, as the demand for illegal drugs in North America and Europe will never go away.

On June 17 2011 19:36 WinterNightz wrote:
Nobody is saying that they're loyal suppliers for the good of lazy american potheads. They're saying that this would take away a large amount of profit. As you said, if there's more profit to be had in sex slavery/arms dealing, the cartels will do that. If we minimize the possible profit from the drug trade, they'll move to those other markets. But will those markets suddenly explode in demand? No. If anything, the arms trade will LOSE potential profit.

So the cartels will lose the huge amount of profit from drugs, and marginally from arms trades. They instead focus on the slave trade, which will be nowhere near as huge, meaning they won't have anywhere near the funds that they used to. Less money, less power in the hands of the criminal cartels.

Is that really so hard to understand?

On June 17 2011 22:59 RoosterSamurai wrote:

I think you may want to go back and re-read my previous posts. I really don't know where you're getting this idea that drugs would become unprofitable? These cartels aren't junkies with a meth lab in their garage. They are a huge operation- obviously bigger than you know. Just because drugs are legal doesn't mean their worthless- In fact, because they would have to be regulated to government standards, they might even become more profitable. Drugs being legal != Demand for drugs disappearing. These cartels have money, and they can start a business. Why are you assuming that they can't do that? Is it really so difficult to understand that drugs will still profit even when they're legal?
Also, what I said was that they would be able to allocate less of their funds into buying off police, buying weapons and muscle, getting court cases dropped, etc. And that extra money could easily be put into some other illicit shady business to earn them more money.

But really, I would like you to break it down real simple for me. What is giving you the idea that when drugs become legal, their price will drastically drop. You do understand how corporations work, right? You do understand that their #1 goal above all else is to make money, right? But yet it seems to me that you think that they're going to slash prices down until they're next to nothing, so that they'll become the robin hood of drugs, so-to-speak.

On June 17 2011 23:10 Midj wrote:


Depending on what legalization is decided as, the ability for domestic growers to grow on a larger scale, without the constant looming threat of jail time, would hurt the profits of mexican drug lords. Possibly so much so that bringing it across the border for them would not be worth their time when they have larger markets to work in.

The argument here isn't if they would stop making profits, but if they would stop making absurd profits that can arm their thugs and pad the pockets of corrupt politicians. By no means does legalizing cannabis completely eliminate the mexican drug cartels.
When marijuana legalization was being pushed in California there were plenty of arguments for, but an ethical point made by many pro-legalization folks was that legalization could very well save lives in Mexico because of a less funded cartel.

Edit: To add citations to my earlier points about domestic growth, here is one I dug up: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/proposition-19-marijuana-costs.htmlhttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/proposition-19-marijuana-costs.html