Thursday, March 05, 2009
The Mexican-American War (on Drugs) pt.1
Ciudad Juarez: Mayor José Reyes Ferriz is supposed to be the one to hire and fire the police chief in this gritty border city that is at the center of Mexico's drug war. It turns out, though, that real life in Ciudad Juárez does not follow the municipal code.
It was drug traffickers, led by Vicente Carillo-Fuentes, who decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should go. To make clear their insistence, they vowed to kill a police officer every 48 hours until he resigned. The violence in Mexico has gotten so bad, that many Americans in border cities are now fearing the violence will spill across the border. Where did this violence come from? Why is the media spotlight now back on the War on Drugs instead of the War on Terror? A comprehensive understanding of the War on Drugs in both America and Mexico is appropriate in understanding the seemingly new war being waged just South of the border.
The War on Drugs is a controversial prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government with the assistance of participating countries (such as Mexico or Columbia), intended to reduce the illegal drug trade—that is, to curb supply and diminish demand for specific psychoactive substances deemed immoral, harmful, dangerous, or undesirable. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of targeted substances. The term was first used by President Richard Nixon in 1971, and his choice of words was probably based on the War on Poverty, announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. In 1994, it was reported that the War on Drugs results in the incarceration of one million Americans each year. Of the related drug arrests, about 225,000 are for possession of marijuana, the fourth most common cause of arrest in the United States. In the 1980s, while the number of arrests for all crimes was rising 28%, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose 126%. The United States has a higher proportion of its population incarcerated than any other country in the world for which reliable statistics are available, reaching a total of 2.2 million inmates in the U.S. in 2005. The U.S. Dept. of Justice, reporting on the effects of state initiatives, has stated that, from 1990 through 2000, "the increasing number of drug offenses accounted for 27% of the total growth among black inmates, 7% of the total growth among Hispanic inmates, and 15% of the growth among white inmates." In addition, the United States provides for the deportation of many non-citizens convicted of drug offenses. Federal and state policies also impose collateral consequences on those convicted of drug offenses, such as denial of public benefits or licenses, that are not applicable to those convicted of other types of crime.
It is commonly known that the U.S. War on Drugs is hardly a national problem. Our allies to the South have long since been the suppliers of much of the drug production to feed the habits of their relatively wealthy northern counter-parts. Mexico remains a transit and not a cocaine production country. Marijuana and methamphetamine production do take place in Mexico and are responsible for an estimated 80% of the methamphetamine on the streets in the United States, while 1100 metric tons of marijuana are smuggled each year from Mexico. Still, the drug cartels enjoy no support from the Mexican public.
In 1990, just over half the cocaine imported into the U.S. came through Mexico. By 2007, that had risen to more than 90 percent, according to U.S. State Department estimates. Although violence between drug cartels has been occurring long before the war began, the government used its police forces in the 1990s and early 2000s with little effect. That changed on December 11, 2006, when newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to put an end to drug violence there. This action is regarded as the first major retaliation made against cartel operations, and is generally viewed as the starting point of the war between the government and the drug cartels. As time progressed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, in which there are now well over 25,000 troops involved. During president Calderón's administration, the Mexican government has spent approximately $7 USD billion in an 18-month-old campaign against drug cartels. It is estimated that during 2006, there were about 2000 drug-related violent deaths about 2300 deaths during 2007; more than 3,725 people have died this year. Many of the dead were gang members killed by rivals or by the government, some have been bystanders. At least 450 police officers and soldiers have been killed since January 2007. Some reports list 2008 as the bloodiest year yet with counts as low as 6,000 and as high as 8,000 drug-cartel related deaths.
It was drug traffickers, led by Vicente Carillo-Fuentes, who decided that Chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a retired army major who had been on the job since May, should go. To make clear their insistence, they vowed to kill a police officer every 48 hours until he resigned. The violence in Mexico has gotten so bad, that many Americans in border cities are now fearing the violence will spill across the border. Where did this violence come from? Why is the media spotlight now back on the War on Drugs instead of the War on Terror? A comprehensive understanding of the War on Drugs in both America and Mexico is appropriate in understanding the seemingly new war being waged just South of the border.
The War on Drugs is a controversial prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government with the assistance of participating countries (such as Mexico or Columbia), intended to reduce the illegal drug trade—that is, to curb supply and diminish demand for specific psychoactive substances deemed immoral, harmful, dangerous, or undesirable. This initiative includes a set of laws and policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of targeted substances. The term was first used by President Richard Nixon in 1971, and his choice of words was probably based on the War on Poverty, announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. In 1994, it was reported that the War on Drugs results in the incarceration of one million Americans each year. Of the related drug arrests, about 225,000 are for possession of marijuana, the fourth most common cause of arrest in the United States. In the 1980s, while the number of arrests for all crimes was rising 28%, the number of arrests for drug offenses rose 126%. The United States has a higher proportion of its population incarcerated than any other country in the world for which reliable statistics are available, reaching a total of 2.2 million inmates in the U.S. in 2005. The U.S. Dept. of Justice, reporting on the effects of state initiatives, has stated that, from 1990 through 2000, "the increasing number of drug offenses accounted for 27% of the total growth among black inmates, 7% of the total growth among Hispanic inmates, and 15% of the growth among white inmates." In addition, the United States provides for the deportation of many non-citizens convicted of drug offenses. Federal and state policies also impose collateral consequences on those convicted of drug offenses, such as denial of public benefits or licenses, that are not applicable to those convicted of other types of crime.
It is commonly known that the U.S. War on Drugs is hardly a national problem. Our allies to the South have long since been the suppliers of much of the drug production to feed the habits of their relatively wealthy northern counter-parts. Mexico remains a transit and not a cocaine production country. Marijuana and methamphetamine production do take place in Mexico and are responsible for an estimated 80% of the methamphetamine on the streets in the United States, while 1100 metric tons of marijuana are smuggled each year from Mexico. Still, the drug cartels enjoy no support from the Mexican public.
In 1990, just over half the cocaine imported into the U.S. came through Mexico. By 2007, that had risen to more than 90 percent, according to U.S. State Department estimates. Although violence between drug cartels has been occurring long before the war began, the government used its police forces in the 1990s and early 2000s with little effect. That changed on December 11, 2006, when newly elected President Felipe Calderón sent 6,500 federal troops to the state of Michoacán to put an end to drug violence there. This action is regarded as the first major retaliation made against cartel operations, and is generally viewed as the starting point of the war between the government and the drug cartels. As time progressed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug campaign, in which there are now well over 25,000 troops involved. During president Calderón's administration, the Mexican government has spent approximately $7 USD billion in an 18-month-old campaign against drug cartels. It is estimated that during 2006, there were about 2000 drug-related violent deaths about 2300 deaths during 2007; more than 3,725 people have died this year. Many of the dead were gang members killed by rivals or by the government, some have been bystanders. At least 450 police officers and soldiers have been killed since January 2007. Some reports list 2008 as the bloodiest year yet with counts as low as 6,000 and as high as 8,000 drug-cartel related deaths.
