Illegal drug trade which is a major global challenge has been on the rise over the past few decades. Illegal drug trade involves all activities that are relevant to see into it that the drugs are provided in the market for use by various people. The drug trade starts right at cultivation, processing and sale of the drugs which are prohibited in a certain country. The trade will be illegal if the supplier of the drugs operates without a license and hence will offer the drugs to the customers with no prescription. The main problem with the drugs administered with no prescription is the unregulated consumption. Even the drugs that are safe to use can be abused by using them for the wrong purposes or taking another dose rather than the one prescribed.

Mostly, drug abuse will involve taking illegal drugs that are prohibited by the law. These drugs will be grown, processed and sold in secret as the traders try to evade the law. They will use all means to make sure that they remain in operation by both hiding and intimidating either the people they live with or even the government officials. The increased demand for the drugs has led to development of strong drug cartels to control the trade. With time, these cartels have accumulated power with each group accumulating power on its specific geographic location.

Introduction

The Mexican drug war started in 2006 when Mexico former president ordered all government units to go out and take down the drug cartel leaders giving them power to arrest or take them down. The government forces as a result, took down top leaders in the organised drug lord activities. The strategy failed and instead it served to awaken the cartel leaders to retaliate against the government. In return, the cartels killed thousands of civilians so as to revenge for their leaders who had been killed. The killings were non selective involving people across all units, from government officials, politicians, drug lords and also police officers. The violence is hard to control because of the unnoticeable perpetrators; the powerful gang leader will hide themselves in between the public who have been intimidated. The camouflaging of the cartel leaders among the public will make it hard for the leaders to be identified.

The Mexican drug war has been labelled as one of the modern killing machine in the recent past. The war has witnessed one of the highest levels of violence and man slaughter both in Mexico and the other countries as the drug cartels seek to control the illegal business. The main reason for the continued fight for the control is the lucrative side of it, it is estimated that the business is worth billions of dollars. The value of the business is not exact since the business is illegal, this leaves only the estimation option as the government and other parties seek to know the value and the financial strength of the drug cartels.

The Mexican drug war has led to massive killings and widespread increase in rate of drug trafficking and abuse.

By 2006 when Calderon took office, with a pledge to eradicate the rate of drugs abuse, he moved aggressively to try and take control of the violence. He tried to cover the police inadequate skills in fighting the terrorism by increasing the role of the military in the control of the situation. He intensified the effort to cover up by deploying tens of thousands military personnel to the hit areas to combat the cartels. The military personnel replaced the police officers who had been mostly in effective and highly corrupt. The military made great milestones, killing several of the highest ranking drug king-pins. The step to take down most of the top leaders in the gangs did not provide positive results as it was expected. Instead of reducing the gang activities in the nation, it acted to spice up the violence. Drug cartels which were previously united under same leaders split up and formed different units. The gangs started fighting in between themselves for the control of the market, this had negative results from what it was originally expected to achieve. Instead of minimising the violence, it only acted to increase the violence as more people and leaders were killed and extorted. The introduction of the military did not only increase the violence, it led to human rights violations accusations. Human rights groups reported that the military personnel violated human rights as much as the cartels did. They engaged in killings and torture of the civilians in search for the information about the whereabouts of the wanted cartel leaders.

Upon President Enrique taking office, he pledged to focus his attention on other ways of resolving the dispute and refocus on the forms which the government was using to curb the violence. He made a great milestone in centralising the Mexico security system which has helped to boost communication between different arms of the security. Since then, the rates of killings have gone down though the rates of extortion and kidnappings still remain at a high point.

Literature Review

Drug wars are more common in this time and period which has experienced high levels of illegal drug smuggling across borders of different countries. In Mexico, the situation has gone beyond control by the fact that the gangs have been empowered by the highly trained personnel. The cartels have been able to acquire from different units of the government on different countries. The gangs choose the countries with the highest level of training to their forces such as United States and United Kingdom (UK) and lure them with large sums of money to join their forces. The cartels are further strengthened by the strong weapons they acquire from United States through illegal fire arms deal.

An extensive study of the activities of these cartels found that while most of the war between cartels has been confined to Mexico, there have been suspicious killings on other countries where the officers in the government have traced the connection between the killings to the various cartels operating on those countries. Although their impact on violence in UK is less than it is in U.S.A, the cartels still continue to establish themselves by building business empires based on genuine businesses. They start off as genuine business people so that they will be hard to detect once they start their operations on the host country.

The major concern about the increased warfare and violence has led to comprehensive investigations about the issue of violence in both Mexico and United States. In Mexico, there was an investigation by an independent magazine about the violence in the country. The investigation discovered 24, 000 corpses which had been killed and buried. The high number of those killed was a major concern of the high number of people killed in the violence attracted attention from all units in the United Nations. The violence has witnessed numerous murders of people in cold blood and their bodies left decomposing on the streets while others are found on barrels on the cities.

Theory

There have been enormous killings related to drugs which have been made possible by the superior arms that the cartel leaders poses, entire cities have settled in to full war zones with military check points and road blocks to identify the drug cartels. However, this has not been as successful as it is supposed to be, this is because of the superior weapons that the cartels are able to access. The leaders have access to military grade weapons with grenade launchers, this make it hard to control them as they cannot overpower them in terms of the weapons they poses. The war takes no prisoners and hence people are killed if they cross the drug lords’ line of operation, women are raped and journalists who try to expose the conditions to the outside world are kidnapped and killed to conceal the acts.

The war against the drug lords’ have been a major failure as the kingpins continue to strengthen their power and influence. They seek more power by trying to overpower the police and also curbing the weak organisations that might be coming up. Mexico continues to be the greatest exporter of heroin and marijuana to United States accounting for over 80% of the drugs that are used in America. The trade happens despite the strict rules that exist in the border between the two countries. Drugs gain access to United States through the Mexico border more easily than the immigrants get through. The main reason for this phenomenon is the corruption that is in this border. Immigrants are mostly poor people while the drug dealers are rich individuals, the rich are able to pump huge amounts of money to the border managers who as a result allow the drugs to go through. This is the main way that drugs find their way in to the American market.

Methodology

The research involved a critical review of the data from written sources that have been collected with time and a comprehensive comparison between different documents on record.

Findings

Before several laws were enforced in the United States, use of opium, cocaine and marijuana was illegal in the States, however, several laws were passed which developed the drug use laws to make them illegal. After the prohibition of the drugs, many products were destroyed to cope with the new laws. The destruction created a shortage in supply of the drugs; this shortage accelerated the rate of black markets that emerged. As a result of the high demand of the unavailable product, the price increased at a high rate which meant that the profit margins had increased. The high profit margins attracted more suppliers as it ensured survival of the market with the potential to hire more security personnel. The strict rules in America made the traffickers shift their attention to another place. Due to its proximity, many traffickers turned to Mexico where they could produce the drugs at less cost and more conveniently.

The military intervention to the crisis in Mexico began in 2006 after the government realized it had gone out of control. The main aim of the intervention was to keep the drugs related violence as low as possible. The government aimed at breaking down the established drug traffickers. They believe that by destroying these groups, they will be able to curb violence in the short run and at the same time reduce the drug use and drugs related violence. However, the idea has not been taken well by the hard core drug traffickers, they have been arrested and many of them have been charged in courts. The arrests and charging of these cartel leaders have only magnified the violence. The organisations left behind are involved in enormous blood shed as they seek to gain control over the market and trading routes for the drugs.

The increase in the rate of the transportation of illegal drugs from Mexico to United States has led to establishment of defined routes for the trade. These routes have become fixed to the traders with the powerful dealers involving themselves on numerous murders to ensure that they remain in control. The establishment of permanent routes for drug trade between the two countries has led to permanent drug dealers in United States. These dealers are well connected both in the government and to the importers from America and exporters from Mexico. The establishment of permanent suppliers have seen an increase in the number of drug abusers in the United States. Being sure that they can get supply any time they want and the widespread culture of superiority has accelerated the increase. More people have indulged in to the drug abuse behaviour due to its widespread availability; they are assured of the drug availability which gives them sense of security.

The Mexican drug wars have accelerated the rate of drug abuse especially among the youth due to curiosity. The war has been one of the most publicised violence of this era, as the war becomes more publicised, the curiosity increases due to the extensive media coverage as to the developing trade. The extensive coverage of the war also exposes how the business is lucrative has attracted more people who are willing to be involved in the business. Marijuana has been established as the easiest drug to get, it is readily available, and this supply has remained constant due to the increase in the rate of the drug wars. As the government seek to combat the drug supply from Mexico, they tend to try and over power the groups involved in the trade. To ensure that they remain relevant and powerful in the business, the drug traffickers will tend to increase the amount of drugs that they transport in a single period of time. The reason behind the huge transportation is to ensure that they get value for their money; they ensure that they get maximum utility from a single lot of drugs that are transported. This availability of the drugs has accelerated the rate of drug abuse in United States as more people are attracted to try the substance.

As the war on drugs has continued to intensify, there have been the sympathisers and the beneficiaries to the drug lords. The sympathisers feel that too much force is being used against the drug lords while the beneficiaries have been negatively affected financially. The loss of the source of income for the drug lords has seen them form gangs. These gangs plead their loyalty to the drug traffickers and as a result, they have engaged in the drug trafficking so as to ensure that they prove their loyalty to the leaders. They continue using the drugs and selling them so as to cement their positions in these organisations.

As the drugs war intensify on all countries including Mexico which has been dubbed as one of the major source of the illegal drugs, U.K and Europe as a whole has tried to wage a war against the drugs. But for various reasons, it has been noted that the prices has continued to fall for the available drugs in the streets compared to previous years. The fall in price has arisen due to the increase in number of trade cartels and hence increased competition. Increased competition has led to the lowering of prices as the only way to ensure survival in the market but to ensure that the cartels continue to exercise their power, they have to produce these drugs in large quantities. The groups will be motivated by the sales volume and hence they produce drugs with which even if they sell at a low price, they will be assured of profits. To ensure that the drug traffickers remain relevant in the market, they will purify their products more, this has led to the conclusion of many reports that despite the fact that the price of drugs in the streets has fallen, their purity and potential keep on rising.

In Mexico tens of thousands of people have been killed over drug related violence. The violence is attributed to fighting of different gangs so as to gain control over territory and routes. However, they have become severely brutal over the past few years as most of their leaders are captured and killed by the military, they will kill civilians in return so as to show their disapproval for the killings.

One of the most powerful groups of the drug gangs is the Zetas and Sinaola cartels. These cartels operate most businesses in Mexico, United States and most countries of Europe. These groups have established themselves from the brutality of the members. They commit mass murder to the civilians and those that are opposed to them so as to win their allegiance. These cartels also import the illegal drugs from South America and find their way to United States. That is how they establish their grounds as powerful organisations having control over an internal market while they are still out of the country. The great command that they have for the drug industry is mainly attributed to the type of leadership they have. The cartels will mostly have strong unshakeable leaders who will do anything to establish their power, the ruthless leaders mostly account for the huge number of deaths that is recorded over years.

The cartels will also do desperate things when they feel that their power is threatened, they will kidnap people and demand for ransom, this will also help boost their finances. The cartels will also fight against each other so as to prove their dominance over each other. There may also be emergence of warfare between cartel members, different members might stand for different ideologies but be still in one organisation, if this happens, there is higher probability of established warfare between the two groups. So as to show more control, they will kill each other’s followers in an attempt to weaken them. Many lives are lost in such scenario when people resist the influence from the cartels. Old cartels sometimes may join hands and try to stop the upcoming minor cartels so as to ensure that they remain to have dominant control over the industry.

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