Title: Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels | Council on Foreign Relations
Headings: Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels
Mexico’s Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels
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Summary
What drugs do the cartels traffic?
The amount of fentanyl seized by Mexican authorities nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2020.
Which are the largest cartels?
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What led to the cartels' growth?
Cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, police, and politicians.
How are drugs smuggled into the United States?
What measures has Mexico taken to stem the drug trade?
Mexico’s Murder Rate Has Risen in Recent Years
What has been the toll on human rights?
What assistance has the U.S. government provided?
U.S.-Mexico Relations
The U.S.-Mexico Border
United States
Mexico
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Content: The PRI’s unbroken reign finally ended in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN). With new politicians in power, cartels ramped up violence against the government in an effort to reestablish their hold [PDF] on the state. Cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, police, and politicians. Facebook
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At the international level, Mexican cartels began to take on a much larger role in the late 1980s, after U.S. government agencies broke up Caribbean networks used by Colombian cartels to smuggle cocaine. Mexican gangs eventually shifted from being couriers for Colombian criminal organizations to being wholesalers. The U.S. government, despite waging a “war on drugs” and conducting other counternarcotics efforts abroad, has made little progress in reducing the demand for illegal drugs. In 2016, Americans spent almost $150 billion on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine, 50 percent more than in 2010. Meanwhile, growing use of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, has contributed to a public health crisis . How are drugs smuggled into the United States? Most of the illicit drugs entering the United States that are seized by authorities are discovered at official ports of entry, of which there are more than three hundred.