Andrew Del Rossi
Mrs. Kern
English 122
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/mexico/drug_trafficking/index.html?ref=us

Mexican Drug Trafficking by Marc Lacey

Mexico has always been a leader in illegal drug trafficking into the states, but how has the Mexican and American governments reacted? In recent times, the Mexican government has pushed for stricter and more powerful forces to combat the drug cartels. Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the end of 2006 launched a full on assault on the drug traffickers using tens of thousands of troops and police forces to stop the drugs from moving, but is it working?

In my opinion no, the war on drugs is a semi pointless one. Where there are drugs to be grown and sold, there will be plenty of people to take on the job. Considering the illegal status of these drugs they sell for large quantities of money, which is how the cartels make their money. This will be a problem as long as the legalization is denied. I'm not all for the legalization, but it seems the easiest and most effective way to cut the cartels main source of income is to legalize some of the drugs and bring down the price. ( Drugs like marijuana )

Despite their best efforts the drug trafficking has remained the same, in fact the death count from attacks by drug cartels have risen in the past few years. In response to this Mr. Calderon says The strategy "has not only reversed the rising trend of crime and drug trafficking, but it has also weakened the conditions that allowed them to reproduce and to expand." Now I'm not in the Mexican government nor am i a citizen of Mexico but I'd like to see harder evidence than just Mr. Claderon's word.