Write paper on the Mexican and American War on Drugs.  3-4 pages, 800 words. MLA FORMAT. Research Paper. Some details of the war: Given its geographic location, Mexico has long been used as a staging and transshipment point for narcotics and contraband between Latin America and U.S. markets. Mexican bootleggers supplied alcohol to the United States gangsters throughout the duration of the  Prohibition in the United States , [94]  and the onset of  illegal drug trade  with the U.S. began when the prohibition came to an end in 1933. [94]  Towards the end of the 1960s, Mexican narcotic smugglers started to smuggle drugs on a major scale. [94] During the 1970s and early 1980s,  Colombia 's  Pablo Escobar  was the main exporter of  cocaine  and dealt with organized criminal networks all over the world.  When enforcement efforts intensified in South Florida  and the Caribbean, the Colombian organizations formed partnerships with the Mexico-based traffickers to transport  cocaine  through Mexico into the United States. [103] This was easily accomplished because Mexico had long been a major source of  heroin  and  cannabis , and drug traffickers from Mexico had already established an infrastructure that stood ready to serve the Colombia-based traffickers. By the mid-1980s, the organizations from Mexico were well-established and reliable transporters of Colombian cocaine. At first, the Mexican gangs were paid in cash for their transportation services, but in the late 1980s, the Mexican transport organizations and the Colombian drug traffickers settled on a payment-in-product arrangement. [104] Transporters from Mexico usually were given 35% to 50% of each cocaine shipment. This arrangement meant that organizations from Mexico became involved in the distribution, as well as the transportation of cocaine, and became formidable traffickers in their own right. Currently, the  Sinaloa Cartel  and the  Gulf Cartel  have taken over trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the worldwide markets. [104] The balance of power between the various Mexican cartels continually shifts as new organizations emerge and older ones weaken and collapse. A disruption in the system, such as the arrests or deaths of cartel leaders, generates bloodshed as rivals move in to exploit the power vacuum. [105]  Leadership vacuums are sometimes created by law enforcement successes against a particular cartel, so cartels often will attempt to use law enforcement against one another, either by bribing Mexican officials to take action against a rival or by leaking intelligence about a rival's operations to the Mexican government or the US  Drug Enforcement Administration . [105] While many factors have contributed to the escalating violence, security analysts in Mexico City trace the origins of the rising scourge to the unraveling of a longtime implicit arrangement between narcotics traffickers and governments controlled by the  Institutional Revolutionary Party  (PRI), which lost its grip.

1. Write paper on the Mexican and American War on Drugs. 3-4
pages, 800 words. MLA FORMAT. Research Paper.
Some details of the war:
Given its geographic location, Mexico has long been used as a
staging and transshipment point for narcotics and contraband
between Latin America and U.S. markets. Mexican bootleggers
supplied alcohol to the United States gangsters throughout the
duration of the
Prohibition in the United States
,
[94]
and the onset of
illegal drug trade
with the U.S. began when the prohibition came to an end in
1933.
[94]
Towards the end of the 1960s, Mexican narcotic smugglers
started to smuggle drugs on a major scale.
[94]
During the 1970s and early 1980s,
Colombia
's
Pablo Escobar
was the main exporter of
cocaine
and dealt with organized criminal networks all over the world.
When enforcement efforts intensified in South Florida
and the Caribbean, the Colombian organizations formed
partnerships with the Mexico-based traffickers to transport
cocaine
through Mexico into the United States.
[103]
This was easily accomplished because Mexico had long been a

2. major source of
heroin
and
cannabis
, and drug traffickers from Mexico had already established an
infrastructure that stood ready to serve the Colombia-based
traffickers. By the mid-1980s, the organizations from Mexico
were well-established and reliable transporters of Colombian
cocaine. At first, the Mexican gangs were paid in cash for their
transportation services, but in the late 1980s, the Mexican
transport organizations and the Colombian drug traffickers
settled on a payment-in-product arrangement.
[104]
Transporters from Mexico usually were given 35% to 50% of
each cocaine shipment. This arrangement meant that
organizations from Mexico became involved in the distribution,
as well as the transportation of cocaine, and became formidable
traffickers in their own right. Currently, the
Sinaloa Cartel
and the
Gulf Cartel
have taken over trafficking cocaine from Colombia to the
worldwide markets.
[104]
The balance of power between the various Mexican cartels
continually shifts as new organizations emerge and older ones
weaken and collapse. A disruption in the system, such as the
arrests or deaths of cartel leaders, generates bloodshed as rivals
move in to exploit the power vacuum.
[105]
Leadership vacuums are sometimes created by law enforcement
successes against a particular cartel, so cartels often will
attempt to use law enforcement against one another, either by
bribing Mexican officials to take action against a rival or by
leaking intelligence about a rival's operations to the Mexican
government or the US

3. Drug Enforcement Administration
.
[105]
While many factors have contributed to the escalating violence,
security analysts in Mexico City trace the origins of the rising
scourge to the unraveling of a longtime implicit arrangement
between narcotics traffickers and governments controlled by
the
Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI), which lost its grip on political power starting in the late
1980s.
[106]
The fighting between rival drug cartels began in earnest after
the 1989 arrest of
Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo
, who ran the cocaine business in Mexico.
[107]
There was a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s but the
violence has steadily worsened since 2000.
PAN party Presidents
[
edit
]
Before the year 2000, the center-to-left wing PRI party ruled
Mexico for around 70 years, in this time drug cartels expanded
their power and corruption, and anti-drug operations focused
mainly in marijuana and opium crop destruction in mountain
regions, any form of large-scale and high-profile military
operations against their core structures in urban areas was never
done, until the year 2000 regime change, when the right wing
PAN party gained the presidency and started a crackdown on
cartels in their own turf.
Presidency of Vicente Fox
[
edit
]

4. Mexican soldiers tracking criminals' marks in August 2010
In 2000 President
Vicente Fox
sent military troops to
Nuevo Laredo
to fight the cartels.
[
citation needed
]
It is estimated that about 110 people died in Nuevo Laredo
between January and August 2005 as a result of the fighting
between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.
[108]
In 2005 there was a surge again in violence as the
La Familia Michoacana
drug cartel established itself in
Michoacán
.
Presidency of Felipe Calderon
[
edit
]
On December 11, 2006, then newly elected
President
Felipe Calderón
sent 6,500
Mexican Army
soldiers to the state of
Michoacán
to end drug violence there. This action is regarded as the first
major retaliation made against the cartel violence, and is
generally viewed as the starting point of the Mexican Drug War
between the government and the drug cartels.
[109]

5. As time passed, Calderón continued to escalate his anti-drug
campaign, in which there are now about 45,000 troops involved
along with state and federal police forces.
[110]