Are Mexico’s Cartels Winning The War On Drugs?

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (C), National Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio ... 

I interviewed Mexico historian Benjamin T. Smith, the author of a new book called The Dope: The Real History Of The Mexican Drug trade. Ben documented a century of drug war investigations and arrests and came away with a relatively simple calculus for the driver for criminal activity and drug smuggling from Mexico. “You want to know why there’s a drug war in Mexico? There’s huge demand [for drugs] and massive Mexican poverty. That’s the over-arching message from the book,” he told me.  

Over the last few decades as the war against Mexico’s organized crime groups escalated, U.S.-led policies have failed to reduce drug consumption and overdoses in the U.S. “Despite the fact that kingpins were arrested [and] cartels were disrupted, murders went up, the price of drugs in the U.S. went down, and the amount of overdoses in the U.S. went up,” Smith said.  

Smith says that if people around the world want to understand why organized crime groups continue to flourish in Mexico, they need to understand the role that corrupt politicians play in protecting and profiting from drug trafficking.

Smith highlights one former Attorney General, Oscar Flores Sanchez, during the presidency of Jose Lopez Portillo, who served in office from 1976 through 1982.

“Oscar Flores Sanchez is adored by the Americans. When he’s put in charge of the Attorney General’s office, the Americans are very [content.] He captures a bunch of kingpins. He allows the Americans to spray herbicides. He’s a favorite of the United States,” Smith added.

But, Smith explains that what Flores Sanchez said he was doing was very different from what he did.

“Underneath, what he was actually doing was taking over what I call the drug protection racket. He was shaking down drug traffickers for money. He was using this money to build up the power of… [Mexico’s] Federal Police. I found dozens of testimonies of policemen and drug traffickers [who reported] really dreadful forms of torture [and extortion],” Smith said during the interview.  

Flores Sanchez created what Smith calls “a federally-run protection racket.” While Sanchez and his police arrested, tortured, and extorted drug traffickers, they also helped created a cocaine smuggling operation through Mexico City’s airport.

In some ways, Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is making a break with his recent predecessors, but some of his tactics seem to mirror Lopez Portillo’s strategy.

“I think [President Lopez Obrador] is trying to do something different. He is not following the kingpin strategy. He is also offering social and economic opportunities to youngsters. This is a very long-term policy,” Smith said.

He thinks Lopez Obrador has been hampered by the Mexico’s economic struggles over the last two year, but is also wary of Lopez Obrador’s embrace of the military. He thinks that Lopez Obrador is trying to re-establish the relationship Mexico’s government enjoyed with drug cartels during the sixties, seventies, and eighties.

“He’s put a lot of money and emphasis and focus on the military. He said he’d send the soldiers back to the barracks but he’s become increasingly reliant on the military. That’s not helping. The violence is very different from what it was 15 years ago,” Smith said.

In Mexico, he adds, violent crime is no longer all about drug trafficking routes.

“Now they are fighting over a whole gamut of criminal activities from illegal logging, illegal mining, human trafficking, and a load of non-criminal activities. 

Organized crime groups… are now fighting over who runs the livestock business, the avocado business, and who gets to distribute the government’s aid package, Sembrando Vida. Criminal groups have turned to shaking down licit activities,” Smith explained.

He also thinks Lopez Obrador is failing to grasp the current dynamic of the Mexico’s security crisis.

“This is something AMLO does not have a solution to. Mexico has changed. I’m not sure you can just do deals with big capos, major leaders of the so-called cartels and bring peace to Mexico. I don’t think that’s going to work,” Smith told me.

Mexico’s president does not appear to be learning from the failures of the past fifty years.

Over 73,000 people were killed during first two years of Lopez Obrador’s administration. Mexico now records more than twice as many murders per year as when former President Felipe Calderon launched a new offensive against drug trafficking organizations in 2008. (Mexico recorded 14,006 murders in 2008 and 36,579 in 2020.) 

This violence cannot be understood as a battle between rival cartels. Violent crime in Mexico also affects local businesses and foreign corporations and foreign executives. Smith says that all over Mexico small criminal groups are arming themselves and preying on local business activity.

“Organized criminals are shaking down shop-keepers, and shaking down avocado-growers, and shaking down truck-drivers,” he explained during the  conversation.

The wide range of risks related to criminal groups force foreign executives to do due diligence on potential investment projects in Mexico and study and understand the local dynamics and political risks in the areas where they are considering operating. 

The risks posed by organized crime and political corruption in Mexico are very real. Smith thinks that the global obsession with Mexico’s narco culture is overblown, but he thinks that the impact that violent crime and organized crime have on residents’ lives isn’t been over-reported or exaggerated in the media.  

During our conversation, I pointed out that in terms of Mexico’s macro-economic data, drug trafficking does not play as big of a role in Mexico’s economy as some popular narco movies and Netflix series seem to imply. For instance, migrant remittances totaled $41 billion in 2020. 

In 2019 foreign tourism tallied up to more than $24.5 billion. And, automotive exports totaled more than $40 billion in 2020. 

On the other hand, there are estimates that drug smuggling could generate somewhere between $10 billion and $30 billion a year. To put that in perspective, $10 billion is less than 1% of Mexico's GDP and not even one tenth of what Mexico earns from tourism, remittances and auto exports.

Overall, in terms of the dollar value that the drug trade brings to Mexico is likely just a small fraction of what the country earns from auto exports, tourism, and migrant remittances.

Smith says that he thinks perhaps the emphasis on drug trafficking is too great. Mexico watchers need to pay more attention to a broader array of criminal activity and how it affects residents and visitors.

“Yes, narcos and drugs [are] over-emphasized but I don’t think organized crime and violence [are]. Around 20 of the 50 most murderous cities in the world are in Mexico,” he said.   

Overall, Smith sums up the militarized prohibition and eradication-focused War On Drugs as “profitable and tragic.” He thinks that the current generation of policymakers in the U.S. and Mexico need to learn more from the historical record from the past five decades.

“The DEA has been losing a war for 48 years. It’s lost that war. One hundred thousand people died of overdoses [in the U.S.] last year. It has failed,” he told me. 

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