The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade PDF Download
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Author: Benjamin T. Smith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562
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Book Description
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Author: Benjamin T. Smith
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324006560
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562
Get Book Here
Book Description
A myth-busting, 100-year history of the Mexican drug trade that reveals how an industry founded by farmers and village healers became dominated by cartels and kingpins. The Mexican drug trade has inspired prejudiced narratives of a war between north and south, white and brown; between noble cops and vicious kingpins, corrupt politicians and powerful cartels. In this first comprehensive history of the trade, historian Benjamin T. Smith tells the real story of how and why this one-peaceful industry turned violent. He uncovers its origins and explains how this illicit business essentially built modern Mexico, affecting everything from agriculture to medicine to economics—and the country’s all-important relationship with the United States. Drawing on unprecedented archival research; leaked DEA, Mexican law enforcement, and cartel documents; and dozens of harrowing interviews, Smith tells a thrilling story brimming with vivid characters—from Ignacia “La Nacha” Jasso, “queen pin” of Ciudad Juárez, to Dr. Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, the crusading physician who argued that marijuana was harmless and tried to decriminalize morphine, to Harry Anslinger, the Machiavellian founder of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who drummed up racist drug panics to increase his budget. Smith also profiles everyday agricultural workers, whose stories reveal both the economic benefits and the human cost of the trade. The Dope contains many surprising conclusions about drug use and the failure of drug enforcement, all backed by new research and data. Smith explains the complicated dynamics that drive the current drug war violence, probes the U.S.-backed policies that have inflamed the carnage, and explores corruption on both sides of the border. A dark morality tale about the American hunger for intoxication and the necessities of human survival, The Dope is essential for understanding the violence in the drug war and how decades-old myths shape Mexico in the American imagination today.
Author: Ioan Grillo
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408824337
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
‘War’ is no exaggeration in discussing the bloodshed that has terrorized Mexico in the past decades. As rival cartels battle for control of a billion-dollar drug trade, the body count - 23,000 dead in five years - and sheer horror beggar the imagination of journalistic witnesses. Cartel gunmen have attacked schools and rehabilitation centers, and murdered the entire families of those who defy them. Reformers and law enforcement officials have been gunned down within hours of taking office. Headless corpses are dumped on streets to intimidate rivals, and severed heads are rolled onto dancefloors as messages to would-be opponents. And the war is creeping northward, towards the United States. El Narco is the story of the ultraviolent criminal organizations that have turned huge areas of Mexico into a combat zone. It is a piercing portrait of a drug trade that turns ordinary men into mass murderers, as well as a diagnosis of what drives the cartels and what gives them such power. Veteran Mexico correspondent Ioan Grillo traces the gangs from their origins as smugglers to their present status as criminal empires. The narco cartels are a threat to the Mexican government - and their violence has now reached as far as North Carolina. El Narco is required reading for anyone concerned about one of the most important news stories of the decade.
Author: Tom Wainwright
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610395840
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Tom Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work -- and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the "war" against this global, highly organized business. Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. The cast of characters includes "Bin Laden," the Bolivian coca guide; Old Lin," the Salvadoran gang leader; "Starboy," the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.
Author: María Celia Toro
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN: 9781555875480
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
This text explains the punitive trend in Mexican anti-drug policies as a political imperative, an out-growth of the perceived need both to counter the growth of the illegal drug market and to prevent US police and judicial authorities from acting as a surrogate justice system in Mexico.
Author: Sylvia Longmire
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0230340555
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Having followed Mexico's cartels for years, border security expert Sylvia Longmire takes us deep into the heart of their world to witness a dangerous underground that will do whatever it takes to deliver drugs to a willing audience of American consumers. The cartels have grown increasingly bold in recent years, building submarines to move up the coast of Central America and digging elaborate tunnels that both move drugs north and carry cash and U.S. high-powered assault weapons back to fuel the drug war. Channeling her long experience working on border issues, Longmire brings to life the very real threat of Mexican cartels operating not just along the southwest border, but deep inside every corner of the United States. She also offers real solutions to the critical problems facing Mexico and the United States, including programs to deter youth in Mexico from joining the cartels and changing drug laws on both sides of the border.
Author: Peter Watt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1848138881
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Mexico is a country in crisis. Capitalizing on weakened public institutions, widespread unemployment, a state of lawlessness and the strengthening of links between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, narcotrafficking in the country has flourished during the post-1982 neoliberal era. In fact, it has become one of Mexico's biggest source of revenue, as well as its most violent, with over 12,000 drug-related executions in 2011 alone. In response, Mexican president Felipe Calderón, armed with millions of dollars in US military aid, has launched a crackdown, ostensibly to combat organised crime. Despite this, human rights violations have increased, as has the murder rate, making Ciudad Juárez on the northern border the most dangerous city on the planet. Meanwhile, the supply of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine has continued to grow. In this insightful and controversial book, Watt and Zepeda throw new light on the situation, contending that the 'war on drugs' in Mexico is in fact the pretext for a US-backed strategy to bolster unpopular neoliberal policies, a weak yet authoritarian government and a radically unfair status quo.
Author: Peter Chalk
Publisher: RAND Corporation
ISBN: 9780833051790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 112
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Book Description
Transnational crime remains a particularly serious problem in Latin America, with most issues connected to the drug trade. There are several relevant roles that the U.S. Air Force can and should play in boosting Mexico's capacity to counter drug production and trafficking, as well as further honing and adjusting its wider counternarcotics effort in Latin America.
Author: John Gibler
Publisher: City Lights Books
ISBN: 0872865762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
Mexico is in a state of siege. Since President Felipe Calderon declared a war on drugs in December 2006, more than 38,000 Mexican have been murdered. During the same period, drug money has infused over $130 billion into Mexico's economy, now the country's single largest source of income. Corruption and graft infiltrate all levels of government. Entire towns have become ungovernable, and of every 100 people killed, Mexican police now only investigate approximately five. But the market is booming: In 2009, more people in the United States bought recreational drugs than ever before. In 2009, the United Nations reported that some $350 billion in drug money had been successfully laundered into the global banking system the prior year, saving it from collapse. How does an "extra" $350 billion in the global economy affect the murder rate in Mexico? To get the story and connect the dogs, acclaimed journalist John Gibler travels across Mexico and slips behind the frontlines to talk with people who live in towns under assault: newspaper reporters and crime-beat photographers, funeral parlor workers, convicted drug traffickers, government officials, cab drivers and others who find themselves living on the lawless frontiers of the drug war. Gibler tells hair-raising stories of wild street battles, kidnappings, narrow escapes, politicians on the take, and the ordinary people who fight for justice as they seek solutions to the crisis that is tearing Mexico apart. Fast-paced and urgent, To Die in Mexico is an extraordinary look inside the raging drug war, and its global implications. John Gibler is a writer based in Mexico and California, the author of Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt (City Lights Books, 2009) and a contributor to País de muertos: Crónicas contra la impunidad (Random House Mondadori, 2011). He is a correspondent for KPFA in San Francisco and has published in magazines in the United States and Mexico, including Left Turn, Z Magazine, Earth Island Journal, ColorLines, Race, Poverty, the Environment Fifth Estate, New Politics, In These Times, Yes! Magazine, Contralínea and Milenio Semanal. "Gibler's front-line reportage coupled with first-rate analysis gives an uncommonly vivid and nuanced picture of a society riddled and enervated by corruption, shootouts, and raids, where murder is the 'most popular method of conflict resolution.' . . . At great personal risk, the author unearths stories the mainstream media doesn't—or is it too afraid—to cover, and gives voice to those who have been silenced or whose stories have been forgotten."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Gibler argues passionately to undercut this 'case study in failure.' The drug barons are only getting richer, the murders mount and the police and military repression expand as 'illegality increases the value of the commodity.' With legality, both U.S. and Mexican society could address real issues of substance abuse through education and public-health initiatives. A visceral, immediate and reasonable argument."—Kirkus Reviews "Gibler provides a fascinating and detailed insight into the history of both drug use in the US and the 'war on drugs' unleashed by Ronald Reagan through the very plausible—but radical—lens of social control. . . . Throughout this short but powerful book, Gibler accompanies journalists riding the grim carousel of death on Mexico's streets, exploring the realities of a profession under siege in states such as Sinaloa and just how they cover the drugs war."—Gavin O’Toole, The Latin American Review of Books
Author: June S Beittel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781655345715
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38
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Book Description
Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) pose the greatest crime threat to the United States and have "the greatest drug trafficking influence," according to the annual U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) National Drug Threat Assessment. These organizations work across the Western Hemisphere and globally. They are involved in extensive money laundering, bribery, gun trafficking, and corruption, and they cause Mexico's homicide rates to spike. They produce and traffic illicit drugs into the United States, including heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and they traffic South American cocaine. Over the past decade, Congress has held numerous hearings addressing violence in Mexico, U.S. counternarcotics assistance, and border security issues. Mexican DTO activities significantly affect the security of both the United States and Mexico. As Mexico's DTOs expanded their control of the opioids market, U.S. overdoses rose sharply to a record level in 2017, with more than half of the 72,000 overdose deaths (47,000) involving opioids. Although preliminary 2018 data indicate a slight decline in overdose deaths, many analysts believe trafficking continues to evolve toward opioids. The major Mexican DTOs, also referred to as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), have continued to diversify into such crimes as human smuggling and oil theft while increasing their lucrative business in opioid supply. According to the Mexican government's latest estimates, illegally siphoned oil from Mexico's state-owned oil company costs the government about $3 billion annually. Mexico's DTOs have been in constant flux. In 2006, four DTOs were dominant: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes Organization (CFO), and the Gulf Cartel. Government operations to eliminate DTO leadership sparked organizational changes, which increased instability among the groups and violence. Over the next dozen years, Mexico's large and comparatively more stable DTOs fragmented, creating at first seven major groups, and then nine, which are briefly described in this report. The DEA has identified those nine organizations as Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar, and Cartel Jalisco-New Generation (CJNG). In mid-2019, leader of the long-dominant Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin ("El Chapo") Guzmán, was sentenced to life in a maximum-security U.S. prison, spurring further fracturing of a once hegemonic DTO. By some accounts, a direct effect of this fragmentation has been escalated levels of violence. Mexico's intentional homicide rate reached new records in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, Mexico's national public security system reported more than 17,000 homicides between January and June, setting a new record. In the last months of 2019, several fragments of formerly cohesive cartels conducted flagrant acts of violence. For some Members of Congress, this situation has increased concern about a policy of returning Central American migrants to cities across the border in Mexico to await their U.S. asylum hearings in areas with some of Mexico's highest homicide rates. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, elected in a landslide in July 2018, campaigned on fighting corruption and finding new ways to combat crime, including the drug trade. According to some analysts, challenges for López Obrador since his inauguration include a persistently ad hoc approach to security; the absence of strategic and tactical intelligence concerning an increasingly fragmented, multipolar, and opaque criminal market; and endemic corruption of Mexico's judicial and law enforcement systems. In December 2019, Genero Garcia Luna, a former top security minister under the Felipe Calderón Administration (2006-2012), was arrested in the United States on charges he had taken enormous bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.
Author: Jonathan D. Rosen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137450991
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227
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Book Description
The US-led war on drugs has failed: drugs remain purer, cheaper and more readily available than ever. Extreme levels of violence have also grown as drug traffickers and organized criminals compete for control of territory. This book points towards a number of crucial challenges, policy solutions and alternatives to the current drug strategies.
