Drugs, Murder and Mexico

i think about this a lot but a) i don't really know what to think, entirely and b) really don't know what to say

― goole, Friday, 27 August 2010 20:48 (2 years ago) Permalink

i have read something recently about mexico flirting with the idea of legalizing marijuana unilaterally. it's mexicans who are being murdered, after all.

― goole, Friday, 27 August 2010 20:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

i know a couple of folks in l.a. who have grimly mentioned shit that has gone down with relatives in mexico, almost matter-of-factly.

The body count in Mexico stood at 5,400 slayings in 2008, more than double the 2,477 reported in 2007, officials said, with over 1400 in Ciudad Juárez alone.[27][28] The population of Ciudad Juárez had to change their daily routine and many try to stay home in the evening hours. Public life is almost paralyzed out of fear of being kidnapped or hit by a stray bullet. On 20 February 2009, the U.S. State Department announced in an updated travel alert that "Mexican authorities report that more than 1,800 people have been killed in the city since January 2008." [29] On 12 March 2009, police found "at least seven" partially buried bodies in the outskirts of the city, close to the US-Mexican border. Five severed heads were discovered in ice boxes, along with notes to rivals in the drug-wars. Beheadings, attacks on the police and shootings are common in some regions.[30] In September 2009, 18 patients at a drug rehabilitation clinic called El Aliviane were massacred in a turf battle.[31] Patients were lined up in the corridor and gunned down in the early evening. On September 3, 2009 the Associated Press reported that the day before gunmen broke down the door of the El Aliviane drug rehabilitation center and lined their victims up to a wall shooting 17 dead. The authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Plagued by corruption and the assassination of many of its officers, the government is struggling to maintain Ciudad Juárez's police force. Other police have quit the force out of fear of being targeted.[32] In late 2008 one murder victim was found near a school hanging from a fence with a pig's mask on his face and another one was found beheaded hanging from a bridge in one of the busier streets of the city.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:50 (2 years ago) Permalink

smoke local pot. and leave everything else alone. unless the canadians start making cocaine or something. the 72 bodies in a room thing...i mean, what can you even say? its just so awful in every possible way. i blame this country so much already for so many things...its a long list. i don't even know what to say.

― scott seward, Friday, 27 August 2010 20:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

i sort of attempted to tackle this in a trolling manner on the cocaine C or D thread, but i think it was generally ignored in favor of people relating war stories, i.e. "that time i did coke was a real good time, classic."

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:51 (2 years ago) Permalink

to repeat:

In September 2009, 18 patients at a drug rehabilitation clinic called El Aliviane were massacred in a turf battle.[31] Patients were lined up in the corridor and gunned down in the early evening.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

message being, what exactly? don't try to quit or we will kill you?

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:52 (2 years ago) Permalink

Are there any good explanations for why the violence has so sharply increased? Is there something driving drug profits up at the moment?

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

i got in a big argt once with a friend about drug legalization, my points being basically that making something illegal doesn't erase demand, so the "business model" of suppliers necessarily involves violence; and that our strategy for the past 50-odd years has to be considered a failure, so why not try something else that seems to have worked ok in other places.

the counter-argument was basically "you watch the wire"

― goole, Friday, 27 August 2010 20:53 (2 years ago) Permalink

GBX just asked me to post this link. I actually had it open already in another tab. It's insane:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

In September 2009, 18 patients at a drug rehabilitation clinic called El Aliviane were massacred in a turf battle.

What does this even mean? OOH it makes it sound like the turf battle just happened to take place on the property of the clinic, OTOH "massacre" suggests deliberately killing the patients but doesn't sound like a "turf battle".

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:54 (2 years ago) Permalink

yeah that particular aspect of this is nuts, E.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:55 (2 years ago) Permalink

i have several particularly sharp and otherwise decent friends who indulge in the odd bit of cocaine use, and what can you really say? saying stuff like this comes off as preachy and playing right into the hands of those who want to keep drugs illegal, one could argue. and yet...no.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:56 (2 years ago) Permalink

The situation in Juarez nuts and ridiculous that more attention hasn't been paid to it. I think Jennifer Lopez made a movie about it a couple years ago called "Boderlands" iirc but I don't ever remember seeing it in theaters and suspect it went straight to video.

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:57 (2 years ago) Permalink

what proportion of american drug consumption is "the odd bit of cocaine use" vs. crack addicts, who i don't feel comfortable blaming for any of this

― the girl with the butt tattoo (harbl), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

have you read 2666 by roberto bolano? it takes place in a fictional version of juarez and this is one of the main threads the novel focuses on. it's really grim.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 20:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

How does what's going on now compare to what went on in Colombia/Miami in the 80s? Because I seem to remember that what happened then was the result of a price spike which in turn was the result of an enforcement crackdown.

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:00 (2 years ago) Permalink

Omar - I have not but I will do. The whole thing fascinates me because it's just so unbelievable.

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:01 (2 years ago) Permalink

This is all worth reading: http://www.theawl.com/author/john-murray

― C0L1N B..., Friday, 27 August 2010 21:03 (2 years ago) Permalink

Last week in Ciudad Juarez, the Federal Police received an emergency call from a payphone explaining that a police officer had been shot and was lying wounded on the Avenue 16 de Septiembre, a street named for the day of Mexican independence from the Spanish. Several federal police officers and an emergency team of paramedics arrived to tend to the injured officer. A TV crew arrived on the scene around the same time. As the officers and doctors gathered around the body to assess the damage, nearby members of the Juarez cartel used a cell phone to detonate a bomb hidden in a parked car at the intersection. The blast killed two Federales, a doctor and an emergency technician, and left 9 other people wounded from shrapnel.

sheesh

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:06 (2 years ago) Permalink

has anyone read the charles bowden ciudad juarez books? they're on my list, as i've read all of his other books (down by the river is esp. good) but i haven't read them yet. i think he has two?

i've had many (too many to count) students whose lives have been affected by this shit.

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:07 (2 years ago) Permalink

No! Amanda can you email me some book recs? Or put them here? I'll get the one you mentioned. I've only read news articles on it but never any full books.

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

have you read 2666 by roberto bolano? it takes place in a fictional version of juarez and this is one of the main threads the novel focuses on. it's really grim.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:58 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Those 200odd pages of detailed descriptions of murder victims was the most intense thing i've ever read.

Unfortunately I know little-to-nothing about the situation going on, so I don't really know what to say other than f this world

― a hoy hoy, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:09 (2 years ago) Permalink

one woman did an entire semester's worth of speeches about growing up in a town where drug lords bought the bridges, paved the roads, rebuilt the schools, and imposed a strict 9pm curfew on everyone who lived there. violators of the curfew were all shot and killed.

here's one

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

one woman did an entire semester's worth of speeches about growing up in a town where drug lords bought the bridges, paved the roads, rebuilt the schools, and imposed a strict 9pm curfew on everyone who lived there. violators of the curfew were all shot and killed.

wow, Amanda

― horseshoe, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:10 (2 years ago) Permalink

gonna go seek that book out, thanks LL

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:11 (2 years ago) Permalink

yeah, it was intense.

not about ciudad juarez, and a little dated, but really well written and interesting

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:13 (2 years ago) Permalink

glad this is finally a thread. it's astounding how little public attention this gets.

the counter-argument was basically "you watch the wire"

I felt like the wire could have done this better...haven't seen the episodes recently but I remember the drug-zone experienment worked *so* perfectly, was *so* successful that it was just sorta absurd.

― iatee, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:14 (2 years ago) Permalink

How does what's going on now compare to what went on in Colombia/Miami in the 80s? Because I seem to remember that what happened then was the result of a price spike which in turn was the result of an enforcement crackdown.

I don't think the death tolls were anywhere in today's range

― iatee, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/12/quiet-shift-mexicos-drug-war/

It all started with something that is by now horrifyingly routine: a YouTube video of the gory execution of a Mexican policeman by a gang of narcotraficantes. Posted on July 22, it begins with the interrogation of the policeman, who was from the northern state of Durango, by masked gangsters employed, in this case, by one of Mexico’s most powerful trafficking groups, the Zetas. Such interrogations have been circulated on the Internet before, and, as here, they often end in death. However, in the course of this particular video the policeman stated that the director of a federal prison in Durango was in the habit of releasing and arming certain prisoners at night, so that they could commit murders aimed, broadly speaking, at the Zetas. The recent massacre of seventeen people attending a birthday party in the neighboring state of Coahuila was the work of these temporarily sprung assassins, the policeman said, as were two other mass killings earlier this year.

― goole, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

eh, i think the scenes of hamsterdam at night were p horrific, also there was still murder and death (rip johnny). the open prostitution freaked me out more than the drugs though.

― a hoy hoy, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:17 (2 years ago) Permalink

another student actually taught me about the zetas a few years ago. i had never heard of them, and she was from nuevo laredo, so she grew up around a LOT of drug-fueled violence.

this is a book bowden coauthored with an artist/architect? i would rather read the other one, but would like to see this one

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:18 (2 years ago) Permalink

my first experiences with learning about how the drug trade affects people beyond the users and sellers were when i was in colombia (bogota) in 1996, which is also the year that colombia was 'decertified' by the us in their cooperation in the "war on drugs"

what a farce that was

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:19 (2 years ago) Permalink

to answer harbl's q, i imagine casual, semi-regular, or recreational cocaine use makes up most of the use in this country, more than the use by addicts? i could be vv wrong. who knows about crack, though...

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

This was talked about all the time in the Las Cruces/El Paso area...I forget it's not on everyone else's radar. My brother who lived in Juarez for a couple years says this stuff is "overblown" but I think he was referring to some of the more seemingly hyperbolic ideas that were around like "and they will always make a necklace out of your dried nipples" and not the situation in general. Actually, I should ask what he meant by that at all, he was on a mission at the time & not even allowed to read the news.

― sharkless dick stick (Abbbottt), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:20 (2 years ago) Permalink

gonna go seek that book out, thanks LL

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, August 27, 2010 5:11 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

same - thank you

― o sh!t a ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ (ENBB), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:22 (2 years ago) Permalink

it is hard to understand how anyone could read any of these stories and think this is 'overblown'. I mean, jeez, imagine if we found 72 bodies somewhere in america.

― iatee, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:23 (2 years ago) Permalink

well it's just like this situation didn't really hit the national news heavy until those people from the embassy were killed

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:24 (2 years ago) Permalink

A lot of the violence in the city has been characterized by this kind of symbolism. Bodies have been dumped on many occasions in lots and playgrounds near schools, with children gathering around the crime scene to watch as police bag and remove the dead. Drug rehab clinics have been the scenes of mass murders. People are shot down in broad daylight during the normal hubub of everyday life, on main streets and in restaurants. Considering this, it's clear that what's happening isn't just a war between rival cartels, but a campaign of terror against the local population. The murdered groom's father conveyed perfectly the effect of this kind of violence to the El Paso Times: "I'm confused, frustrated and in despair. My wife, she is devastated." There really aren't any better emotions you could hope to inspire in a population you're trying to control.

[...]

A week before Easter, typewritten messages spread around Porvenir that anyone who hadn't left the area by Easter Sunday would be killed. Citizens packed up and left in droves. While no such large scale attack ever came, the assault on the social climate of the community was enough. Residents were threatened with death on the most holy day of the Catholic calendar. Like this week's wedding murders, the sanctuary of religion was directly challenged when the main church in town was burned to the ground on Good Friday.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:25 (2 years ago) Permalink

I felt like the wire could have done this better...haven't seen the episodes recently but I remember the drug-zone experienment worked *so* perfectly, was *so* successful that it was just sorta absurd.

― iatee, Friday, August 27, 2010 5:14 PM Bookmark

Wait what? This is not what happened at all.

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:26 (2 years ago) Permalink

i was searching for a picture of Renssellaer Lee's White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power, but all I found was this:

Surely things have been written since these books about cocaine and the Andean region in the 80s/90s, but those are the ones I'm most familiar with.

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:29 (2 years ago) Permalink

okay I remember it being a grimey area but basically just turning into some nice market economy where people didn't shoot each other

xp

― iatee, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:31 (2 years ago) Permalink

smoke local pot. and leave everything else alone.

^^^this is how I roll. thankfully in the Bay Area local weed is abundant. always thought cocaine was morally indefensible for all kinds of reasons, the trade being one of them.

― I drink your milksteak (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:34 (2 years ago) Permalink

One thing that fascinates me is how the cocaine industry, the heroin industry, and the meth industry are so different from each other. Marijuana is another story because it is a plant and doesn't require the heavy processing or chemical component that the other drugs require in order to be put onto the market. I agree wholeheartedly with Scott and Shakey in the "buy local weed, avoid everything else" philosophy.

No one asked, but Methland is a very readable book about how greedy companies, declining farmtowns, waning industry, and an influx of immigrant workers took its toll on the people (and law enforcement) of one Iowa town.

The writing is VERY annoying at times, but the book's content is interesting.

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:38 (2 years ago) Permalink

perhaps i'm incredibly naive but i would like to believe that IRL friends or ilxors i've seen who have bragged about using coke (and other drugs with morally indefensible industries producing them) on other threads might read stuff like this and decide to back off for those reasons.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:39 (2 years ago) Permalink

yeah, don't do coke, ppl

― goole, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:40 (2 years ago) Permalink

and listen i've seen people i *like* here who have mentioned it, like they do it occasionally, and it kinda breaks my heart y'all.

― ('_') (omar little), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:42 (2 years ago) Permalink

i feel more strongly about this than i do about meat, produce, diamonds, sweatshops, pretty much anything
i dumped a bf once for doing coke at a party in front of me and to this day i feel good about it
f u dude, knowing what you know
hope you had fun

by nature i am not a tyrant, but this stuff is so violent and pervasive and affects the lives of so many innocent people. it's just super fucked up.

― The Great Jumanji, (La Lechera), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:45 (2 years ago) Permalink

otms

― iatee, Friday, 27 August 2010 21:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

The friends I have who are most likely to use cocaine also seem most likely to be amoral about these kinds of things.

― Ground Zero Mostel (Hurting 2), Friday, 27 August 2010 21:49 (2 years ago) Permalink

EEK! Not sure if I want to work around south Texas anymore. When I was in Port Isabel in 2010 people around there kept talking about the problems across the border in a way that made it sound activity was never far from the town. I am from a border town but I guess security or activity just didn't make it across often.

― *tera, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 06:21 (3 months ago) Permalink

Since Chicago has made international news lately for pointing a finger at Guzman (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21462254), it seems worth noting what else is going on in Chicago

"... it's essentially like Chapo Guzman has 100,000 Amway salesmen working for him." (says Jack Riley, special agent in charge of the DEA's Chicago division.)
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2013/02/22/drug-arrests-drop-in-chicago-but-still-snare-thousands-in-black-neighborhoods

Last week officials sent the latest message that their chief targets are major drug operators—and not the guys on the corner—when the Chicago Crime Commission and DEA named Mexican drug cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera "public enemy number one." Nicknamed El Chapo, or Shorty, Guzman leads the Sinaloa cartel, which the DEA believes is responsible for 80 percent of the heroin and cocaine in Chicago.

As intended, the declaration made international news. But the situation it highlights is a little more complex than the headlines suggested.

Guzman and Sinaloa don't actually peddle drugs on Chicago's streets. Officials say low-level cartel affiliates, or groups who buy from them, smuggle their products to the city or nearby suburbs. From there the goods are sold to street gangs.

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, 22 February 2013 16:43 (3 months ago) Permalink

there have been rumors going around in the news that el chapo was killed in a gun battle

http://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2013/02/22/was-mexican-billionaire-drug-kingpin-el-chapo-guzman-killed/

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 22 February 2013 21:54 (3 months ago) Permalink

Another one of those times that makes me realize that by the time news ("news") reaches people like us, it is OLD NEWS. I wonder what's really going on.

I was watching the Pablo Escobar novela for a while, but then I fell behind and lost track of what was happening. It's fascinating how much networks have changed, and how the landscape has changed when the product is the same, more or less.

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Friday, 22 February 2013 21:58 (3 months ago) Permalink

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/26/world/americas/mexico-disappeared/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

More than 26,000 people have gone missing in Mexico over the past six years as violence surged and the country's government cracked down on drug cartels.

Mexico's Interior Ministry announced the staggering statistic on Tuesday but noted that authorities don't have data about how many of the disappearances are connected with organized crime.

The 26,121 disappearances occurred during former President Felipe Calderon's six-year administration, which ended on December 1 when Enrique Pena Nieto assumed the presidency.

Pena Nieto's government has formed a special working group to focus on finding the missing, said Lia Limon, deputy secretary of legal matters and human rights for Mexico's Interior Ministry.

Locating people "is a priority for this government," Limon told reporters.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 27 February 2013 00:27 (2 months ago) Permalink

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/world/americas/mexico-young-assassin/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

(CNN) -- A 13-year-old boy who had confessed to being an assassin for a Mexican drug cartel was among six people found murdered execution-style, authorities in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas have confirmed.

The boy's body was found Thursday alongside a highway in the municipality of Morelos.

The bodies of five other people, four females and one male, were also found at the same location. Officials say they had all been shot execution-style with high-caliber weapons.

"They all appeared to be young people, but we're still in the process of positively identifying the bodies," Nahle Garcia said.

Speaking about the most recent incident, Nahle Garcia said he's not surprised. "It's really unfortunate, but we're seeing more and more young men who drop out of school and end up selling drugs on the streets," he said. "They all end up the same. They either end up in jail or the cemetery."

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Saturday, 2 March 2013 01:43 (2 months ago) Permalink

:(
i'm always wondering if someday one of these kids is going to filter through my class
at least he would still be alive!

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Saturday, 2 March 2013 03:25 (2 months ago) Permalink

speaking of kids,

The proportion of the Mexican population that is literate is going up, but in absolute numbers, there are more illiterate people in Mexico now than there were 12 years ago. Even if baseline literacy, the ability to read a street sign or news bulletin, is rising, the practice of reading an actual book is not. Once a reasonably well-educated country, Mexico took the penultimate spot, out of 108 countries, in a Unesco assessment of reading habits a few years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/the-country-that-stopped-reading.html?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20130306&_r=0

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 19:32 (2 months ago) Permalink

:-(

h8 this thread. My family are all middle-class & living safely in querétaro, & all my experience of mexico is overwhelmingly positive (although of course I was aware of all this stuff the whole time I was there). Such a great country being betrayed, I could cry

― dat neggy nilmar (wins), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 21:25 (2 months ago) Permalink

Is there any further news on El Chapo and whether or not he was killed?

― Walter Galt, Thursday, 7 March 2013 15:01 (2 months ago) Permalink

i'd be really shocked if he actually was

― frogbs, Thursday, 7 March 2013 15:14 (2 months ago) Permalink

Yeah, seems to be bogus from digging around a bit.

― Walter Galt, Thursday, 7 March 2013 17:04 (2 months ago) Permalink

http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/world/americas/mexico-violence/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 28 March 2013 18:06 (1 month ago) Permalink

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/mistress-and-narcotraficante

― cougars and sneezers (Eazy), Tuesday, 9 April 2013 01:05 (1 month ago) Permalink