Drugs, Murder and Mexico

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100827/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

i've thought about starting a thread about the sickening drug violence in mexico and elsewhere and how the government passes the blame to drug users and drug users pass the blame to the government while drug cartels revel in the market created by the outlawing of drugs and the money they make from the users and nothing ever changes and people like those migrant workers (and presumably this prosecutor) die in increasingly horrible ways, but based on a couple of "i don't care" responses i've had when i asked this serious question before maybe it would be a waste of time? anyway i think our attitude towards those who suffer south of the border because of this is fairly abhorrent on all fronts and i've learned to not even debate this with close friends because they feel i'm being a dick for even bringing the topic up because they enjoy drugs occasionally.

I think this is kind of a good reason not to use drugs, at least ones that you don't know where they came from, regardless of what you think about legalization. Blood diamonds, blood drugs, etc.

i honestly think people who use hard drugs (which are trafficked by the kind of folks who go around murdering people just for the hell of it) don't give a single shit or if they do they blame the market created by the government. of course if they really cared they might not use at all, but there is always going to be resistance to government laws regarding this issue, which is understandable because the government is so wrong on this issue.

I read yesterday where 28,000 people have been killed in the mexican drug war since 2006 and was just kinda stunned.

Habitual drug users deflecting responsibility shocker

But yeah obviously the govt does bear a huge amount of responsibility for this.

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

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

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

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

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"

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

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".

yeah that particular aspect of this is nuts, E.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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
http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/files/2010/04/MurderCity.jpg

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

gonna go seek that book out, thanks LL

yeah, it was intense.

not about ciudad juarez, and a little dated, but really well written and interesting
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413VMWXBKRL._SL500_.jpg

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.

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

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.

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.

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

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EHZlrvTnL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

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

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...

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.

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

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.

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

someone saying they think it's because they arrested a cartel leader on thursday or friday (rumors the u.s. is behind it). cartel apparently announced they would start killing people who were on the street at noon. yikes.

El Mencho was the last of the old guard—the final mass-trafficking titan standing alongside El Chapo and El Mayo—now fallen, marking the end of an era in Mexican organized crime.

This is a developing story.

The latest: https://t.co/1NxBjqvMb4

By @theglutster pic.twitter.com/rltPZX62Yu

— L.A. TACO🌴🌮 (@LATACO) February 22, 2026

^^^
quite sketchy, lurid tabloid style nonsense, but it's hard to find decent reportage on this, in this cursed era of AI shit.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel did a total of 252 "blockades" across Mexico today in reaction to the killing of El Mencho by Mexican troops.

The "narco blockade" - burning trucks to block roads and burning shops and buildings - is a seasoned tactic but this is on huge scale.

— Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) February 23, 2026

have just read they aren't just making blockades of burning cars, they are literally digging up the motorways with excavators.

Truly huge news on death of El Mencho.

Sources saying (but need to confirm)

-US intel key in locating Mencho
-Mexican forces had ruled shoot to kill
-US pressure to get Mencho before world cup games in Jalisco
-Unclear who replaces Mencho

Cartel attacks across Mexico massive.

— Ioan Grillo (@ioangrillo) February 22, 2026

Kill the leader and I’m sure the most well-armed cartel will just fade into nothing by this summer.

25 members of the Mexican National Guard killed in various reprisal attacks in Jalisco

Good job they're hosting the World Cup in Canada so at least some fans will go.

seeing horrifying footage in puerto vallarta from gay fb friends who live there. fires set, vehicles on fire, men on motorcycles randomly shooting. apparently a narco retaliation of some kind.

― map, Sunday, February 22, 2026 2:38 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

yeah thats crazy i been there know people who live there, def noteworthy in that cartels are usually very particular about not disturbing tourists, you can be in a cartel controlled area and have no idea that the cops arent real cops but rather cartel employees

yeah right? i have a running dialogue with my partner about mexico where i'm like "you're perfectly safe as a tourist" and he's like "i dunno about that..." and now i gotta hand it to him. video updates from pv friends seem to suggest that it's quieted down today though i haven't checked since this morning. the narcos told everyone they had like an hour to buy stuff from shops last night. photos / video of the line was wild to me cuz like all of the locals are smiling and having a good time somehow lol.

ive always been suspicious of the perfectly safe as a tourist line just because if you have a situation where crime is as high as it is there its just going to affect whoever is around to some extent, but if you fly into a super tourist place and stay there yeah youre prob fine, unless trump assassinates one of the cartel guys i guess

srsly fuckin trump! so dumb just to whack a hornets nest.

classic trump op

i mean youre prob fine in most places in mexico but i feel like people put themselves to sleep with thinking that tourists are protected when they should be having more awareness of their surroundings, just like some basic understanding that theyre in a place that they dont understand well

yeah i always told my wife that i was maybe a bit wary about traveling to Mexico because we just really have no clue as to what's up, and she told me about her travels to San Miguel de Allende which is regarded as a relatively safe haven in terms of cartel violence, but then there have been kidnappings and what not occurring there. i don't think the whole country is like Ciudad Juarez, it's a beautiful place, but it's just a matter of we are ignorant about some of the realities, and how this beautiful place in certain areas has been corrupted by these absolutely evil fuckers. and yeah of course it was a classic Trump move to do this without understanding what it might lead to. i mean usually when American intervention leads to chaos it takes years or decades, this was just like fifteen minutes.

some USA Today reporting here fwiw
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2026/02/23/mexico-safe-travel-flights/88822423007

a friend who lives there just posted something from her local govt saying "OK we are back to normal"

didn't realize that 'El Mencho' has some San Francisco in his origin story:

He was picked up first on meth charges on May 14, 1986, according to news reports and a San Francisco police booking photo, which shows him in a blue hoodie scowling into the camera. He was arrested twice more, finally for selling $9,500 worth of heroin to two undercover officers at a bar in 1992.

I’ve wanted to see Mexico City and Puebla my whole life, should’ve done it ages ago

Haha that perennial swindle!

...the groups have diversified their business to include human smuggling, extortion, fuel theft and even, according to recent U.S. Treasury Department filings against the CJNG, a timeshare fraud scheme that targeted tourists in Puerto Vallarta.

I think Mexico City is fairly safe... there was a cartel murder a couple years where they hung a corpse from a railroad bridge and it was a BIG deal in DF, not the kind of thing that the urbanites were used to (in my understanding)

There are areas to avoid but, for the most part, Mexico City isn’t really any more dangerous than a big US city. Puebla is ok too.

what i really wanna know is.. can i still drive down to baja, never come back, escape all my debt and find paradise

or course... take a right at the sign that says 'Margaritaville'

friend of mine was telling me about driving down baja and honestly the driving sounded more dangerous than any cartel shit

rip my menchies