Illegal drug trade: Encyclopedia II - Illegal drug trade - Rising influence Of Mexican cartels in drug trafficking in the U.S.

Illegal drug trade - Rising influence Of Mexican cartels in drug trafficking in the U.S.

Since the late 1980's/early 1990's, narcotics trafficking organizations headed and comprised of Mexican nationals became the dominant force of the illicit drug trade in the United States. Mexican trafficking organizations usurped control from Colombian trafficking organizations.

In the early 1980's, cocaine emerged as a drug of choice for many Americans and its use became prevalent through-out the socio-economic spectrum. Initially, Colombians were responsible for growing, processing and distributing cocaine in the U.S., but their strongholds were limited to South Florida and New York along with other metropolitan areas that housed smaller Colombian populations. As demand for larger quantities of cocaine began to take hold in the U.S. in the late 1980's, Colombian traffickers came to rely on Mexican organizations to assist with the transportation and distribution of cocaine through-out the U.S. After a period of time, powerful Mexican cartels realized that they could more effectively handle the smuggling and distribution of ton-quantities of cocaine in the U.S.

Colombians had been limited to predominantly a Caribbean smuggling route into South Florida. Mexicans, on the other hand, had access to an expansive 2,000 mile border with the Southwestern U.S. and then a vast network of Mexican immigrants residing in major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and Chicago, and later through-out a number of large and small communities in all corners of the U.S.

The ample number of Mexican nationals residing in the U.S. occurred as a result of a bombardment of migrant workers in search of higher-paying jobs and a better life for themselves and their families, but the increased Mexican presence also brought with it and large number of Mexican narcotics traffickers that came to the U.S. with one specific purpose - to sell drugs an earn a significant profit in doing so. Drug statistics estimate that twenty-three metric tons of cocaine is smuggled into the U.S. annually, two-thirds of which enter across the U.S./Mexican border. Mexican black-tar heroin, which is produced in Mexico and smuggled into the U.S. predominantly by Mexican nationals is the most frequently consumed heroin in the western and Midwestern U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates that 80% of the methamphetamine in the U.S. is either manufactured in Mexico or is manufactured in the U.S. by Mexican national drug traffickers operating under the direction of Mexican drug kingpins. These illicit drug sales in the U.S. have resulted in a boom of revenues for Mexico. In fact, after petroleum revenues, the second biggest revenue source for Mexico comes from illegal alien Mexican nationals sending money into Mexico from the U.S., and a significant part of those monies are illicit drug proceeds.

In the last ten years, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) indicate that the percentage of Latin American non-U.S. citizens that were federally arrested in the U.S. for illegal drug offenses has increased from the low 20 percentile to over 30 percent as of 2003. For example, in 1999, regarding all federal drug arrests, 26.8% were non-U.S. citizens and 45.5% were Hispanic. Other DOJ BJS statistics showed that "in addition to immigration offenses, U.S. attorneys prosecuted an increased number of non-citizens for other crimes, especially for drug trafficking, which increased from 1,799 cases in 1985 to 7,803 in 2000." http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/iofc00pr.htm

Other noteworthy facts, according to National Criminal Justice Reference Service http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=160934 "Of noncitizens prosecuted in Federal courts during 1994, 55 percent were in the United States legally. During 1984, about 35 percent of noncitizens prosecuted in Federal courts were charged with a drug offense. By 1994, the proportion charged with a drug offense increased to 45 percent."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Rising influence Of Mexican cartels in drug trafficking in the U.S.", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki