Drug violence and the shifting United States-Mexico border

Drug Wars

A Thin, Bloody Line

Borders are artificial lines. Even when they follow natural divisions such as rivers or mountain ranges, borders are still artificial. They are imaginary lines that different governments (or other official groups of people) have decided marks the place on the earth where the authority and power of one group ends and the power and authority of the next group begins.

Borders are in general a good idea because they tend to reduce the overall amount of violence in the world by dividing potential combatants into different regions. The fact that wars are a constant in human society demonstrates that borders are too porous to stop all violence. But borders that were absolutely closed would prevent all trade, which would be catastrophic. The United States and Mexico do not want an end to trade. The governments want an end to trade in illegal drugs (or at least a dramatic reduction in this trade) and thus a dramatic reduction in terms of the accompanying violence.

While it is also the case that while borders tend to separate people who might otherwise take up arms against each other, it is also the case that those who live the closest to the border can be drawn into (or perpetuate) bloody warfare themselves. Such has been the case along the different borders that at different points in history have divided the United States from Mexico. The fact that this border has shifted several times as a consequence of shifting political power is something that suggests that this particular border would be less than stable. Indeed, a border that has shifted repeatedly over time is often the home to drug trades, such as in Afghanistan, Russia, and Pakistan.

America's Drug Appetites

A number of different types of drugs enter the United States illegally from Mexico. These include a large number of drugs that require a prescription in the United States but that can be easily purchased without a prescription (or with only a token nod at a prescription) in Mexico. These include everything from antibiotics for childhood ear infections to powerful narcotic pain medications. However, while some of these medications present a number of potential public health (as well as legal) problems for Americans, the major concern of the American government and the focus of law enforcement is the drug trade in drugs that are always illegal in the United States. (As opposed to those that are legal with a prescription and only illegal without a doctor's consent.)

The drugs that are important from Mexico to the United States include primarily cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, but also include heroin. While some of the drugs that are smuggled from Mexico to the United States are actually produced in Mexico, a great deal of the drugs are actually produced somewhere else and simply transported through Mexico. To be more specific, Mexico is the major foreign supplier of marijuana to the United States (a great deal of the marijuana used in the United States is grown domestically). Mexico is a relatively minor producer of heroin in terms of the international market; however, it is a relatively major producer in terms of the percentage of heroin that enters the United States. According to the U.S. States Department, almost three-quarters of the narcotics that enter the United States illegally come into this country through Mexico and about 90% of the cocaine that enters the United States comes through Mexico, although most of it originates in countries to the south of Mexico (Associated Press, 2008).

The drug war extends the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican border but is more active in some areas of the border. These include the Mexican states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Guerrero, Jalisco, Morelos, Michoacan, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Zacatecas (Aguilar, 2007).

There are a number of different law enforcement agencies that dedicate at least some of their resources to participating in the drug war. According to Office of National Drug Control Policy (a U.S. agency that is run by the White House), law enforcement agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security summarizes the goals and processes of U.S. law enforcement in the drug wars as including the following:

Enforcement initiatives comprising multi-agency investigative, interdiction, and prosecution activities;

Intelligence and information-sharing initiatives;

Support for programs that provide assistance beyond the core enforcement and intelligence and information-sharing initiatives; and Drug use prevention and drug treatment initiatives (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/law-enforcement-and-criminal-justice-reform)

It is important to note that U.S. drug policy focuses on a range of strategies that encompass all aspects of the drug war. As noted above, there would be no drug trafficking if there were no market in the United States for drugs.

This is something that is often left out of the current discussion about the drug war. This is understandable given the body count that the drug war has engendered: When there are dozens of gruesome bodies showing up in the streets nearly every week, it is hard to think about drug treatment in U.S. hospitals, prisons, and community health centers. However, with every drop in demand on the U.S. side, there will be a lessening of violence on the Mexican side, although there will obviously be a lag between the drop in demand and the drop in violence.

In the meantime, law enforcement agencies use a wide range of surveillance techniques to catch as many smugglers as they can. To some extent, they rely on traditional, low-tech methods such as stake-outs and gathering information from local residents on both sides of the border. They also rely on such tried-and-true techniques as using infrared sensors that allow them to track the movements of individuals and vehicles at night since infrared sensors pick up heat signatures and therefore do not require light to detect smugglers.

Surveillance planes are frequently used to patrol the area around the border and agreements between Mexico and the United States allow for what would otherwise be incursions into the airspace of another sovereign country. U.S. law enforcement officials have also used search and seizure techniques that civil liberties authorities have questioned, arguing that the War on Drugs and the border violence do not override Constitutional protections about the conditions under which searches can be made.

Finally, one of the most effective methods of surveillance and arrest that policing agencies have is coordination among the different groups, as described below:

Facilitating cooperation among Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies helps foster intelligence sharing and support the execution of effective enforcement operations aimed at dismantling these organizations. Through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program, ONDCP brings together law enforcement agencies by providing support and resources to Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/law-enforcement-and-criminal-justice-reform).

All of these methods must be used to help fight drug use in the United States and to quell the drug-related violence across the border.