Drug Cartels Run Rampant in Mexico

It's true.

All you have to do is look at the numbers. Mexican officials released details on homicides relating to the drug trade since President Calderon's first year in office.

According to government officials, 34,000 people have been killed in the country's drug wars since 2006.

34,000!

That's far more than the number of fans who attend Tampa Bay Ray home games. It's the population of small towns, and it's the number of people killed in Mexican Drug wars in the last 4 years.

One of the main culprits, is Joaquin 'Shorty' Guzman; the head of the Sinaloan drug cartel. For those who don't know, 'Shorty' broke out of a Mexican prison in 2001, and has been on the run since, fighting for territory, and killing anyone who gets in his way.

Despite a Mexican-US multi-billion dollar campaign to stamp out the drug trade, Guzman has expanded his empire from Colombia to China, has 52 operations running world wide, and has an estimated worth of more than 1 Billion dollars.

Two-thirds of his business runs through the US, and more should start flowing soon..as the Sinaloans just took over the town of Tijuana, a well know gateway to the US for drug trafficking.

But the Mexican authorities don't care how much is going out; it cares about how it's being done.

The fact that Guzman has been on the run for a decade now, means corruption at high levels still exist, and bribery of officials still happens regularly. And there are still those that think this whole war on drugs thing is a bad idea. It's rumoured maybe Calderon himself is wary of the problem it might cause.

In the Sinaloan capital of Culican, custom car dealerships, and high priced retailers are afraid if the drug cartels are brought down, it would have an immediate and negative economic fallout.

It could spell disaster for many parts of that country IF the war on drugs is successful.

I know many of you are reading this, with ideas of going to Mexico for vacation in the near future..saying, 'at least it's not Colombia.'

You're right.

In Colombia, the homicides attributed to drug wars has been cut in half since 2002. In Mexico, they continue to rise with no end in site.

Maybe I'll just go to Antigua instead...