Final Blog Post: US/Mexico War on Drugs

Over the course of the semester, my group and I focused, in detail, on the “War On Drugs” between the United States and Mexico. With such a broad topic, we hoped to focus on the interactions between the two states and how these interactions affected both the US and Mexican “War on Drugs.” We looked specifically at the history of the War on Drugs in the United States and in Mexico; the Sinaloa Cartel; the arrest of its leader, El Chapo and his life; the effects his arrest and lastly, the outcomes and futures of this war in these two neighboring countries. This semester, on February 22^nd, El Chapo (the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel) was arrested and this arrest set the tone of our two group blog posts. Our fist blog post used his recent arrest to look into the past. We commented on his past arrest, and escape, in 2001 and we also looked into the various government actions of the US and Mexico. In our second blog post, we looked further into how his arrest would affect the future of the Sinaloa Cartel and the drug trade between the US and Mexico.

I absolutely loved working in my group. We all brought a variety of outlooks on the issue and our strengths complemented each other well. As one of the three individuals who understood some Spanish, I really tried to do my research by using Google and searching as a different country. I knew that I’d be able to understand the majority of the articles written in Spanish. By directly looking for these articles, I was able to find viewpoints that were not as popular as many of the viewpoints we hear here in the United States. Of course, this was not the only way I completed my research either. I utilized a variety of news sources to find information regarding El Chapo’s arrest and I used the databases provided by the library to find information regarding the history of the “War on Drugs.”

I’m so thankful that I had the opportunity to focus on this topic this past semester. When we first chose topics as a class, I was extremely worried we wouldn’t get enough people to join our blog group… But luck was on our side and some how there were five of us! This assignment also helped me learn about the importance of communicating with your group members in a time-efficient manner. I really appreciated being able to work on this project with a group who did truly have an interest in such an overwhelming subject. This subject, although overwhelming, allowed me to learn about both the US and Mexico and the way policies have led to where we are now. I learned that since President Calderón’s crackdown on the drug trafficking industry, the number of homicides in the country has actually tripled. I also learned that the US pumps $40 billion into drug prohibition each year… That’s a whole lot of money. When it comes to El Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel. I’ve come to learn that his arrest may mean virtually nothing. El Mayo, the second in command, will only take over the cartel and the business will continue to run as it does. In order for any change to occur, both the United States and Mexico need to revamp and change their current policies because obviously… these policies have gotten us no where.