Abstract
In a historical perspective, Mexico has always represented a major supply route between the continent's major consumer of drugs (the US) and the principal suppliers (Colombia, Peru and Bolivia). The National Drug Intelligence Center considers Mexican drug cartels as dominating the illicit drug market in the United States and "use their well-established overland transportation networks to transport cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin, Mexican and increasingly South American, to drug markets throughout the country" (National Drug Threat Assessment, 2006). Ironically, the relative success in the last decade of the Colombian and American authorities in breaking up the two most powerful cartels have both pushed trafficking and distribution aspects of the cocaine trade further north to Mexico. Mexico's cartels already existed but became increasingly powerful with the demise of the Colombian Medellín and Cali cartels. In addition, in the 80's and early 90's, the cartels kept largely out of the limelight because of an implicit deal with the monolithic ruling party (PRI), but as the PRI lost power and the cartels fragmented, the fight for market share began.
